When Donna Curry, the director of the Math and Numeracy Curriculum and Instruction PD Center, started teaching many years ago, she says she taught "just as she had been taught." There was only one way to teach math, and it hadn’t changed much throughout the years. Yes, there were way too many children and adults who did not understand much of the math they had been taught (other than memorization of multiplication facts), but that didn’t seem to change anyone’s mind about how math should be taught.

Advising is an integral part of adult education, and an increasing focus on effective advising shows exciting potential to create responsive and persistence-focused adult education programs. Transitions into and out of adult education are varied, and advisors draw from a large knowledge base to skillfully guide learners towards their next steps. As the work of effective advising grows, so do the opportunities to integrate advising, especially education and career planning, into program design and ELA, Math, and ESOL classes.

What makes an effective ELA teacher? How might you recognize it, in yourself or others?

There are SO many ways into this question. Countless books and papers exist on this topic. One approach is to ask,

1. Are students learning?
2. What is the teacher doing that contributes to and supports that learning?
3. What else might the teacher do to enhance student learning?

Let's break this down a bit.

Learning—What? How? Who?