DATE: Tuesday, June 13, 2023 
Time: 2–3PM (Eastern Time)

Satisfied with current NRS tests? Probably not. Come learn what the future of Measurable Skill Gains assessment looks like. Assessment researchers and leading adult education practitioners will describe how revolutionary new methods are being applied to support the next generation of NRS assessments under a Department of Education project. Skills developed in IET and workplace learning tasks are hard to measure. This webinar will describe how future assessments will be closely aligned to close this gap.

Anson Green is a workforce and education trailblazer, leading economic opportunity efforts at Tyson Foods where he builds innovative learning solutions for one of the largest food companies in the world. There he develops strategic initiatives to support the upskilling of Tyson’s 121,000 front-line team members, many of whom are immigrants and refugees. His current assignments include delivering enterprise-level upskilling solutions to support Tyson’s efforts to deploy digital, smart factory, and automation solutions with its diverse communities of team members. As Texas Adult Education State Director, Anson led the transformation of the $80M federal responsive solutions for Texans seeking college- and career-entry solutions. For this work, Anson was awarded the National Outstanding Administrator of the Year award by the Coalition on Adult Basic Education.

Maria Oliveri is the Associate Director Psychometric Consulting and Research Associate Professor at Buros Center for Testing at the University of Nebraska. She has a professional focus on cognitive, character-based, and personality assessments for workplace training and development. Maria has deep research and technical expertise on cross-cultural issues, fairness, validity, opportunity to learn, and evidence-based assessment design and development. She also has considerable expertise in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research using various statistical programs (e.g., SPSS, SAS, Mplus). She has several years’ experience managing multidisciplinary teams and leading complex projects, such as the development of digitally-born integrated learning and assessment prototypes of workplace communication and collaboration skills. Maria has a long publication and dissemination record of research for technical and nontechnical audiences, including “most read of the year” publication awards. She is part of a large network of collaborators committed to improving assessment design and providing meaningful formative feedback to stakeholders (students and teachers) that leverage analytics and data visualization approaches. She is also multilingual, speaking English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Maria holds both a PhD and a master’s degree in Measurement, Evaluation, and Research Methodology and a second master’s degree in Clinical Counseling Psychology with several school psychology graduate courses completed.

Dr. Jen Vanek, Director of Digital Learning and Research at the EdTech Center@World Education, is a researcher, teacher educator, and professional learning facilitator who focuses on digital literacy, online learning, classroom technology integration, and English literacy and language learning. Jen directs communities of practice that support adult education practitioners and administrators in the development of quality educational opportunities for adult learners. Jen co-leads the IDEAL Consortium, a community of practice for education leaders who share the goal of improving and scaling digital education in their states and has co-authored publications sharing promising practice reflected in the consortium: The IDEAL Distance Education and Blended Learning Handbook and The Guide for Design and Implementation of Hybrid–Flexible (HyFlex) Models in Adult Education.

Jen’s current research includes serving as co-principal investigator (with AIR) on two US Department of Education/Institute for Education Sciences (IES) research projects exploring technology use in adult education as part of IES’ Building Adult Skills and Attainment Through Technology Research Network initiative, the largest public investment made in research on adult education. See https://createadultskills.org and https://edtech.worlded.org/tstm-skillblox for more information.

Javier Suárez-Álvarez is a Research Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass). He is responsible for managing the new Adult Skills Assessment Project (ASAP), a collaborative project recently funded by the U.S. Institute of Education Sciences to improve the assessment of adult skills for educators, employers, and adult learners.

Prior to joining UMass, Javier was an Education Policy Analyst in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), France. He was the lead author of the PISA report “21st-Century Readers: Developing Literacy Skills in a Digital World,” co-authored the report “Beyond Academic Learning: First Results from the Survey of Social and Emotional Skills” and its assessment framework, led analytical reports in the International Early Learning and Well-being Study, and contributed to implementing PISA-based Test for Schools in Latin-American countries.

Before joining the OECD, Javier was teaching and research staff at the Department of Psychology of the University of Oviedo, Spain. He worked as an analyst in the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Principality of Asturias, Spain. Javier holds a B.A. in Psychology and a PhD in Psychometrics from the University of Oviedo, Spain. He was a visiting scholar in the Department of Educational Policy, Research & Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, and the Psychometrics Centre of the University of Cambridge, UK.

This webinar has been generously sponsored by Burlington English.

DATE: Tuesday, June 27, 2023 
Time: 2–3PM (Eastern Time)

Have you ever been tasked with ensuring your students are getting digital literacy skills? Teachers are regularly asked to integrate digital literacy (DL) skills into their classrooms, but very little has been provided on how to do it. To address this issue, Essential Education has created a powerful guide that includes teaching strategies, lesson plans, and pacing guides to help adult education teachers seamlessly provide DL skills to their students. This free guide will be available to all participants and will be added to Essential Education’s growing library of teacher support tools.

 Dan Griffith is a former high school dropout who earned his HSE diploma. After working and living on his own, he returned to school and graduated summa cum laude from Northern Arizona University with a degree in Mathematics Education. He taught high school and community college before moving into educational publishing where he has been for the last 25 years. He is an avid Crossfit enthusiast, father of five children, husband of one amazing woman, and a part-time deputy in his community.

Charlie Weeks got his start in adult education over fifteen years ago as an ESL and HSE math instructor. He has experience managing an adult education program and has worked for the State of Oklahoma’s Adult Education Division. He is now the Director of Client Success for Essential Education.

This webinar has been generously sponsored by Essential Education.