What is the essence of the lived experiences of Pennsylvania Distance Learning Educators in Adult ESL that have led them to building skills and understanding the andragogy and learning sciences to effectively deliver online instruction with Adult ESL students in Pennsylvania’s Adult Basic Literacy Programs? 
In addition, the following subset of questions will be explored:

1.     How do Pennsylvania Distance Learning Educators in Adult ESL describe their professional development experiences to support adult ESL students during online teaching and learning?

2.     How do Pennsylvania Distance Learning educators in Adult ESL perceive their role in engagement and social interactions with students during instruction in an online learning environment? 

3.     What challenges exist for educators in transferring instructional strategies from professional development into practice for Adult ESL online learners? 

This study seeks to understand how the learning sciences and social interaction have been transforming teachers’ practice as they plan for instruction, instruct, assess, and monitor student work. Ensuring that teachers become knowledgeable in the use of research-based strategies for instruction is one of the major goals of teacher effectiveness. It is crucial that teachers feel well-informed and optimistic of the benefits that professional development offers for instruction. Student success depends on an educator’s ability to access current and relevant information.  

Brain-based education: is best understood in three words: engagement, strategies, and principles. It is the engagement of strategies based on principles derived from and understanding the process of the brain. (Jensen, 2008). 

Community of Practice (CoP): a community of learners that develop shared norms and practices through their collective activities and experiences (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Distance Learning: is defined in the Technical Assistance Guide for Performance Accountability under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act: National Reporting System for Adult Education as a formal learning activity in which the students and instructors are separated by geography, time, or both. 

Mind, Brain, Education Science is the “study of how humans learn best in order to develop more effective teaching methods” (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2011, p. 14). 

Neuroplasticity: The ability of the brain’s synapses, neurons, dendrites, and myelin-coated axons to change their properties in response to usage (stimulation). When there is repeated stimulation of a circuit of linked neurons, the connections become more developed, resulting in more efficient retrieval of the information they hold (McTighe & Willis, 2019, p 166). 

Pedagogy: derived from the Greek words Paid, meaning “child” and agogus, meaning “leader of.” Thus, pedagogy literally means the art and science of teaching children (Knowles, Holton III, & Swanson, 2015). 

Professional Development: defined as those processes and activities designed to enhance the professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes of educators so that they might, in turn, improve the learning of students (Guskey, 2000). 

System: an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something (Meadows, 2008).

Systems Thinking: simply means stepping back and seeing patterns that are, when seen clearly, intuitive and easy to grasp (Senge, Smith, Kruschwitz, Laur, & Schley (2010).