Background

The e-PD Reading and Response Pilot is part of a larger College Sector Committee (CSC) project called Reaching the People Who Need It Most. The aim of the overall project is to identify more clearly the professional development (PD) needs of Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) college practitioners, and bring practitioners together to engage in relevant and meaningful PD activities.

During the past two years, the CSC supported PD for practitioners primarily through regional training events. PD was delivered through workshops on identified topics. The training events also provided practitioners with an opportunity to get together in subject group meetings to discuss educational and procedural issues, compare classroom experiences and share educational resources.

While these events were very successful, feedback from the events identified two important PD issues:

1. that many practitioners are unaware of new resources developed by the literacy field at large – including resources developed by the CSC itself
2. that practitioners who are aware of new resources often do not have time to read them

The first issue was partly resolved with the launch of the CSC website in early December 2003. All LBS college practitioners can now access this website to read project reports and relevant publications. The site also links practitioners to Ontario colleges, regional networks and other literacy organizations.

Since accessing resources was no longer a key focus, the project was able to concentrate on the second issue practitioners raised – not having time to read. While this may be true, we do know that many practitioners engage in self-study. Although the sample was small, results from the 2003 Central Region Training Survey showed that 61% of the practitioners who responded to the survey had engaged in some type of self-study in the previous year. This was encouraging! What else then might induce busy practitioners to read a new literacy resource or publication? The same 2003 Central Region Training Survey also showed that meeting colleagues from other colleges and sharing information with them was the main reason practitioners cited for attending the CSC regional training event. Based on this feedback, as well as feedback from other regional training events, it was decided that a pilot be undertaken to investigate ways to bring practitioners together for a focused reading and discussion activity.