Milton N. Adams, Ph.D.

At a time in life when most professionals are long retired, I have embarked on a fresh venture to promote a new literacy strategy called Construct Literacy that combines my lifelong interests in technology and instructional design.

I learned education systems design and instructional technology at Florida State University (FSU) from Drs. Robert Morgan, Roger Kaufman, Robert Gangé, Walter Dick, Sydney Grant, and others at the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) where I worked as a graduate assistant (1975 – 1977).Prior to graduate studies at FSU, I had established a multimedia support center at the University of Guyana, Georgetown, South America (1973 – 1975).

After completing my coursework in International Development Education, I left for the Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa to conduct my dissertation on the political socialization effects of television (1977). After it was completed, I stayed for six years to help create a pioneering institute for pedagogical research and training (IREEP) at the University of Abidjan where I served as the senior researcher.

In the summer of 1984, Dr, Morgan asked me to join a new team he was forming at LSI as deputy director of Improving the Efficiency of Education Systems (IEES) funded by a $50 million five-year AID contract to strengthen education in five countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

The expertise gained from my international experiences was highly valued when I became Director of Strategic Planning and Evaluation (1990) and then Vice President for Academic Affairs (1991 – 1993) at the University of the Americas in Mexico City where I successfully led the university to its SACS reaccreditation.

After many years away from my home and family I returned to my New York City roots in 1993 to rent a large Harlem apartment to care for my aging mother with my two brothers and a nephew. During these years I launched several entrepreneurial projects and conducted short-term assignments under a consulting firm I formed called the Consortium for International Development Education (CIDEC).

In 1995 I formed B.I Limited –Brothers of Invention, to commercialize my younger brother Nelson’s patent for a hydroelectric energy system and my own patent portfolio of internet appliances, most notably the Electronic Book –a foldable dual-touchscreen computer.

My search for manufacturing partners took me to Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan where an agreement was negotiated with a leading contract electronics firm only to come undone in the 1997 collapse of Southeast Asian currencies and economies.

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Towers in 2001 abruptly altered the direction of my professional path from international consulting to community service.

When I heard the news, I immediately ventured outside to donate blood only to learn that all bridges and tunnels were closed to traffic, and that hospitals were not accepting donations as a security measure to protect blood supplies.

That afternoon I arranged to meet with the principal of the Duke Ellington Elementary School across the street from my home to volunteer my services as an educator and help young students cope with the trauma and was immediately hired as a substitute English teacher.

Within a few months I was recruited as a tenured teacher at the Mirabel Sisters School (IS 90 (M)) an underperforming, atrisk school in neighboring Washington Heights. My life took a radical new course.

At the Mirabel Sisters school I noted that the writing of my 8th grade students was dull and tedious. They wrote about people and events but rarely about ideas. Shouldn’t middle school students be transitioning to abstract reasoning and critical thinking?

This was particularly challenging since most of our students were non-native English speakers. So, what were the most important conceptual words worth learning in the English Language that might boost student communication and performance across all subject areas?

This was the challenge that piqued my interest in the theory and practice of Construct Literacy and led to its first implementation.

I obtained funding under a Title VII after-school curriculum development grant to work with two other new teachers – a former physician and an environmental scientist— to validate my theory.

Relying on expert judgement, we three researchers generated a list of science=based concepts that we determined to have “universal” meaning across all subject areas. We developed teacher support materials and introduced a “Construct of the Week” campaign encouraging all teachers to use that construct in their classrooms as a sort of Lingua Franca to promote interdisciplinary learning across the school.

The next September I learned that the school had failed to meet state standards in mathematics and reading and was restructured into three smaller entities, and I was reassigned to the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR), the permanent substitute teacher pool for District 6.

My years as a substitute teacher were challenging and rewarding. I thought of myself as an unofficial “visiting scholar” who enjoyed enough freedom and flexibility around the syllabus to focus more on doing remedial, foundational work when needed, and motivating and inspiring students to expand their horizons, to think big picture, and embrace personal planning. The students respectfully gave me the “handle” OG/Ph.D. I also served for two years as a General Educator with the District 3 Special Education Committee.

During this time, I continued to pursue my interest in Construct Literacy, presented a paper to the American Education Research Association (AERA), and worked with software developers to build early prototypes of a web portal to empirically validate and surf 100 universal constructs
across a multi-dimensional space.

Constructopedia is my latest approach to promoting construct literacy in the form of a web-based learning application. In addition to its empirical focus on learning the most important science-based concepts in the English language it uses a browsing method called constructive surfing to provide the bonus of interdisciplinary learning without the onus of laborious planning and coordination needed for interdisciplinary teaching.

With the nationwide collapse of the four decades-old Balanced Literacy system of reading instruction, a window has opened for instructional designers with new teaching/learning strategies that are consistent with the Science of Reading approach gathering momentum to displace it. This new approach emphasizes science-based theories and empirically tested practices shown to be effective. It comprises five key components: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency. Vocabulary, and Comprehension.

With this new horizon in view, I am buoyed by the prospects of Constructopedia being included among promising next-generation tools by schools and districts to improve reading instruction and vocabulary development in the United States and will work tirelessly to make it happen.