The Align & Redesign Initiative is an innovative, systemic effort that HAS transformED adult education, workforce development, and career Readiness for improved student Academic & Employment outcomes.
In the US, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) demanded a new way of providing services. This new approach required:
• Key partnerships
• A new and innovative infrastructure for adult education
• Co-created planning and service delivery
• Effective professional learning
• Improved long-term deliverables
The Align & Redesign Initiative can dramatically shift your program toward success with these new demands.
• Key partnerships
• A new and innovative infrastructure for adult education
• Co-created planning and service delivery
• Effective professional learning
• Improved long-term deliverables
The Align & Redesign Initiative can dramatically shift your program toward success with these new demands.
"The Align & Redesign Initiative has been transformative for our adult education programs... and most importantly, the students we serve. The integration of career pathways, IET, participatory and brain-based learning, identifying and managing learning challenges, and the College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) has created a climate of innovation. It has yielded more effective services with increased persistence and learning gains for our students." - Diane McQueen, State Director of Adult Education, Wyoming Community College Commission
Align & Redesign Yields Impressive Results!
Empowering Educators and Students, 2014-2024, all of the Align & Redesign's data.....
points to an enormous success!
Initial and 2024 qualitative stories from students, instructors, and administrators have been collected and are highly impressive. Continue to read their stories!
Over the four years of implementation, Align and Redesign programs have seen:
• Wyoming's National ratings for academic gains in 2013 was #32. Then came Align & Redesign. National state ratings for academic gains in 2018 was #5 and it has remained consistently at #5 in the nation through 2023.
• In FY 21/23, Wyoming's Align & Redesign initiative led to being #1 nationally in participants sustaining employment for two quarters post exiting.
• PLUS, Wyoming was ranked # 3 nationally for WIOA co-enrollments!
What else are we seeing?
√ Dramatic increases in persistence - contact hours increased by 30% each of the first 3 years year and has continued to sustained high levels of persistence!
√ Students actively engaged - creating dynamic Learning Communities!
√ Students are returning one year after another to reach their goals!
√ Students have developed personal responsibility and ownership in learning!
√ Data show significant increases in student measurable outcomes along with transitions to community colleges and employment that have been growing and then stabilized over the years!
Align & Redesign Yields Impressive Results!
Empowering Educators and Students, 2014-2024, all of the Align & Redesign's data.....
points to an enormous success!
Initial and 2024 qualitative stories from students, instructors, and administrators have been collected and are highly impressive. Continue to read their stories!
Over the four years of implementation, Align and Redesign programs have seen:
• Wyoming's National ratings for academic gains in 2013 was #32. Then came Align & Redesign. National state ratings for academic gains in 2018 was #5 and it has remained consistently at #5 in the nation through 2023.
• In FY 21/23, Wyoming's Align & Redesign initiative led to being #1 nationally in participants sustaining employment for two quarters post exiting.
• PLUS, Wyoming was ranked # 3 nationally for WIOA co-enrollments!
What else are we seeing?
√ Dramatic increases in persistence - contact hours increased by 30% each of the first 3 years year and has continued to sustained high levels of persistence!
√ Students actively engaged - creating dynamic Learning Communities!
√ Students are returning one year after another to reach their goals!
√ Students have developed personal responsibility and ownership in learning!
√ Data show significant increases in student measurable outcomes along with transitions to community colleges and employment that have been growing and then stabilized over the years!
Forces driving adult education |
the building blocks of align & redesign |
Align & Redesign in action: a case study |
What every state director needs |
WHAT EVERY STATE DIRECTOR NEEDS TO KNOW TO ADDRESS NEW DEMANDS IN 2023...
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FORCES DRIVING ADULT EDUCATION
We have known for a long time that we have serious challenges in Adult Education. Too many students are stopping out or failing to achieve their goals. In addition, the U.S. is losing ground globally. In the lifetime of today's teachers, the U.S. has slipped in global rankings from 2 to 17 in terms of basic skills levels in the adult population. With new federal demands on services and results and federal funding will drive innovation and better outcomes. But, how does this happen at the state, local and classroom levels in a practical sense? Every State Director is feeling the pressure of these demands. Let's face it: our overall outcomes in Adult Education have been less than desirable! Although we all like to complain about it, in truth...
But, rather...
It will take strong, collaborative leadership to shift the current adult education paradigm to one that can meet new national goals and develop successful learners and workers. Success depends on:
Putting the focus on building human capital and capacity differently is key. Shifting the focus demands leadership, not the program management 'leadership' of the past, but true, effective leadership -- leadership as a State Director, leadership from Program Directors, leadership of every teacher, and leadership from all program staff. The Align & Redesign Initiative holds the keys to success -- for you, your administrators, your teachers, and your students. _____________________________________________________________ Want more information on how Align and Redesign can take your adult education programs into the future? Build on the good things you have been doing....and take the next leap forward.... take your state from good to GREAT! Join us for an Information Webinar . |
Major forces driving adult education:
"It is a national issue, it is a deeply integral issue that speaks to the very fabric of our country's inequality in education. It is the dinosaur everyone has talked about for 40 years and done nothing to reconstruct. It is a major challenge of our era. And definitely the overlooked blight which led us to being at the bottom of the international survey.
It is time to roll up our sleeves and dig in or kiss our way of living goodbye. Every human counts, can contribute, and has a place in our economy. We can make this work through the Align and Redesign Initiative." - Marcia Hess, State Director of Adult Education, Wyoming Community College Commission |
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THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF ALIGN & REDESIGN
Align and Redesign takes the best from what is trending in education and training as well as evidence-based research, and helps local programs develop the infrastructure to implement effective practice in the classroom - delivering a proven track record of results. The first thing you'll notice is a subtle but dramatic shift from focusing on teaching to hosting learning and from management and compliance to strong leadership at all levels. Align and Redesign drives innovation and success in these changing, demanding times. Align and Redesign includes: Building a model for innovation using Scharmer's 'Theory U' (MIT)
COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS STANDARDS INSTRUCTIONAL INNOVATIONS INCLUDING PARTICIPATORY LEARNING & METACOGNITIVE SKILL TRAINING
Its success is based on how we use the 'P's:
Align & Redesign is unique in its application and results -- it is a game changer. Align & Redesign shows you how to turn your challenges into opportunities in 2024. |
"I just wanted to share a student success story with PowerPath's screenings and recommended adaptations:
I have had a student who had hit a wall with math. Her TABE scores had not moved beyond NRS 3 for months. We screened her and identified that she had Visual Stress Syndrome and needed a colored filter to see more clearly, work faster, and comprehend accurately . The last time she TABE-tested she used her filter over the computer screen. Her score jumped a whopping 39 scale points and she is now at NRS 4. This gave her a great sense of achievement, and I can see much more confidence when she tackles tough math problems in class. Without this simple adaptation and testing success, her name would have been added to our list of dropouts! Simple screening, simple answer, incredible success." - Linda Cockett, Program Director, Wyoming Family Literacy, Torrington ___________________________________________________________ "Marcia, I sure appreciate the walls being broken down. We can learn so much from our colleagues! It's like a shot of enthusiasm and energy in the arm of my teaching that is for sure!" - Stephanie Denning, Wyoming Family Literacy - ELL and Parenting ___________________________________________________________ "…going through this planning process has been one of the most fruitful and rewarding I’ve undertaken in my near ten years as an adult education program director. Conducting a full gap analysis across all of our programming was no small feat, but now we have those gaps identified, along with strategies and timelines for addressing program, career services, partnership and instructional needs. Having a career pathways plan is also a way to clearly review all of the things we are doing well—throughout instruction, professional development offerings, College Career Readiness Standards alignment, etc. What is most useful is that the plan can be used as local professional development across our staffing structure... " -Shannon Parker, Maine RSU #13, Adult and Community Education "Since we hosted our first new front end course we have not lost a single student....and it has been two months! This has never happened before. We are very excited! All of the hard work this past year, and it was a lot of hard work, has really paid off. Staff and students are very excited and positive. Students are learning to take charge of their own learning." - Diane White, Unita BOCES #1 Education Center, Adult Education and Family Literacy |
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ALIGN & REDESIGN IN ACTION: A CASE STUDY
In 2013, Marcia Hess, State Director of Wyoming's Adult Education was searching for an effective way to provide services that would improve student outcomes and get programs implementing the College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) AND Career Pathways. At the April 2013 Mt. Plains Adult Education Association, Marcia attended several sessions led by Dr. Laura Weisel. Laura was presenting on the brain and learning, redesigning and aligning service delivery with research and evidence-based practices, and innovating instructional methodologies to build learning communities as well as metacognitive and social capital skills. Marcia was very excited about what she learned and saw enormous possibilities for how she could jettison what wasn't delivered to improve services. ALIGN AND REDESIGN IS BORN Initial discussions and planning for this work began in May. It included bringing together a team of experienced and highly qualified national professionals. They developed an integration of trends in the field, adding research about students, persistence, mindsets, and shifting from teaching to learning. They also prototyped a new infrastructure for how adult education services could be delivered. From this, the Align and Redesign Initiative was born – an initiative that integrates multi-discipline research and evidence-based practices in: 1. Career Pathways 2. College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) 3. A research-based approach for identifying and overcoming learning challenges, paired with innovative instructional methodologies, and a new infrastructure for service delivery CORE UNDERPINNINGS • A Leadership Team created with the The TLP Group and state administration. • State, local administrators and staff were trained at the same time. • AE Program Directors became the 'team leader' for their own program and staff and held the accountability for ensuring that full implementation occurred. Each program could create how the implementation would occur in their programs within the given timelines. • Full participation was the only option. The State Director was clear that programs would not be funded if they were not going to be fully involved, figuring out implementation, and adopting the new and innovative components and practices. •, Program Directors created their own Community of Practice by participating in monthly conference calls with the Leadership Team. • All components had to be implemented immediately post training. • Embedded into Align and Redesign is a graduate level course: Transforming Learning and Innovating Instruction. This course supports individuals seeking academic credit and certification in the PowerPath Process. PUTTING PLANS INTO PRACTICE In January 2014, the initiative began with a series of webinars over viewing the Align and Redesign along with specific webinars from each of the content areas. Administrators and staff from each site attended. Spring & Fall Institutes: All Sites - Administrators and Staff Prior to the initial Spring Institute, Director Hess met with all of the ABE Directors to prepare them for becoming the leaders and supporters of programmatic change, aligning all aspects of service delivery with best practices, and redesigning their services to meet the needs of both their students and new federal expectations (WIOA and OCTAE Guidelines).
A PILOT WITHIN THE ALIGN AND REDESIGN INITIATIVE Half of the sites chose to be in a pilot group. The pilot sites would be trained in the PowerPath Process, focusing on all of its components: engagement (a new front end), assessing & screening (strengths/challenges), and innovative instruction methodologies (Participatory Learning and SMARTER for training metacognitive skills). The 10 month training, implementing, embedding, and sustaining included: 1. Learning how to administer standardized and normed PowerPath screenings identify underlying learning challenges. 2. Learning, modeling and practicing strategic steps to engage and empower students to take charge of their own learning and learn to manage their own learning challenges. 3. Implementing and repeating the conscious steps needed for students to develop metacognitive skills and create their own learning. 4. Using research-based components, each site would create a 'new front end' course that would offer new students the opportunity to learn about themselves and the practices of successful learners and workers. The second group of sites has begun training in the PowerPath Process with great support from programs and staff who have completed the course. Results! Over 2014-2018 all of the data pointed to an enormous success! Initial and 2018 qualitative stories from students, instructors, and administrators have been collected and are highly impressive. Over the four years of implementation, Align and Redesign programs have seen: √ Dramatic increases in persistence - contact hours increased by 30% each year! √ Students actively engaged - creating dynamic Learning Communities! √ Students are returning one year after another to reach their goals! √ Students developing personal responsibility and ownership in learning! √ Significant increases in student measurable outcomes along with transitions to community colleges and employment that have been growing and then stabilized over the years! Ongoing Engagement, Reflection, Improving of Prototypes, and Collecting Data to Determine Effectiveness For the teachers and administrators involved, regular Community of Practice calls have continued. We hosted more in-depth webinars on creating a comprehensive Career Pathways Plan and developing a tool for program administrators to observe that College and Career Readiness Standards are being implemented and integrated into all learning. Staff continues to reflect weekly on how their implementation of Align and Redesign is working and what they can do to improve their practice. Through the integration of PowerPath's database with the state's National Reporting System (NRS) data collection system, data has been collected on:
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"I brought in a hacky-sack on Monday and used it for the talking piece … AND … I tried circle. My ESL students LOVE circle. Juvencia actually read aloud for the first time since she started class. They are all bonding and helping each other out, too. Last night I borrowed a koosh for the talking piece and they were all laughing and were engaged the entire time. I’m forecasting amazing post-test results from this group. In the future, I will try to remain more open-minded about new teaching techniques. Thanks for letting me go to that training in Casper so that I could bring this back to our students."
- B. Bret McCoy, CSP, Branch Manager, Elwood Staffing _____________________________________________________________ "After reading the level 1 readings, I came up with a cafe idea. One of the readings discussed teaching students who are in poverty, and said they needed to learn to ask questions. One way to teach them was to have them make up their own multiple choice questions and answer options. The article suggested that the students come up with one humorous answer and one correct one. I tried it on a college class that I teach, and it was a huge successI Now, I am going to use this as a cafe for our history lesson when class starts next week. They don't know it yet, but they are creating the multiple choice questions for their mid-term exam." - Carol Bourland, Instructor, Unita BOCES #1 Education Center _____________________________________________________________ "One of the best feelings in the world occurred today and I wanted to share with everyone. Through the PowerPath screenings, we were able to identify that one of our students, Ramon, was in severe need of glasses. After discussing PowerPath results with him, we found out that he lacked the financial resources to get the glasses he so desperately needed. We put him in touch with the local Lion's Club who did help him out. Today Ramon walked in with new glasses and told me that being able to see everything clearly is just amazing! (as he peered through readings on the table :) " - Diane White, Unita BOCES #1 Education Center, Adult Education and Family Literacy _____________________________________________________________ "Since the first of January we have used our new front end... Since then we have seen that retention has increased dramatically. In fact, not one of our new students has dropped out. Each is continuing to come to class on a regular basis. But the one thing that I absolutely love is seeing the students develop very close working relationships. For example, several weeks ago, one of our older students, Scottie, knew that Adam (a young single father) was facing some difficult times if he didn't find a job, so Scottie used his contacts and found Adam a job. When he told Adam of the job, he also said "I went out on a limb for you, so don't let me down. You have this job because I supported you." So today, Adam is working and still coming to classes with Scottie. New students are sliding right into the classes and are developing the same type of relationships. It is absolutely awesome!" - Diane Mcqueen, ABE Program Director, Eastern Wyoming College _____________________________________________________________ "It is two weeks since our Classroom Essentials (our new front end) and we have seen some very positive things. Students help each other & make coming to class a welcoming and inviting situation. When a student doesn't show for class the others notice. When the student returns to class they welcome him/her back, offer their notes and other information to help catch that student up. The energy of the class has been consistent as well. The students know and understand the learning process better. We had a visitor stop by and state that he was wanting to come and get his GED. Another student piped up and said, "You need to see Kim and go to Classroom Essentials first so you know how the brain works and how to learn and find what you want to do after here." It may have been a simple statement, but it shows that the students are understanding that to learn they must be an active participant and have a short and long term goal. It also shows that the students are starting to think about the next steps after obtaining their HSEC. Soon we will have representatives from the college and various instructors and workers from different careers present to the class and help shape that future plan by getting them started on the next steps." - Rebecca Greenhouse, Instructor, LCCC - Laramie _____________________________________________________________ "We redesigned our PowerPoint for the second new front end, 'Launch,' in January…. We combined our classes for various subjects, such as science, mathematics and ELL…. The students have given us positive feedback…. “We like learning with a wide variety of students.” “We like knowing the other people in the program that we never knew about.” “My favorite part was finding out about the brain and learning.” “I like Circle with students from other countries, and I wish that I could be in class together with them more often.” “Planning for an end-of-year party through Open Space really built our community.” “I loved the motivational videos.” - Carol Miyake, Coordinator, LCCC - Laramie; Instructors: Peggy Moorhoff, Jessica Ford, Lynn Hughes, and Mollie Steinke |
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WHAT EVERY ADULT EDUCATION STATE DIRECTOR NEEDS TO KNOW
Being successful in these challenging times demands a fresh take on how you look at your role and your work. It calls for a shift from managing compliance to leading learning that drives successful outcomes and a move from focusing on teaching to supporting capacity building. You need to be willing to be the leader you are capable of being to lead your state into 2016. And we're here to help. Is Align and Redesign for you? Ask yourself these questions:
If the answer to these questions is "YES!", then you are someone we want to work with. We are a host to the journey and a coach for your best game yet. We will keep you on your toes, challenge your thinking and have your back throughout the process. We will be on your team and a partner in your success. To find out more about Align and Redesign, contact us and find out about our informational webinar. |
"As I’ve worked with more than 30 states, it's always been about improving services and improving student persistence and outcomes. It was good work...but, it was never enough.
Now we have the tools and critical elements to change the old adult education paradigm into a new and exciting set of components from engagement to assessing and supporting learning to innovative instructional methodologies that build individuals who know how to learn and work with others. We have evidence-based research on the specific components of redesigning services that impact bottom lines, transition and outcomes. All of this can be done with using existing resources! So, what have we really learned as the make-it or break-it points for implementing and sustaining a new paradigm? Leadership! It takes leadership – not compliance managers, micro-managers, delegaters, or visionaries. It takes collaborative leaders that are present, mindful, and can make this clear statement:
This work takes energy, mindfulness, and trust. This work takes being conscious that everything we do in delivering services impact students' near-term and long-term outcomes. This work is not about ego or professional degrees. This work takes…leaders who comprehend that there are steps to understanding and creating innovation. This work takes passion, an open mind and heart, the ability to become the learner, knowing when to let go, and when to let come. It takes a lot of energy, rigor, courage and warriorship!" - Laura Weisel, Ph.D. Research and Innovation Team Leader, The TLP Group; Researcher & Developer of PowerPath to Education and Employment |