Numeracy and digital literacy skills are essential for navigating in and contributing to society. Yet, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), nearly a third of adults in the U.S. lack basic numeracy skills and even fewer have the basic digital literacy skills to complete important tasks in their daily lives.
In partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Education and World Education, Inc., WestEd is developing and evaluating Adult Numeracy in the Digital Era (ANDE), a 10-week technology-based numeracy course for adult learners. The project is part of the CREATE Adult Skills Network, a national initiative to build knowledge about using technology effectively to support adult learning.
ANDE Course Design and Professional Supports for Implementation
Building on WestEd’s evidenced-based Carnegie Math Pathways’ Quantway curriculum design and adaptive technologies, ANDE will provide a personalized learning experience for adult learners to develop numeracy and digital literacy.
To support these efforts, the ANDE team will create a professional development program with supports to help instructors teach the course and implement effective mathematics instructional practices.
Development and Evaluation Activities
WestEd and its research partners will work with adult numeracy instructors to create and refine the course and professional supports by conducting usability and feasibility testing. A quasi-experimental study will examine the impact of the intervention on adult learners’ math and digital literacy outcomes and instructors’ capacity and self-efficacy. The goal of the project is a final product that can benefit the field of adult learning at large.
This project is funded in full by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education through award number R305N210029.
