Project Background,
Phases and Vision

Project Background

The PAL project—funded by the Ontario Skills for Success initiative—tackled the objective of enhancing and expanding digital delivery in Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) programs by gathering frontline insights from practitioners, specifically about the on-the-ground challenges and opportunities that exist when it comes to integrating technology into teaching.

In seeking to enhance digital delivery, examining day-to-day realities was a pragmatic place to begin in order to meet practitioners and their learners where they are when it comes to digital integration for learning and skills strengthening.

There were two distinct project phases (Phase 1 and Phase 2 are detailed below) during which LBS practitioners came together to discuss, share and reflect upon how they currently integrate technology into lessons, the specific challenges they face, how they make pedagogical choices around the sequence of activities/tasks they introduce, and how they chose digital tools to purposefully engage adult learners.

Phase 1: Focus Groups with LBS Practitioners

From late November 2022 - April 2023, AlphaPlus conducted a series of focus groups with LBS practitioners to determine where they currently find themselves with respect to digital integration, especially after the challenging—yet instructive—pandemic pivot to remote delivery, which left educators with a new sensibility regarding teaching and learning in digital spaces. The importance of digital skills and technology for teaching and learning was undeniable in the eyes of all focus group participants.

Read about the bright spots and challenges they they identified and some shared themes that emerged across the programs in the Phase 1 Summary Report.

In this initial phase, AlphaPlus also investigated whether there was a need or an interest in the LBS field to collaborate and co-create resources that could enrich digital capacity in the field. There was a resounding 'YES' to forming a working group of LBS practitioners to investigate the realities of teaching with technology and to co-create and co-design resources to engage adult learners as part of a lesson planning suite of resources where digital integration as part of lesson planning enhances delivery and hones skills.

S4S Digital Integration Consultations - Final Summary Report May 2023 PDF.pdf

Phase 2a: PAL Project Approach

We envisioned co-developing a set of resources with an LBS practitioner working group which would explicitly focus on teaching and lesson planning choices within the LBS context, to assist practitioners in purposeful and meaningful digital integration where the flow of lesson activities and tasks helps to hone learner skills in the course of the learning itself.

Why lesson planning?

Lesson planning was a practical, relatable way of exploring the realities of digital delivery in a blended learning context—a springboard from which to view the common challenges and opportunities inherent in integrating technology—whether you're teaching face-to-face or online. In fact, a planned lesson and its successful execution (or mis-execution) acts as a microcosm of the on-the-ground realities that often require fine-tuning , and creative teaching solutions.

Having LBS practitioners look at the three stages of planning a lesson—Pre-Lesson, Lesson, and Post-Lesson—along with the realities of how adult educators integrate technology into their teaching practices—resulted in the PAL lesson planning companion that aims for purposeful planning.

The PAL lesson planning companion resources are rooted in:

Purposeful planning considerations and good pedagogy/andragogy
Daily LBS realities that practitioners encounter on the ground
A learner-centred approach that also draws from learner needs and voices
Reflective teaching and learning practices

PAL's Key Guiding Question:

How do you plan engaging lessons that integrate technology in a meaningful and practical way for LBS adult learners?

Phase 2b: The PAL Working Group

Monthly meetings to explore “the how” and “the why” of lesson planning

Our committed working group members—all LBS practitioners—met monthly from July 2023 to April 2024 to examine lesson planning and how they are aiming to meaningfully integrate technology into their activities so that the digital integration is meaning and useful to their learners and to the learning process itself.

Together, the PAL working group explored “the how” of lesson planning and “the why” of activity and digital tool choices—whether their program delivery was fully online, face to face, or hybrid—with a contextualized sensibility to the readiness and the needs of their LBS learners, both inside and outside the class session.

Through robust meeting discussions and a number of targeted working group tasks, the PAL group identified a host of common bottlenecks to flow encountered in most programs, when it comes to teaching with technology. They attempted to problem-solve and recommend solutions for a number bottleneck issues that impede or interrupt the flow of a lesson, and many of those solution-oriented insights are contained on this site.

Co-creating and co-developing resources for LBS practitioners

The PAL working group also shared, conceived of, and co-developed useful tips and strategies to assist in explicitly teaching digital skills and/or in purposefully integrating digital tools to strengthen learner engagement and the learning process itself.

The sum of the PAL working group's insights, discussions, tasks, and research have culminated in the PAL suite of resources—co-designed by LBS practitioners for LBS practitioners! This PAL site is where all the key moments and resources are housed.

The PAL site is by no means exhaustive when it comes to the entirety of the how-to of digital integration in LBS programming, but it can function as a prototype and a stepping stone for future discussions amongst LBS colleagues and their peers across LBS programs in Ontario.

The PAL working group also co-developed a set of guiding questions for reflection that can be revisited by practitioners who wish to reflect on how to strengthen their practice.

PAL Project Vision

We envisioned co-developing a set of resources which would explicitly focus on teaching and lesson planning choices. Our co-created lesson planning companion is aimed at assisting practitioners in thinking about and customizing a well designed lesson flow, which—coupled with intentional technology integration—could be a trusty 'pal' that helps make the learning experience more robust. An engaging lesson flow and active learning activities where technology is purposefully integrated to ensure that learners are actively honing their skills.

NOTE: From the onset of the PAL project, it was the intention of AlphaPlus and the PAL working group that the PAL resources not be prescriptive, or be beholden to specific digital tool or fixed approaches. This is due to great variability in learners, groups of learners, and learner goals within and across programs; therefore, the ultimate choice as to how to draw from the materials in this site will rest with each adult educator in considering what would most benefit their practice and their students' learning needs.

This PAL site and its contents are intended to be a helpful companion to which practitioners can come back whenever they need 'a PAL' to assist with enhancing digital integration in a manner that engages their learners as they hone foundational and digital skills in today's world, where learning, living and working in digital spaces is an undeniable fact.

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Project Background, Phases and Vision