Be sure to take a site tour to see how YOU can use this web site!

HRDC’s Essential Skills Research has been used in a variety of ways in many different program contexts. Click on an area of interest to you to see examples of applications others have developed.

Adult Education sphere Assessment (Formal) Assessment (Self-assessment, setting goals) Resources for Teachers Professional Development for Teachers Curriculum

Assessment (Formal) – (Adult Sphere)

Test of Workplace Essential Skills (TOWES)

The   Test of Workplace Essential Skills, developed with funding from HRSDC’s National Literacy Secretariat, is an assessment tool used to test the Essential Skills of Reading Text, Document Use and Numeracy. Test questions use authentic workplace materials and tasks in order to assess these skills in a way that reflects how they are used in the workplace. TOWES enables employers to assess the skills of their workforce. By comparing the overall test results to the skills required, employers can clarify their training needs. TOWES also allows them to address their concerns around the return on investment for training. Finally, TOWES enables employers to assess the skills of job applicants in terms of their employment readiness. The methodology and scales developed for the Essential Skills Research Project allow the skill content of jobs to be rated uniformly, thus enabling workplace practitioners to give employers useful information about how the skill set of their workforce fits with job requirements. TOWES test results are delivered in a framework that is   IALS compatible, and are consistent from one practitioner to another. The test itself fits well with national standards and performance based assessments.

For more information, please contact: Lynda Fownes BC Construction Industry Skills Improvement Council (SkillPlan) Bus: (604) 436-1126 E-mail: skillplan@telus.net

Or

Conrad Murphy Bow Valley College Bus: (403) 297-4929 E-mail: cmurphy@bowvalleyc.ab.ca

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Assessment (Self-Assessment, setting goals) (Adult Sphere)

Essential Skills Self-Evaluation Tool

Developed by SkillPlan with funding from HRSDC, this self-assessment tool is available through the   “How Do You Measure Up?” section of the TOWES web site. It consists of a set of activities that may be used by an individual to test their skills in Reading, Document Use and Numeracy. The activities are based on real workplace tasks and involve the use of Authentic Workplace Materials. Full step-by-step solutions are also provided for those who want to turn this into a learning tool.

There are three parts to this site. “Test Your Skills” is an informal test that allows test takers to get an idea of their level of ability in these three skills. Each test activity illustrates one of the skills (Reading, Document Use or Numeracy) at a particular level of complexity. The site also provides the correct answer for each activity. Thus, test takers can get an idea of the level of task complexity they can handle well. They can use this information about their abilities when reviewing HRSDC’s Essential Skills profiles, to reflect on whether they have the skills they will need to do what they want to do.

In “Explore Careers”, individuals can try their hand at typical workplace tasks in any one of 25 occupations, to test their skills using tasks from a particular occupation of interest to them. Again, each activity illustrates a particular complexity level of one of the three skills (Reading, Document Use or Numeracy), and answers, including full step-by-step solutions, are provided.

Finally, “Practice” provides an opportunity to prepare for writing an actual TOWES test, providing practice in different kinds of questions that could be on a TOWES. Visitors to this part of the site can gain experience in filling in forms, reading regulations, making calculations and performing other workplace tasks.

ESPORT - Essential Skills Portfolio

ESPORT is an Essential Skills assessment and planning tool developed with funding from HRSDC's Office of Learning Technologies. ESPORT uses Essential Skills information to help learners assess their skills, analyze what skills they need to strengthen in order to perform particular kinds of jobs and develop resumes tailored to the skill requirements of those jobs. Users can record personal information such as their education and job history, identify occupations that interest them, compare their self-assessment results to the skills used in those occupations, prepare a record of their skills and experience and locate additional learning resources to aid in skills improvement. ESPORT was designed for use by learners in adult basic education literacy classes, but may also be used in K-12 classrooms. The ESPORT Project is a pan-Canadian demonstration.

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Resources for Teachers (Adult Sphere)

Workplace Numeracy Workbook

Currently under development by SkillPlan, with funding from HRSDC, the Workplace Numeracy Workbook will contain contextualized learning materials for use in developing learners’ skills in Numeracy. This resource will utilize Authentic Workplace materials and Tasks (problem sets). Problem sets contained in the workbook will illustrate the use of Numeracy within the workplace within the four types of math identified in the Essential Skills Research: Money Math, Budgeting, Scheduling and Accounting Math, Measurement and Calculation Math and Data Analysis Math.

For more information, please contact: Lynda Fownes BC Construction Industry Skills Improvement Council (SkillPlan) Bus: (604) 436-1126 E-mail: skillplan@telus.net

workwrite

Do you know which documents appear most frequently in the workplace? How would you complete a non-conformity report? What does an employee shift schedule look like? If you’re not sure of the answers to these questions, and the learners you work with have employment goals, then a new series of resources from Preparatory Training Programs may be for you and your learners.

PTP has designed their new workwrite materials to help literacy learners build reading, writing and math skills using workplace documents. Ideal for learners, whose goal is employment upon completion of upgrading, each book in the workwrite series introduces learners and instructors to dozens of authentic workplace documents. Documents are accompanied by lesson plans for instructor use and by activities for learners working at even the most basic level. Both lessons and activities help the learner discover features of individual documents, as well as those elements common across many workplace documents.

workwrite helps take the guesswork out of preparing students for the workplace. The set of workbooks is based on Human Resources and Skills Development Canada’s Essential Skills Profiles research, as well as interviews and document collection from employers across the manufacturing, retail and service sectors. All lessons and activities are organised along Ontario’s Literacy and Basic Skills levels, making it easy to begin using in any classroom. Plus, each book in the series includes an introduction to workforce literacy programming and easy to follow guidelines so you can use workwrite as both a starting point and a building block for your own programming ideas.

For more information, or to order workwrite, please visit   www.ptp.ca or contact: Monika Jankowska Marketing and Distribution Co-ordinator Centre AlphaPlus Centre   (http://alphaplus.ca) Bus: (416) 322-1012 ext. 117 Fax: (416) 322-0780 TTY: (416) 322-5751 E-mail: mjankowska@alphaplus.ca

Writing: An Essential Skill at Work

Currently under development by SkillPlan, with funding from HRSDC, the publication Writing: An Essential Skill at Work will be a reference for use by educators and workplace trainers in developing in learners the skills associated with writing in the workplace. It will utilize Authentic Workplace documents and Tasks that progress in complexity, and reflect the complexity levels of the Essential Skills Writing Complexity Scale. It will include “notes” explaining the thinking required to complete each task. Additionally, this resource will outline instructional techniques that help learners acquire and transfer their writing skills.

For more information, please contact: Lynda Fownes BC Construction Industry Skills Improvement Council (SkillPlan) Bus: (604) 436-1126 E-mail: skillplan@telus.net

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Professional Development for Teachers (Adult Sphere)

AWAL for Adult Education

Do you want some new ideas for practical learning activities that you can use in your classroom? Do you want to know more about the jobs and workplaces that your learners will be entering? Then perhaps it’s time to go AWAL!

When teachers go AWAL, they have an opportunity to visit a workplace in and industry of their choosing. There, they interview both management and a frontline employee, using an interview approach based on HRSDC’s Essential Skills research methodology, and tour the work site in a one-day professional development activity. The educators complete the day by reflecting on the use of the Essential Skills in that workplace and then creating two hands-on classroom activities that they can use with their students. These activities are collected and posted at   http://www.awal.ca/ to make them accessible to teachers across the country.

AWAL was conceptualized and developed in British Columbia with funding from HRSDC and the BC Ministry of Education. HRSDC is now funding BC’s Centre for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology to promote AWAL nation-wide. With this funding, the Centre can provide assistance to those in other provinces and territories that are interested in adopting AWAL.

AWAL days have been held in several provinces. Participants include middle and secondary school teachers from a broad array of disciplines, pre-service (student) teachers and teachers from the adult education sector.

For more information, please contact: Wendy Magahay AWAL Project Manager Bus: (250) 370-4775 E-mail: magahay@camosun.bc.ca

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Curriculum (Adult Sphere)

Manitoba Community Literacy Program Curriculum Review

The Essential Skills methodology was used in Manitoba in a review of the adult community literacy program curriculum, conducted with funding from HRSDC’s National Literacy Secretariat. The review identified a shortage of content related to document use; this gap is currently being addressed through revision of the curriculum. The objective of the Manitoba Community Literacy Program is to examine and align the Manitoba Stages of Adult Learning and Literacy according to the measures of literacy skills outlined in   IALS, HRSDC’s Essential Skills Research Project and   TOWES.

For more information, please contact: Cheryl Campbell Pembina Valley Learning Centre Project Bus: (204) 325-4997 E-mail: pemvalrn@mts.net

Workplace Education Development (WED)

WED explores tailoring GED preparation courses using the Essential Skills Profiles. The project looks to generate a matrix that correlates the Essential Skills that are addressed by a generic academic accreditation such as the GED, and those used in a wide range of entry-level jobs, as described by the Essential Skills profiles. Both systems deal with the Essential Skills of reading text, using documents, writing, numeracy and problem solving. By developing curricula that integrate some of the varied work-related contexts of the Essential Skills profiles, instructors could help to make the concepts and tasks of an academic program more immediately meaningful and useful to workers.

For more information, or to order the WED Practitioner’s Guide: Customizing Accreditation Curricula in Workplace Education Programs (cost $32.00 + taxes), please contact: Sheila Swan Administrative/Copyright Assistant Learning Resource Services Bow Valley College 332-6th Avenue SE Calgary, Alberta T2G 4S6 Bus: (403) 410-1648 Fax: (403) 297-4801 E-mail: sswan@bowvalleycollege.ca

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