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The History of Adult Basic Education
The Adult Learner
Teaching and Learning Styles
Student Eligibility
Student Services
Curriculum Frameworks
Staff Development

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Glossary of Terms

Module 2 - The Adult Learner

OK, now that you have the history of ABE in one short page, whom exactly does the program serve?

The Adult Learner

If you walk into an Adult Basic Education classroom, you will see people from all types of backgrounds. They will be all ages, all cultural backgrounds, all socio-economic backgrounds, and even possess all different types of educational backgrounds. There really is not one certain "type" of individual who attends an adult education program. However, individuals in these programs have a goal.

This goal may be that they:

  • Want to obtain a high school diploma as quickly as possible
  • Need to obtain specific skills so that they can become more employable in the workforce
  • Need to remediate their skills in order to further their education
  • Want to realize a very personal goal

Regardless of the reason, these adult students enter your program with a dream. Whether that dream is realized or not is often the result of how you as the teacher provide the student with the services that he/she needs and the responsiveness of the program in which the student is enrolled.
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This web-based training program was developed by the State of Florida Adult Basic Education Committee of the Practitioners' Task Force, through an Adult Education State Leadership Grant from the Florida Department of Education, Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Education.

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this web-based training component, it is not an official publication of the Florida Department of Education.