Contributors' Biographies

Mary Ellen Belfiore has been involved in adult education since the early 1970s beginning with ESL and moving into workplace and literacy in the mid 1980s. She has worked in a variety of settings (community, workplace, college, university) as a teacher, researcher, writer, facilitator and always as a learner. She co-authored Teaching English in Workplace, English at Work: A Tool Kit for Teachers and authored/edited Understanding Curriculum Development in the Workplace and Chronicling the Learning Curve (a collection of stories from workplace educators).

Tracy Defoe is a workplace education consultant with a special interest in new challenges. Her career in adult education began in 1978 and has included job titles such as Instructor, Curriculum Developer, Head Teacher, Program Designer, Content Expert, Program Coordinator, Researcher, Writer, Consultant and Mentor. Since 1989 she has focussed on learning at work. Tracy has worked with people in a wide range of workplaces from factories to hospitals, credit unions to government offices, sawmills and lumber camps to hotels and high tech computer companies, and all three levels of government. Tracy holds a Master of Arts degree in Education (Curriculum and Instruction) and a Bachelors in French. She is passionate about learning context, and about plain language and clear design. Both of these themes are signature elements in her writing and curricula.

Sue Folinsbee has worked in the field of workplace education since 1986. She has played a number of different roles including instructor, curriculum developer, researcher, joint committee facilitator, project manager, program evaluator and writer. For the last two years, she has operated a national consultancy through her company Tri En Communications in Toronto. Previous to that, she was Director of Workplace Education at ABC CANADA for six years. Sue has been involved in various aspects of workplace education all across Canada and in various parts of the United States. She has been involved in the publication of numerous practitioner resources and professional papers promoting a collaborative approach to workplace education. Presently she is working towards a Master of Adult Education degree with a focus on workplace literacy through St. Francis Xavier University.

Paul Jurmo has been an adult educator since the mid-1970s, when he began five years in village literacy programs in West Africa. He served as senior program associate from 1984 through 1990 at the Business Council for Effective Literacy in New York. He earned a doctorate in nonformal education from the University of Massachusetts in 1987, with a dissertation on participatory approaches to literacy education in the U.S. Since 1991, he has been executive director of Learning Partnerships, a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization which provides research, evaluation, curriculum development, policy analysis, staff training, and Internet connections to adult literacy efforts inside and outside the U.S.