AEDT 569

Hi EFF team members,
Here are the questions we wrote in class on your subject:

• What is it?
  A reform initiative begun in 1995 aimed at developing a framework for adult learning content standards
  • The research that led to Equipped for the Future began as an effort to define a Content Framework and Standards for this goal: to define and build broad consensus on the knowledge and skills adults needed to "be literate and possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy, exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and help their children succeed in school."
    - http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/about_eff.html#purpose
  
   
• Who developed it?
  the National Institute for Literacy
   
• Who sets the standards?
  the National Institute for Literacy
   
• Do I need to get a copy and if so how?
  I don't know if you need it, but the site lists the standards: http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/standards/16_standards.html
   
• What do the words in the name mean?
  See the first response, specifically - ... to "be literate and possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy, exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and help their children succeed in school." - I assume this is with a view to the future and the rapid changes in US culture.
   
• If EFF is sucessful what does that mean to students, teacher, society, the economy?
  
  • For students and teachers, it seems to offer a simplification, or standardization, of the educational process. I propose that standards can simplify matters by clearly stating goals. Then we can simply compare our performance to the standard to see if we can move on or need to try something else. The ambiguous language used isn't particularly helpful, but I think this can be remedied in the standards themselves or on a local level if global attempts at clarification are not successful.
  • If the standards we set are well-thought-out, if they actually equalize citizens' basic skills and abilities, then at least that source of discrimination is removed. They can't account for personal prejudice or negative experiences, but they can facilitate effective communication, and I think that's a good start.
  • Similarly, while a more unified, cohesive society can't account for global economic variables, it can at least minimize the effects of internal contention and ill-will born of misunderstandings and intolerance.
    
    
    ... damn, I didn't think I had that much to say about it ...
  
   
• Are the standards measureable? (http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/standards/16_standards.html)
  One of the guiding principles when the standards were established was that they must be measurable. I've not examined them thuroughly, but I did look at Take Responsisbility for Learning (http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/standards/take_responsibility.html), and it uses the sort of vague language that we were advised to avoid in Curriculum Design (appropriate, neccessary, familiar, etc). I'm sure there are ways to measure each aspect of the standards, but the standards themselves don't appear to offer any guidance in the matter. Granted, if we all approached the standards from similar enough perspectives, we wouldn't need to spell everything out in tedious detail, but I believe the whole point of these standards is to make such perspectives possible, so we need to ask ourselves if we can realistically assume the intended product as a resource in the process of achieving it.
   
• Are the standards reasonable?
  At risk of sounding like an ass, that depends on what you mean by reasonable - like for whom? So now we're back to that similar perspectives thing ...
   
• What are the benefits and the drawbacks?
   
• Is EFF widely used?
  http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/about_eff.html#impact
  NILF presents some figures of EFF's impact to date and says its popularity is growing.
   
• Where is EFF used?
   
• What/which philosophy does EFF employ?
  In that it seems targetted at enabling students to become effective citizens, my initial impression is that it resonates with Dewey's Progressive Education movement. I don't know that it explicitely promotes participation in democratic processes, but since it was developed as a project by an agency within a democratic govornment ... do the math, and see for yourself.
   
• Is it effective?
   
• What are the sets of categories and levels?
   
• What are applications for instruction?