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program design & management

Evidence-based Strategies - Examples, Research and Tools

 

Strategy b: Create a comfortable, safe and welcoming learning environment that communicates caring and respect to students and staff, that encourages students to take risks in their learning, and that consciously counters racism and prejudice.

Examples

Creating Sacred Space: Supports for Low-Income Women in Adult Literacy Programs
Roanna Yangco
This is an account of one program’s effort to transform the physical learning environment into a space that conveys caring and respect for adult learners.  They assert that a welcoming, safe and comfortable learning environment fosters learning. 

YES! A Literacy Program's Antiracist Journey
Margery Freeman and Lou Johnson
This article documents one program’s journey to become explicitly anti-racist and for social justice by involving staff, tutors and learners.  They question the Anglo-American world view that preferences punctuality, standard English, etc.  They “began to see learners for who they are and what they bring, to work with them, rather than evaluate them by our (unspoken) standards.”

Giving Effective Feedback
This video highlights a four step process for finding a balance between honest feedback and supportive encouragement for first generation college students.

Tools

Things We Can Do: Addressing Issues of Sexual Orientation in the ABE Classroom
Stephanie Mattfeld and Deborah Schwartz
This is a list of 14 possible actions programs and individual staff members can take to make the learning environment comfortable, safe and welcoming for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.