The Attleboro (Massachusetts) Workplace Education Program, a partnership of four area companies and Bristol Community College, is intended to provide workers with education that will improve the quality of their lives and their work. Housed in a corporate office building in the Attleboro Industrial Park, the program offers classes in English as a…

A minicourse pilot project was designed by the Massachusetts Department of Education to meet the staff training and development needs of workplace educators in the National Workplace Literacy Program. During the course, various activities and group configurations were used to help teachers apply modeled approaches to their own teaching contexts,…

An evaluation of the fifth cycle of operation of the Massachusetts Workplace Education Initiative had several purposes: (1) to identify the indicators of quality in workplace education; (2) to begin to design an evaluation system for each program; and (3) to assess the indicators of quality for workplace education programs against the national…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace course in writing memos. The course covers recognizing the audience for a memo, identifying the topic, organizing the writing using four steps (think, write, review, correct) writing complete sentences, using…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace course in writing accurate, sequential, and clear instructions. The course covers identifying the goal and purpose of the instructions, deciding the best method for presenting the instructions, using clear and…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace course in report writing skills for technical staff. The course has been designed to help new engineers with all aspects of report writing. It covers the outline and structure of reports, brainstorming,…

This document explains how to conduct programs similar to the Broward County, Florida, "Reach Out for Literacy" (ROL) project aimed at providing basic skills education for undereducated adults and adults with limited English proficiency. The introduction lists the objectives for the ROL program and reports the number of adults (689 at 17…

The guidelines in this paper were developed to assist Massachusetts Private Industry Councils, social agencies, unions, businesses, and education providers in designing educational programs appropriate to the workplace. The focus is on literacy education. The paper is organized in four sections. The first section briefly examines the background of…

Originally designed to serve 400 employees, the Mott Community College (MCC) Workplace Literacy Project provided instruction in basic workplace skills to 566 employees from 20 companies. The cost was 2 percent lower than projected. All participants were assessed and counseled on the basis of the assessment tests. Individualized training plans were…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace mathematics course. The course is a review of basic number concepts focused on helping participants to understand the meaning of numbers and arithmetic operations. The introductory materials include a course…

This workplace skills course on charts and graphs in the workplace is intended to teach students to read and make tables and graphs, make projections from charts/graphs, see trends and draw conclusions from charts/graphs and calculate totals, averages, and percentages. Introductory material includes objectives, topics, methods, and materials. The…

This workplace skills course on complex materials is designed for employees who want to increase their comprehension of more complex reading materials in the workplace. It uses a variety of materials from the workplace, including forms, memos, letters, and reports. Introductory material includes a course outline, objectives, and topical outline.…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace communication and public speaking course. The course is a review of basic speech concepts focused on helping participants to be comfortable in class discussions and speaking in front of an audience. Topics…

The numbers of women with low literacy levels, the increased labor force participation of women, and increasing literacy requirements on the job make the case for the inclusion of a literacy component in employment programs for women. Such programs should strive to be comprehensive, learner-centered, flexible, standards-based, and linked to…

The Workplace Education Initiative was created in Massachusetts to provide workers with the opportunity to develop basic literacy skills, to increase employer and union awareness of the extent of functional illiteracy among workers as well as its cost, to develop a number of partnership models that link the acquisition of basic education skills…