Building Teacher/Learner Collaborations

A team of researchers led by Victoria Purcell-Gates explored the claim that literacy instruction that was more authentic and collaborative would positively impact change in adult students' out-of-school literacy practices. In the course of coding the data, the learners themselves were attributing the change in literacy practice to factors other than dimensions of their adult literacy instruction.

Explore the social nature of your learners' literacy practices and how those practices may change from the beginning of instruction. Develop a strategy for collaborating with learners to identify a topic on which to build instructional activities.

1. Read the related research.
2. Reflect on this research and your practice.
3. Focus on an aspect of your practice.