Mission Valley Regional Occupation Program
Fremont, California
(Pearson Digital Learning NovaNet)
 

One cause for this sort of frustration is that many adult students enter training programs with weaknesses in some subjects that keep them from using their strengths in others. For instance, a student with strong communication skills and technical competency in a trade may still be unable to find employment if her math skills are lacking. Or the student with great typing and computer skills may have a weakness in spelling that keeps him from getting an office job.

For the Mission Valley Regional Occupational Program (R.O.P) in Fremont, California this problem is a common one. As a federally and state-funded job training center, Mission Valley works with hundreds of students on everything from trade skills training to receiving General Equivalency Diplomas (GEDs) and work on English as a Second Language (ESL). Many of the students receive assistance through programs such as Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), Greater Avenues to Independent Living (GAIN) and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC.). Some have not made it through high school. Most students enter the program with a wide variety of abilities in all subjects.

Mission Valley has implemented a program to help students address problem areas as they continue to work toward their overall goal of learning an employable skill or earning a GED. All students entering any program at Mission Valley are pre-tested using the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) to determine their basic skill levels. Students with scores below Grade 8 in a particular subject are assigned to the program’s basic skills lab to improve in those areas. Additionally, many students come to the lab to raise their basic skill scores to Grade 10 or 11 in order to succeed in their job training.
 

High Tech Help 
Central to the work done by students and instructors in the basic skills lab is a unique computer-based learning system called NovaNET®. NovaNET gives users access to over 10,000 hours of self-guided and easily customized curricula through computer workstations attached to an online network. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. of every weekday, all 16 of Mission Valley’s NovaNET computers are occupied by students at work.

“The lessons on NovaNET are very user-friendly,” says Lakshmi Albright, an aide in the NovaNET lab and a former student in the Mission Valley program.

Students work on the areas where pre-testing has determined they need the most work. The system keeps track of each student’s progress and won’t let them move on to the next level in a subject until they have proven their competency through NovaNET-administered tests.

“When a student gets one wrong answer, they are retested on it, but with a different question each time, so it’s never the same one,” says James Randall, a teacher in the basic skills lab. “NovaNET also keeps score the entire time a student is using the system, so we can access their complete records at any time and see what kind of progress they have made and where they have had trouble.”

NovaNET also helps alleviate some of the traditional classroom stress that can undermine an adult student’s progress.
 

Proof Positive 
The effectiveness of NovaNET in helping students with difficult subjects was documented by the staff of the basic skills lab. A group of students was pre-tested using the TABE in math, language, spelling and reading in September. The students were then assigned to spend two to four hours a day on NovaNET completing lessons in their weakest subjects. After four months, the students were again tested using the TABE. In all subjects students exceeded the expected gain by over a full grade-level. 
A true test of the program’s success, though, is how well a student makes the transition from a positive classroom experience to a positive workplace experience. Mission Valley’s Women in the Trades program has helped students do just that. 

Women in the Trades typically works with single mothers to help them improve their basic skills, take advantage of the lessons NovaNET has to offer, while receiving training in trades such as welding, electrical, plumbing and carpentry. The program then helps the women find jobs relevant to their training.

“We’ve found a good fit between Mission Valley R.O.P. and our company,” says Ron Waldsworth, production manager for Pulbrite, a manufacturer of plumbing systems for the semiconductor industry. “We currently employ five former students of the Women in the Trades program and have two in our intern program.”
 

Success Beyond The Classroom 
Pulbrite’s Fremont manufacturing facility employs approximately 50 orbital technicians responsible for the high tech welding of their products. 

“The Mission Valley students come to us with good basic skills in welding, including training for safety,” says Waldsworth. “But they also have the kind of skills we can’t teach them, namely to be good professionals with the desire and motivation to stick with their job.” 
 
 

For more information on how Pearson Digital Learning can help you achieve results, visit http://www.pearsonedtech.com or call 888/627-5327; Canada and other international locations: 800/400-6192.

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