Narrative: a.

The Adult Education Section has adopted the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE)’s College and Career Readiness (CCR) Standards for Adult Education developed by Susan Pimentel.  The CCR Standards cover literacy and mathematic skills, the foundations of education. The literacy standards cover five areas: reading, writing, speaking and listening, language, and reading foundational skills. Mathematics are also broken down into specific categories covering elements of broader areas such as geometry or algebra. However, to provide an overview, the standards cover numbers and number systems, operations, expressions and equations, ratios and proportional relationships, algebra, functions, geometry, measurement and data, statistics and probability.
  
Over the past several years, the Adult Education Section has participated in initiatives designed to support the implementation of CCR Standards. Adult Education has had teams participate in the Cohort 1 of the Teaching Skills that Matter project in Fall 2019 as well as Cohort 6 in the Spring of 2023. Teaching Skills that Matter trains teachers to integrate the nine important skills for adults: adaptability and willingness to learn, communication, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, navigating systems, problem solving, processing and analyzing information, respecting differences and diversity, and self-awareness across the five critical topic areas of civics education, digital literacy, financial literacy, health literacy and workforce preparation.  The nine skills are taught using integrated and contextualized, problem-based, and project- based learning. Teachers who participated in these trainings were able to share lessons learned with others in the state and additional sharing opportunities are planned. Adult Education Section also participated in the Student Achievement in Reading (STAR) initiative, provided by the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education. The STAR program has provided targeted training of teachers in reading instructional strategies. 
 
To further support teachers in teaching the CCR Standards, the Adult Education Section provides academic software, such as Essential Education and Aztec Learning, designed to support the CCR Standards to all adult education and literacy providers it funds. These platforms support the standards being taught and are used by teachers in the classroom for distance learning students and as off-site reinforcement of in-class instruction.
 
Through the Arkansas Adult Learning Resource Center, several workshops were held such as the Career & College Readiness Implementation Institute for ELA/Literacy and one for Mathematics led by Literacy Information and Communication System (LINCS) trainers. Each is a two-day, face-to-face, intensive training that introduces the CCR standards in the relative subject and takes participants through a breakdown of the standards, providing the methods and materials needed to impact instruction. Follow-up sessions such as the virtual Career and College Readiness Implementation Institute for Mathematics Reflection offer opportunities to deepen understanding of the material.  Incorporating CCR Standards allow instructors to teach the skills students need immediately in the context of high standards. Students learn more important workplace, life, and academic skills in the process of meeting their goals. Furthermore, requiring CCR Standards in adult education helps maintain its relevance and ensure that learners have the knowledge and skills required of a high school equivalency diploma.