Offenders who develop strong soft skills in prison have a better chance at reducing their sentence, succeeding in re-entry, and gaining meaningful employment. An effective soft skills program requires careful selection and focus on the needed skills, adaptable resources, specific teaching methods, consistent assessment, and individualized feedback and encouragement. In a correctional setting, inmate facilitators can help extend soft skills programs outside the classroom. Inmate facilitators can also help correctional educators relate lessons in soft skills to other inmate learners. This workshop will focus on the five-year evolution of a Pace Life Skills Program at Folsom State Prison— a leisure-time activity that boasts a waiting list of over 200 inmates! Join Pace to learn about teaching and evaluating soft skills in a correctional setting and explore the latest work of the inmate Life Skills Facilitators at Folsom.
Pace has designed learning systems that ensure TABE® success for over 40 years, through multiple generations of the TABE assessments. Join this workshop to explore instructional and assessment strategies that promote efficient TABE score gains.
This session is designed for basic education service providers using TABE 11/12 results for placement, tracking and reporting, or individualized instruction and those looking for effective resources for improving TABE scores. Attendees will receive free sample lessons from the Pace curriculum, aligned to TABE 11/12 objectives in reading, language, and math. Attendees will learn about: differences between 9/10 and 11/12 objectives by test level; the Individual Diagnostic Profile; effective instructional material for teaching with TABE and tailoring instruction to ensure mastery of TABE objectives; “mini measures,” an assessment strategy for validating skills mastery and predicting TABE progress; and effective communication of test results and involving students in the remediation process.
TABE® is copyright 2019 by Data Recognition Corporation (DRC).
To search the data for any keyword or skill name, first select the column heading for the column you would like to search. For example, search the “TABE Skill” column for a keyword from the TABE Individual Diagnostic Profile (IDP) or Diagnostic Report such as “Use commas.”
See emphasis of specific sub-skills or skill areas. There are many items under “Use commas,” and this tool will show you which specific skills (like “commas in a series”) are tested, and which items test these skills.
Connect each test item missed with CCR anchor standards, and the specific sub-skills within those anchor standards, to get more information on your students’ skills gaps from a given TABE test result.
Use this information, along with the Pace Discrete Skill, to help guide instruction, prioritize missing skills for the next instructional phase, better understand the skills tested by TABE, and better communicate those skills and deficiencies to your learners, in easy-to-understand terms.
Tuesday, April 2nd, 1:15 pm-2:15 pm, Balcony J
A step-by-step approach will be used to teach a methodology for developing soft skills in adult basic education settings. Steps include: 1) selecting the needed skills for your program, 2) teaching and modeling, 3) developing assessment instruments, 4) evaluating soft skills, and 5) managing and documenting progress. This model utilizes the Pace Life Skills 25 curriculum. These personal and interpersonal skills support class management and engagement, improve test scores, and help students obtain employment and succeed in a job. In general, these personal and interpersonal soft skills support success in many areas of life.
There are three areas of focus: 1) Self-Development (self-concept, self-esteem, self-confidence, dealing with emotions, conflict, stress, criticism, and failure); 2) Achieving Personal Goals (interests, priorities, goals, problem solving, decision-making, planning, managing time, clear thinking, and systems thinking); and 3) Interpersonal Skills (listening and speaking effectively, assertiveness, relating to people, following and giving directions, identifying work styles, and teamwork).