Several assumptions about learning, about people who encounter difficulty learning, and about the role that supervisors and employers play in assisting individuals to perform their best have influenced this package. These assumptions include:

• All people are capable of learning, given the right conditions.
• The key to helping people be successful is understanding their unique needs.
• When performance suffers, the source of the difficulty must be determined and appropriate modifications made.
• Supervisors play a major role in identifying and assisting individuals whose performance is suffering due to learning difficulties.
• Individuals have a major responsibility for their own performance.
• Some people may need further assessment by professionals.

Assessing Learning Difficulties in the Workplace is available from:

Image Centre, Information Resources
University of Calgary
Tel: (403) 220-3709 or Fax: (403) 282-4497
Email: bmurray@ucalgary.ca

WED – Workplace Education Development

Workplace education programs are being asked to provide courses aimed at a variety of accreditations. These include courses for attaining technical and vocational accreditations such as health and safety certifications and apprenticeships. They also include academic courses for attaining high school graduation or equivalency credentials. Workers, especially those who have been away from school for a long time, may find these courses difficult to access for a variety of reasons, but the end result is that individuals sometimes end up gaining neither the academic skills they need for accreditation, nor the practical skills they can use in life.

The impetus for the WED research project was to find ways to help learners truly grasp essential skills so that they could both succeed in gaining accreditations and be able to apply the skills in contexts outside of class. The project goal was to provide resources that help instructors, tutors and workplace practitioners to develop customized teaching strategies that facilitate all-around learning. The project adopted the adult education principle that people learn best when they experience new concepts and skills in contexts with which they are familiar and through purposeful tasks that they find interesting and meaningful.

Although the customizing approach presented in the WED Guide focuses on customizing to the work context, the process is one that encourages moving back and forth among various contexts, and choosing those that would be most illuminating and useful for learners.

The WED project began by asking two key questions:

• What are the essential skills needed for accreditation and for workplace tasks?
• How do practitioners customize the delivery of accreditation curricula to facilitate the learning of these skills? What strategies and materials do practitioners use to help learners truly grasp the needed essential skills?

To answer the first question, WED developed a Skills Matrix to identify the essential skills needed for a typical academic accreditation such as the Test of General Educational Development (GED) and for work tasks (using the Essential Skills Research Project profiles).