Regional Professional Development
Communities of Practice
To provide opportunities for California adult educators to interact regularly and to engage in extended collective learning, CALPRO is offering regionally based professional learning opportunities using a Community of Practice (CoP) model across subject matter and topics essential to meeting the goals of the California adult basic education system. In the blended-learning CoPs, participants meet for two face-to-face (or synchronous online) sessions. As part of the CoP activities, participants access online resources via Moodle before, between, and after their face-to-face/synchronous training sessions to participate in activities designed to extend their learning and support their implementation of new practices with their students. Fully virtual or HyFlex CoPs may be offered on selected topics.
Tailored Regional Communities of Practice
Tailored Regional CoPs support the unique needs of educational agencies, districts, or consortia and offer a responsive, flexible, and engaging approach to professional development. The available topics are highly relevant to California adult education agencies, from instructional strategies to career pathway development. When tailored to the specific needs of an educational agency, school district, or regional adult education consortium, these CoPs offer targeted support that aligns directly with organizational objectives and encourages meaningful change and growth. Tailoring can be done by adjusting the overall training length, modality (e.g., in-person, online, or HyFlex), focus areas depending on the target audience, or by integrating multiple topics to address intersecting priorities. This tailored approach allows CALPRO to help educational agencies balance professional development with operational needs, ensuring minimal disruption while maintaining the quality of learning.
Regional Training
CALPRO also offers 1–2-day, 3+ hour on-site workshops on an available topics below.
If your consortium or agency would like to host a regional professional development event, please contact calpro@air.org.
What You Need to Know
Host a CALPRO Training
For more than a decade, CALPRO has trained California adult educators to deliver professional development on various topics.
CALPRO will:
- Identify and pay for the workshop facilitator’s travel and honorarium when your agency hosts a regional community of practice.
- List the workshop on the CALPRO Event Calendar.
- Advertise the workshop.
- Manage registration.
- Provide copies of the participant handout packet for the number of registered participants.
- Provide blank sign-in sheets and evaluation forms for facilitators to distribute and collect.
What are the responsibilities of the hosting agency/site?
- E-mail certificates of attendance to participants.
- Open registration to teachers and administrators from other eligible agencies.
- Register at a minimum 8 participants from your agency and/or other eligible agencies in your region prior to the start of the training.
Which training topics are available?
New!
- Fundamentals of Adult Education Instruction
General Instructional Strategies
- Universal Design for Learning: Developing Programs for Adults with Learning Disabilities
- Motivation and Persistence for Adult Learners
- Civic Engagement through Democratic Literacy
Adult Basic Education/Adult Secondary Education
- Using Questioning Strategies to Improve Instruction Adult Basic Education/Adult Secondary Education
- College and Career Readiness Standards: English Language Arts (ELA) Implementation and Application
- Evidence-Based Writing Instruction in the ABE Classroom
English as a Second Language
- Evidence-Based Writing Instruction in the ESL Classroom
- Managing the ESL Multilevel Class
- Mastering the English Language Proficiency Standards
- Optimizing ESL Instructional Planning: Management, Monitoring, and Reflection
- Supporting Immigrant Integration through Civics Education
Workforce Skills and Career Pathways
- Supporting Student Transitions to Postsecondary Education and the Workforce
- Accelerated Learning to Facilitate Career Pathways
- Collaborative Curriculum Alignment
- Integrated and Contextualized Workforce Skills in the ABE/ASE Classroom
- Integrated and Contextualized Workforce Skills in the ESL Classroom
- Integrated Education and Training (IET)
Community of Practice
Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly (Wenger-Trayner, 2015).
Blended Instruction
In regional CoPs, participants meet for two face-to-face (or synchronous online) sessions. Before, between, and after their face-to-face/synchronous training sessions, CoP members access additional online resources via Moodle and participate in activities designed to extend their learning and support their implementation of new practices with their learners. Fully virtual or HyFlex CoPs may be offered on selected topics.
Time Commitment
CALPRO’s CoPs require an average total of 16-20 hours of professional learning.
Shift in Culture
Communities of Practice place a strong emphasis on supporting educators in implementing new skills. This greater emphasis on implementation may involve one or more shifts in culture.
Benefits of Participating in a CALPRO Regional CoP
- Opportunity to interact with other teachers or administrators and trainers online and in-person to share classroom experiences and problem solve
- Support and help to implement training in the classroom
- Ability to identify and serve the needs of students
- Ways to help students improve their skills and meet their personal goals
- Increase of professional knowledge in targeted topic
- Access to additional resources that extend the learning beyond the CoP
- Working together as a school team to make changes, identify challenges and solve problems
On-Site Regional Training
CALPRO also offers 1–2-day, 3+ hour workshops on an available topic below. CALPRO will send a trained facilitator to your agency/consortium site.
ABE/ASE
- College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS)
- CCRS 2: ELA Implementation and Application
- Evidence-Based Writing Instruction for ABE/ASE
- Math Instructional Strategies
ESL
- Mastering the English Language Proficiency (ELP) Standards
- Optimizing ESL Instructional Planning: Management, Monitoring, and Reflection
- Managing the ESL Multilevel Class
Instructional Strategies
- Motivation and Persistence for Adult Learners
- Universal Design for Learning: Developing Programs for Adults with Learning Disabilities
- Using Questioning Strategies to Improve Instruction
Transitions
- Supporting Student Transitions to Postsecondary Education and the Workforce
Workforce
- Accelerated Learning to Facilitate Career Pathways
- Integrated and Contextualized Workforce Skills in the ABE/ASE Classroom
- Integrated and Contextualized Workforce Skills in the ESL Classroom
- Integrated Education and Training (IET)
Motivation and Persistence for Adult Learners
Increasing reading, writing, and oral communication skills enough to succeed in job training, job promotions, and postsecondary education requires persistence. Research reveals numerous strategies that can make a difference. This training examines nine of these strategies and offers adult educators the opportunity to practice and internalize them.
Using Questioning Strategies to Improve Instruction
This training supports teachers to develop questioning strategies that foster higher-level thinking skills in their students.
College and Career Readiness Standards: English Language Arts (ELA) Implementation and Application
This training provides an in-depth exploration of the College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) and how to align what occurs in the classroom with these standards. to support teachers, administrators, and programs as they work to implement and align with the CCRS.
Evidence-Based Writing Instruction in the ABE Classroom
This COP is focused on writing instruction for intermediate and advanced level adult basic education (ABE) students. The information provided in this training is intended to guide teachers of these adult learning communities to prepare and deliver instruction, including appropriate instructional supports that promote student achievement.
Evidence-Based Writing Instruction in the ESL Classroom
This COP is focused on writing instruction for intermediate and advanced-level English as a second language (ESL) students. The information provided in this training is intended to guide teachers of these adult learning communities to prepare and deliver instruction, including appropriate instructional supports that promote student achievement.
Managing the ESL Multilevel Class
It can be challenging for instructors to provide level-appropriate, engaging instruction for all students in an ESL Multilevel class. At the completion of this Community of Practice, participants will embrace the ESL Multilevel class and facilitate level-appropriate, engaging instruction for all students.
Mastering the English Language Proficiency Standards
ESL instructors can benefit from familiarity with and reliance on the English Language Proficiency (ELP) Standards for Adult Education (AE) to guide instruction toward the increased rigor and skills necessary for successful transition to work or to postsecondary training or further education and for participation in communities that adult learners need.
Optimizing ESL Instructional Planning: Management, Monitoring, and Reflection
This training presents an optimal process for instructional planning, through management, monitoring, and reflection. The CoP supports participants in integrating the research-based strategies and activities into their instructional practices and offers further suggestions for using this process in the ESL classroom.
Accelerated Learning to Facilitate Career Pathways
This training is framed in the context of developing and sustaining career pathways and focuses on strategies that programs may use to make the rapid attainment of short-term and long-term career goals for students on a particular career path as efficient and effective as possible.
Integrated and Contextualized Workforce Skills in the ABE/ASE Classroom
This training provides background to educators for teaching skills transferable from the classroom to the workplace and explicitly teaching how to articulate those skills. The training offers ideas for hands-on application of transferable skills in adult basic education (ABE) and adult secondary education (ASE) classrooms.