Since the summer of 2023, adult literacy instructors Georgina Smith and Joe Spencer have been connecting and collaborating with a small group of peers as members of the AlphaPlus Planning a Lesson (PAL) working group. This working group was assembled to co-design and co-create a suite of lesson-planning resources for integrating digital skills.

Georgina and Joe work within the Ottawa Catholic School Board’s (OCSB) adult learning and skills development program. Georgina started at OCSB in 2010 and Joe in 2022, and between the two of them, they’ve designed, taught and facilitated a range of courses, including employment preparation, computer skills, life skills and academic upgrading.

A working group focused on lesson planning and flow

Over the years, Georgina has been involved with AlphaPlus, participating in professional development and coaching and contributing her insights to research projects. In early 2023, she joined a focus group exploring the potential for collaborating and co-creating lesson-planning resources for adult literacy educators in Ontario. When that project moved into its second phase, a working group, Georgina and her colleague Joe joined.

Meeting monthly since the summer of 2023, the working group is facilitated by the AlphaPlus project lead Olga Herrmann, who brings a different focus to each meeting.

Working group members are introduced to new ideas and methodologies, and between meetings, they research, reflect on and explore the monthly topic. The work is paced to allow members to take what they learned back into the classroom and regroup to discuss it the following month.

Incorporating learner feedback

Georgina and Joe went a step further, conducting a series of focus groups with their learners. They developed a set of questions for online and in-person classes to learn how adult learners use digital technology and to supplement the working group’s research into lesson flow.

“As instructors, we know when we have or don’t have lesson flow. However, we discovered that learners also have a very good sense of the impacts of how a teacher approaches a subject, presents information in different ways, gives opportunities to review and absorb it, and works collaboratively,” explains Georgina. “Connecting with learners through the focus groups was thought-provoking because we did it in parallel with researching and completing the working group tasks. We were able to connect some of the theories and ideas for lesson flow to the learner perspective.”

Olga describes Joe and Georgina as highly engaged working group members who contribute valuable insights. “But beyond that,” she explains, “the PAL project has been strengthened by the initiative they took to conduct focus groups. Their research has helped to ensure that the voices and needs of learners are incorporated into the working group’s approach to lesson planning.”

Professional development benefits of the working group

The PAL collection will be turned into a website that provides instructors resources to address the challenges and opportunities of integrating technology into lesson planning. It will include routines to enhance digital delivery and lesson flow, valuable frontline tips, handy lesson-planning templates and ideas for engaging adult literacy learners who are honing their digital skills. While the working group’s final products will help literacy educators across the province, participating in the process benefited Georgina and Joe professionally. 

“It was nice to be involved in a project that didn’t focus on what we teach but on how we teach — including the reasons behind different strategies and the value of learner feedback,” says Georgina. “Coming together as a working group with those outside my organization has broadened my horizons and given me space to reflect on my methodologies and best (and not the best!) practices.”

“It was nice to be involved in a project that didn’t focus on what we teach but on how we teach — including the reasons behind different strategies and the value of learner feedback.”

Georgina, Instructor with the Ottawa Catholic School Board

Because Joe is newer to adult education, he appreciated hearing from others with more experience. “Learning about the slightly different ways our peers teach adult literacy and organize their work has improved my practice. It was useful to hear their approaches to planning, lessons and flow and then tweak them for our classrooms. For example, I picked up ideas for using intake forms to understand my learners’ needs and expectations better. This working group has been a great opportunity to network and develop professionally, adding depth and a fresh perspective to our future approaches.”

Indeed, the PAL working group is hoping to bring that experience of sharing, hearing fresh perspectives and reflecting on lesson-flow solutions to the literacy field, capturing the spirit of peer collaboration. Georgina said it best in a recent group meeting: “Ideally, for somebody using the PAL resource, it’s going to be a bit like having a conversation with a colleague who had given it some thought, and it will be that kind of equivalent interaction.”

The PAL website will be available to all literacy educators in Ontario this spring (see link below). To be notified when the lesson-planning companion resource is available, make sure you’re subscribed to AlphaPlus email updates.

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Back in June, I shared the news that AlphaPlus was about to embark on a Skills for Success funded project that would bring together a group of literacy and basic skills (LBS) practitioners to co-create a suite of resources conceived through the pedagogical lens of lesson planning and technology integration. As the project lead, I’m delighted to announce that we’ve assembled a dynamic working group of adult educators from across the sectors in the anglophone stream and that we’re already in full collaboration mode! 

Bottom-up, collaborative approach to enhancing digital delivery

This motivated group of adult educators brings their pedagogical expertise, teacher wisdom and seasoned frontline experiences to the co-creation arena, setting the stage for a bottom-up collaborative process that will formalize their collective professional insights and knowledge into a product that can benefit both educators and learners in the field. It is indeed action research — research rooted in practice and in problem-solving around the challenges and opportunities of lesson planning for blended learning. 

The core working group members are:

The secondary working group members (due to professional or time constraints) are:

Conceptualizing and co-creating a PAL for the field

Our working group has been meeting monthly since late July and is committed to co-developing a suite of resources through collaborative action research whereby, together, the practitioner group members interrogate how they plan their lessons and how they meaningfully integrate technology into their activities and lessons. They’re looking at “the how” of lesson planning and “the why” of activity choices and tech tool choices that serve to enhance blended learning — online or face to face — with a contextualized sensibility to the readiness and the needs of their LBS learners.

For now, we’ve taken, quite fondly, to calling ourselves the PAL working group. (Yes, “Planning a Lesson” does transform handily into a catchy acronym — educators love their wordplay.) Ultimately, the PAL suite of resources will encourage and showcase the power of a well-thought-out lesson flow — a flow that organically strengthens foundational and soft skills by virtue of engaging teaching practices and active learning opportunities.

Stay tuned for future updates. If you have any questions or comments about this project, please email me at olga@alphaplus.ca

This year, I’ve been reaching out to literacy and basic skills (LBS) educators to gather front-line perspectives on technology integration, mainly through the lens of lesson planning and teaching practices. It’s clear that the field has shifted from emergency remote delivery and is now steeped in fresh insights, approaches, lessons learned and a desire to collaborate — that’s where our new Skills for Success project and the opportunity to co-create planning tools and curricular supports comes in!  We’ve given you glimpses of this project in Alan’s January message and when the team introduced me in March. Today, as we wrap up the consultation phase of this work and get ready to move into the next phase, I’m reporting back on some key findings and project directions.  

Key themes that emerged from speaking with educators

Through focus groups and one-on-one conversations, I’ve spoken with 23 adult literacy educators and nine program administrators from local programs and school boards in Ontario. Your peers — whether they’re back in the classroom, teaching online or using a hybrid model — are looking for creative ways to incorporate meaningful technology into their sessions, based on an understanding of the engaging flow of activities that makes a good lesson and organically hones skills that adult learners bring. 

We’re hearing that many of you would welcome planning routines that are pedagogically sound, thoughtful and deliberate ­— that consider variability in the learners, in their devices or digital access and in their needs. Educators want planning templates and routines that are modifiable, grab-and-go, easy to reuse, complement a predictable lesson flow and are focused on relevant, practical topics.

Several additional themes emerged from our conversations, including the following:

 Materials to help integrate technology into a lesson flow for learning

As we move into the next phase of co-designing materials, we know that we need to consider learners’ needs, differentiated instruction principles and the variety of group dynamics within a session (online or face to face). The co-designed lesson-planning companion resources that will be created, therefore, can’t be prescriptive, but would make engagement through digital integration that enhances learning and self-direction a key focus. Curriculum in the form of workbooks, open educational resources (OER) and modules are already out there — you’ve indicated that you need resources that guide decisions about effectively planning lessons that have an impact.

We also want to highlight existing AlphaPlus supports that can meet some of the needs you’ve identified. For example:

Next step: Co-creating a blended-learning lesson-planning flow

We’re now ready to start building a new product: a blended learning flow that addresses technology integration, thinking routines, lesson planning and stages, engagement strategies, collaboration, reflection and problem-solving. We’re now assembling a small working group that will finalize our initial concept and co-create the product, drawing from their experience with what’s exciting about engaging lessons.

AlphaPlus will contribute expertise (for example, on blended learning, pedagogical models and existing research), participate in co-creation, facilitate the process in the lesson planning stage and provide an online platform for the materials that are designed. This co-creation process will be beneficial and instructive for our field — it’s an opportunity to learn from each other in thinking about our planning routines and how they strengthen blended learning.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this project so far. If you’d like more information or are interested in participating in the paid working group, please email me at olga@alphaplus.ca.

READ THE KEY FINDINGS

Meet Olga Herrmann, the newest member of the AlphaPlus team! Olga joined us in late 2022, and we’d like to introduce her — and her project — to you.

With 25 years of experience supporting adult learners along their unique journeys, Olga has worked as a literacy and basic skills (LBS) practitioner, English as a second language (ESL) instructor, learning strategist, vocational counsellor and career advisor in post-secondary and community-based agencies. She also has a master of education (M.Ed.), which included research in adult education and community development.

Before relocating to her current home in rural Ontario — where she loves to cross-country ski, walk her puppy and participate in a creative writing group — Olga lived in Toronto. She has worked at organizations including Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy (MTML), PTP Adult Learning and Employment Programs, George Brown and Centennial colleges and the University of Toronto.

“In a past role as a project manager for MTML, I benefited from the AlphaPlus team’s innovative work concerning integrating technology. It’s exciting for me now to join this group of creative, supportive, reflective individuals,” says Olga. “And this project has been a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with past colleagues and explore new developments in the field during a time of change.”

Lesson planning and digital integration from the practitioner perspective

Olga is inspired by adult literacy instructors and their resolve to deliver literacy programming to learners during the pandemic, no matter the circumstances. She notes the many ways practitioners learned and used any technology that would help them meet learners’ goals, including phone calls, Zoom and new ways of sharing learning materials online. Today, she’s excited to work on a project that will result in meaningful support for them.

“We’re conducting focus groups and consultations to figure out instructors’ needs more deliberately, outside of the urgent pivot to online learning,” explains Olga. “After being isolated, it’s time to come together, reflect and gather information about how people plan and conduct lessons, integrate technology, and what supports and resources would help front-line educators. We’re examining whether we can provide curriculum resources, planning tools or other materials that will allow instructors to integrate technology in a way that complements teaching and is relevant to adult learners’ lives.”

For this project, Olga is bringing her teaching and research backgrounds together, and she hopes to recreate the “magic” that happens in teachers’ staffrooms — the ways resources and ideas get shared and the conversations that happen. Her goal is to create a similarly generative space with AlphaPlus taking the lead. This winter and early spring, Olga is conducting focus groups and individual phone calls, identifying themes across teachers and organizations. This exploration will set the stage for the next step: co-creating materials with a group of instructors.

“In a world where we live and learn and function in digital spaces, the learning journey has been transformed,” says Olga. “We can build upon and fine-tune teachers’ innovations and adaptations from the pandemic by developing and co-creating resources from the instructor’s lens. We’re hearing from dedicated professionals about their successes, things they’d like to learn more about and things they’ve created (perhaps in isolation) that might be valuable to share.”

The AlphaPlus team is excited to have an experienced front-line teacher with an innate curiosity and analytical approach at the helm of this project. We are benefiting from Olga’s capacity for listening, gathering information and finding patterns to reveal crucial information.

Does this project interest you? If you have questions or want to share your input, you’re invited to contact Olga directly by emailing her at olga@alphaplus.ca. Like all members of the AlphaPlus team, she would love to hear from you.

Ten months ago, I joined AlphaPlus as an educational technology coach to help adult literacy organizations across Ontario build capacity through the use of digital tools and technology-enhanced ways of working.

Coming into the adult education field with a background in human-centred design and a user experience (UX) lens, I’ve been particularly interested in exploring how these approaches can be used to support teachers and learners in communities and on the ground. I’ve also been keen to collaborate and create connections with other partners in intersectional spaces.

Here are three projects through which I’ve gotten to know my colleagues, our stakeholders and AlphaPlus’s work more.

1. Upskilling with the Coaching Team

In November 2020, three of us from the AlphaPlus staff took a course from International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)’s SkillRise initiative called “Upskill with EdTech.”

We were the only Canadian organization in our cohort, otherwise made up of American adult education institutions including non-profits, state departments and community organizations.

Over the course of four months, my colleagues and I worked together to define an AlphaPlus tech coaching field guide that leveraged service design principles applied to our work in adult education. For our submission in this course, we earned the ISTE certification “Upskill with EdTech: Preparing Adult Learners for the Future of Work.”

Our field guide was an attempt to encourage staff to engage in reflective practice around our work in the adult literacy and EdTech space and, more broadly, on the mission and values of AlphaPlus as an organization.

2. Design-Thinking Workshops

Around the time we started the ISTE SkillRise project, part of the AlphaPlus staff also worked with a graduate researcher in the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) Strategic Foresight and Innovation program to get hands-on experience with applying design thinking to organizational challenges.

Collaborating synchronously and remotely, these workshops pushed us to work together to identify organizational values, strengths and opportunities for service design improvements.

I was surprised that our executive director made time for all of us to attend these design-thinking workshops, and I feel fortunate to be able to socialize a UX approach in analyzing our internal processes and service models.

3. Service Design and Stakeholder Research

Building on the initiative of using human-centred design and research to improve our organizational strategy, we recently entered into an engagement with Endeavour Consulting for Non-Profits. We’re working with a team of professionals to help modernize our services — in doing so, speaking with customers, partners, staff and other stakeholders to get as much input as possible. This input from the field will drive the strategic reflection and analysis around AlphaPlus’s portfolio of services as we strive to provide as much value as possible to the LBS programs we serve.

I’m active on social media and I like talking about our team and our work because, as Cassie Robinson says, it’s about radiating intent

“There has been so much value in sharing what we’re working on, what we’re learning or thinking about so openly. It’s created community and interest around the work. It’s given the work more validation internally to be able to show the interest in it externally and I can’t tell you how helpful this is when you’re trying to do new or different things.”

In this field, where instructors, administrators and organizations are making an impact in adult literacy and digital inclusion, though often in less visible ways, it’s worth sharing our journey and our learnings as a team in supporting this very important work.

Curious to know who we are? Learn more about the whole AlphaPlus team!

Educator Network Story: Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy (MTML)

Smoothing the transition to remote learning for literacy instructors

When Ontario declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the pivot to remote learning happened very quickly for literacy and basic skills (LBS) practitioners. In Toronto and York Region, Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy (MTML) partnered with AlphaPlus’ Educator Network (eNet) to provide these educators with support and professional development.

In April of 2020, MTML board member Susan Lefebvre envisioned a space for adult literacy educators to meet, network and share achievements, experiences, challenges and technical knowledge. Already working with AlphaPlus to address MTML’s digital technology infrastructure needs, Susan brought her vision to AlphaPlus team member Tracey Mollins, an organizational development consultant for education and technology.

“I’m not technical, but I knew what I wanted to achieve. Tracey has expertise in specific technologies and blended learning, with many resources at her fingertips. As a former LBS instructor herself, she relates well to the audience I wanted to support,” Susan explains. “I also knew that Tracey would be able to help provide a framework for our group.”

A flexible approach to professional development

Susan suggested starting with weekly calls via Zoom and, with Tracey’s input, decided on a learning circle approach, allowing participants to set the agendas and find solutions to common challenges collaboratively. 

“Because of COVID-19, we were able to take an unusual approach to professional development,” Tracey explains. “We formed a community of practice of highly motivated people working on the same challenge: the pivot to remote learning. We gave the group a place to turn and decided to be flexible and adaptable. And we recognized that while participants could have made the pivot on their own, in the middle of significant disruption, we could make the integration of technology smoother.” 

The first “Silver Linings Café” meetings kicked off at the end of April — the name coined by Susan to acknowledge the motivation and ingenuity demonstrated by instructors as they navigated the complexities presented by the pandemic. From April 30 to June 25, 2020, MTML and AlphaPlus hosted more than 40 literacy practitioners in 12 meetups. Along the way, Tracey helped Susan to research useful technologies and provided demonstrations to help instructors learn a new feature or skill to apply in their next online class. 

Supported instructors, better remote learning experiences

At the end of the five months, Silver Linings Café participants reported reduced feelings of isolation, a shortened learning curve and increased confidence associated with digital technology for remote learning. They reported feeling empowered to help learners tackle learning barriers and noted a beneficial impact on learner engagement. Participants had also been able to help each other by sharing community support resources such as links to food donation programs, computer donation programs and the Toronto Public Library’s Wi-Fi hotspot lending program.

Susan, AlphaPlus and a team of contributors documented many of the group’s lessons, creating and publishing a suite of guides. COFA generously supported the translation of the guides. Topics include setup, in-meeting controls and whiteboards, breakout rooms, polling and building engagement to help others make the most of their Zoom meetings with adult literacy learners.

“AlphaPlus stepped up province-wide during COVID-19, and their partnership made this experience a success for the programs in our network,” says Susan. “Everybody agrees that we cannot drop the ball on technology when we go back to in-person learning. We must continue to benefit from AlphaPlus’s knowledge and leadership in blended learning, and we have to continue to think about breaching the gaps in access to technology many of our learners face.”

Would you like to connect with fellow practitioners in the adult literacy education space? We offer periodic, time-based and structured network experiences for educators with similar goals and visions for using digital technology. Learn more about current and upcoming cohorts of our educator network. If you have questions or would like to talk about joining a group, please contact Tracey Mollins,  at tmollins@alphaplus.ca

Learn more about eNet

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Coaching Story: Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy (MTML)

In early 2020, Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy (MTML) was grappling with several digital technology issues. Their website had been corrupted three years earlier and had not been replaced. Recent turnover of staff meant they needed to address technology knowledge and skills gaps. And they needed to decide on and commit to a single productivity suite.

MTML is a membership-based umbrella organization supporting 26 agencies in Toronto and seven in York Region running Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) programs — in some cases, two or even three programs — at multiple locations. In addition to advocating for adult learning, MTML supports these programs through education, information and referrals, professional development, service co-ordination, research and more. 

According to board member Susan Lefebvre, early 2020 was the right time to address all of MTML’s digital technology challenges from the ground up: “Having worked in this field for years, I know the team at AlphaPlus and I knew they could help us. They are extremely knowledgeable, competent, approachable and, very importantly, they start with you, where you are. That’s so important when it comes to technology because it can be intimidating, with so many moving parts.” 

Coaching MTML toward their desired outcomes

Susan began working with Maria Moriarty at AlphaPlus and then after Maria’s retirement, Monika Jankowska-Pacyna, their organizational development consultant for education and technology. Monika, who has many years of experience supporting adult education service providers through the implementation of technologies that improve their work in the classroom and reduce administrative burden, took an incremental approach to helping MTML.

“We started our coaching engagement by addressing gaps in technology skills and troubleshooting administrative processes,” Monika explains. “Over the longer -term, we gradually tackled bigger administration issues. I gave MTML an overview of their choices: tools they could use to collaborate, such as Google Suite and Microsoft Teams. I guided them through a framework for what factors to consider and which technology solutions would address their numerous challenges in a holistic manner.” 

MTML decided on using Google Workspace and then worked with Monika to do specific things with the applications, including:

Moving toward strategic, intentional use of technology

“Looking back, we had been stuck for so long,” says Susan. “After our website was corrupted, we waited three years, debating the right website platform and worrying about the budget and maintenance. We also had so many discussions about technology systems and office suites — with differing opinions on which way to go. But Monika’s holistic, systematic approach helped us to take a big-picture view and carefully evaluate the options.”

According to Susan, investing the time and turning to AlphaPlus to coach them through the process has allowed MTML to move ahead in multiple areas. They felt confident about their decisions because they went through a process, and new team members have been able to jump in and build upon the digital technology foundation they’ve created.

“AlphaPlus put us on a path that incorporates digital technology strategically and intentionally — in fact, our business plan now has a whole piece on digital. Our own operations are stronger, and we are better prepared to try to support literacy programs in this area.” 

Would you like to connect with the AlphaPlus coaching team to incorporate digital technology into your practice? Learn more about current and upcoming Tech Coaching opportunities.

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Since March of this year, LBS programs around the province have been innovating and reorganizing their program technology and tools as the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed. Many LBS programs continue to reflect on the changes the pandemic will place on how they do their work in the future. Our technology coaching services are here, as ever, to support teams and learners navigating the remote learning and working landscape.

Expedited, short-term coaching still available

Teams that require support to make rapid changes to their program delivery and communication methods are invited to reach out to access short-term technology coaching sessions. Our coaches can help teams quickly identify technologies and tools that suit their unique needs and can help programs improve administrative processes while keeping in touch with learners.

To learn more or sign up for short-term coaching, contact Alan Cherwinski, Executive Director.

Are you interested in using Microsoft Teams? Will you be using the Education edition available to schools and colleges or the Business edition? Which one is right for you, and what’s the difference, anyway?

The Education edition is tailor-made for education settings and includes Classes and Class Teams as well as an additional notebook and other assignment management options not available in the Teams Business edition.

Today, many school boards and colleges are pushing for MS Teams Education to be used in classrooms. To help you learn more and break down the differences between the Education and Business editions, we’re sharing a few MS Teams resources about platform basics and how-tos.

Visit this tutorial resource page to learn more about MS Teams Business.

Check out this article to learn about the differences between MS Teams Business and MS Teams Education.

Try this quick course on transforming learning with Microsoft Teams.

MS Teams Education is available for FREE to students and educators at eligible institutions.

Visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/education/products/teams to find out if your organization qualifies.

This spring, our sector made a sudden shift to communicating, working, and teaching online. As LBS programs made the transition to remote delivery, we realized this was an opportunity to learn more about how our sector was working and adapting to this unprecedented and unplanned change.

What were their new priorities and how were those priorities identified? What challenges were LBS programs facing? In the last two weeks of June, we launched and administered a survey in hopes of answering these and other important questions.

Now, as COVID-19 numbers are more stabilized and many programs reopen, AlphaPlus is finalizing a full report detailing our survey’s results. But before the report

goes live, we’re sharing initial results based on responses from 368 respondents who provided information in both French and English.

● 45% of learners have a household Internet connection.

● 27% of learners have limited connectivity using cell phones.

● 13% of respondents said programs purchased additional data and/or devices for learners.

● 67% of respondents were able to focus on instruction; 33% prioritized communication and learner supports.

● Respondents used three to four different modes of communication and instruction, such as telephone, videoconferencing, emails, learning management platforms and printed materials.

● 66% of respondents stated the top priority going forward is adapted accountability and reporting processes.

● 53% of respondents said other priorities are ensuring Internet access for learners, professional development and training using ed tech and access to online assessments of literacy, numeracy and digital skills.

Look for the completed survey report on our website around the end of September. Contact Christine Pinsent-Johnson for more information.