California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project

Workshop Description :
This course will examine nine strategies that help learners persist and offer adult educators the opportunity to practice and internalize them. The course focuses on motivation and persistence and is relevant for teachers and instructional leaders from all content areas within adult education. This course takes place entirely online and runs for four consecutive weeks, starting July 24, 2023. Weekly participation is required, though participants may, during a given week, log in whenever they wish. A kick-off Webinar will take place during the first week. Participants who successfully complete this course will receive a certificate of participation (14 hours); they are also eligible to apply to California State University Sacramento for 1.4 Continuing Education Units if they wish.

Goals :
There are a number of research-based strategies for helping adults persist in reaching their education goals. The goal of this course is to expose teachers to nine of these strategies, provide opportunities for practice, and encourage the incorporation of these strategies into instructional practice.

Registration Information :
There is no registration fee to participate; CALPRO professional development opportunities are available to all California Adult Education Program (CAEP) agencies and employees.

Contact Information :
Please contact calpro@air.org with any questions.

Course Description:
This course examines how adults learn and the implications for adult literacy programs. It explores the unique characteristics of adult learners as well as adult motivation, needs, and self-concept and their effect on learning. The course also explores adult development and the implications for effective teaching. This course takes place entirely online and runs for four consecutive weeks. Weekly participation is required, though participants may, during a given week, log in whenever they wish. A 1-hour, kick-off Webinar will take place during the first week of the course. Participants who successfully complete this course will receive a certificate of participation (14 hours); they are also eligible to apply to CSUS for 1.4 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) if they wish.

Goals:
The goal of this course is to help participants gain a general understanding of adult learning and development so that they can design and deliver instruction that is responsive to the needs of adult learners.

Registration Information:
There is no registration fee to participate; CALPRO professional development opportunities are available to all California Adult Education Program (CAEP) agencies and employees.

Contact Information:
Please contact calpro@air.org with any questions.

How can you prepare your learners to succeed in the workforce? Find out what employers say are essential skills for today's workforce. This series shows you how to connect transferable skills in the classroom to the workplace. There are two sessions; each session is broken into two parts (4 webinars total). This series will provide background on skills transferable from the classroom to the workplace and to teach students how to articulate those skills. 

Registration information: This event is not currently scheduled. Registration will become available once this topic is scheduled. 

Critical thinking is an essential skill found in both the College and Career Readiness Standards and the English Language Proficiency Standards for Adult Education. Critical thinking skills are needed in every facet of our lives, and in particular as we are inundated with more information from a variety of dependable and undependable sources. This online workshop will prepare you to include a variety of critical thinking strategies in your adult education classes. It is presented in three 1.5 hour webinars. 

Registration information: This event is not currently scheduled. Registration will become available once this topic is scheduled. 

What Is A Professional Learning Community (PLC)?

“A professional learning community is educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve” (adapted from DuFour, Learning by Doing).

A PLC is committed to processes that help all students learn by collaborative teams working together to address the following critical questions:

1. What do we want students to learn?
2. How will we know if they have learned it?
3. What will we do if they don’t learn it?
4. What will we do if they already know it?

CALPRO PLC Institute

CALPRO will once again offers an intensive, multi-session PLC Institute for teams of program administrators and professional development specialists/lead teachers to learn to improve student learning outcomes by establishing professional learning communities. CALPRO typically accepts up to 8 programs a year for this institute. Each of the selected agencies will send a team of three to include its agency director and two teachers (and/or administrators designated to serve as professional development practitioners) to participate in the initiative.

Why Attend The CALPRO Professional Learning Community Institute?

A Professional Learning Community can help schools improve and be more accountable by impacting teaching and learning. The power of professional learning communities (PLCs) to improve schools is well documented but according to research, understanding and implementation can be inconsistent. Join us at the CALPRO PLC Institute to explore the core characteristics and processes on how to effectively implement a professional learning community that focuses on student learning outcomes and create a system for sustainable school improvement.

Benefits Of Participating In The PLC Institute:

• Shift school culture to focus on learning results.
• Develop PLC processes of inquiry to achieve better results for the students you serve.
• Establish collaborative teams to identify essential student learning.
• Work collaboratively to develop common formative assessments for learning.
• Work collaboratively to analyze evidence of student learning and use that evidence to learn from one another.
• Embed professional development that fosters the ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research.
• Eighteen months of PLC implementation coaching support

Who Is Eligible To Apply?

Any California Department of Education, Adult Education Office WIA Title II, or California Adule Education Program (CAEP) funded agency may apply. The Agency Director/Principal and a nominated lead teacher or PD staff member will participate as a team in the CALPRO Professional Learning Community Institute.

For More Information

For more information, contact coordinator Sudie Whalen.

The California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project (CALPRO), in conjunction with the California Department of Education (CDE), annually seeks nominations and applications for the California Adult Education Leadership Institute (the Institute). We seek aspiring and new administrators (defined as three or fewer years) for the Institute. 

This is an opportunity for your organization to nominate an aspiring or new administrator from your adult education program to attend. We accept up to 24 participants in the Institute annually. Priority registration is given to nominees with the most recent appointment date to their administrative position. 

Nearly 700 of California’s leading adult educators have participated in this program since its inception in 1985. The Institute covers topics and skills that new and aspiring adult education administrators need to perform their jobs effectively. Topics for the Institute will focus on:

 Fiscal and Personnel Management 

• Collaborations and Partnerships 
• Career Pathways 
• Data Analysis and Data-Based Decision-Making 
• Public Relations and Program Marketing 
• The California Adult Education Program 
• Strategic Planning 
• Instructional Leadership  
• The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) 

Institute participants have numerous opportunities to engage with experienced and new adult education administrators, representatives from CDE, and the three State Leadership Projects (OTAN, CASAS, and CALPRO). The Institute also includes nine months of coaching support after the training concludes. 

For more information, contact coordinator Cherise Moore.

The California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project (CALPRO) and the California Department of Education are pleased to offer a unique professional learning opportunity! Join other agency teams of ESL instructors, CTE instructors, and program administrators for an Integrated Education and Training (IET) Implementation Clinic. 

FORMAT
There are five principal features of this unique online professional learning opportunity, which is open to up to 8 agency teams (each team is composed of 3 staff members).

1) Two day-long virtual training sessions. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in interactive planning and curriculum development activities as well as to share best practices.

2) Live, interactive discussion through three 75-minute online webinars with engaging guest speakers, seasoned facilitators, peer mentors, and colleagues from around the state (see below for complete details). In each meeting we will:

• Highlight the relevancy and value of the featured topic for the work that we do
• Explore best and promising practices in the featured topic
• Learn from subject matter experts and peer mentors on effective related strategies
• Share successes and common challenges with fellow teachers and program administrators
• Get help on solving issues we face

Topics will be tailored to the needs of the participating practitioners and identified through the application process and may include:

• Starting Strong: Developing the Team Teaching Partnership
• Co-Teaching & Alternating Teaching: Which Model, Why, And How?
• Developing a Single Set of Learning Objectives & Integrating Lesson Plans
• Building an Integrated Syllabus
• Promising Intake & Onboarding Strategies for lET
• Action Planning: Process considerations, potential challenges, and solutions to address challenges.
• IET and Distance Learning: Considerations & Strategies

3) Ongoing online discussions, sharing, and resource creation through a designated private group within CALPRO’s online Community of Practice.

4) Completion of a capstone project and presentation of the project at the second day-long session.

5) Coaching now included! IET clinic participating teams will now have the support of an IET implementation coach to support you for nine months upon completion of the IET clinic. 

For more information, contact calpro@air.org. 

WHAT AND WHERE? 

CALPRO annually conducts the Training-of-Trainers (ToT) Institute for the new community of practice (CoP) at the CALPRO office in Sacramento. The purposes of the ToT Institute are: 

1. To develop a group of certified trainers to facilitate presentations of CALPRO professional learning modules 
2. To build professional development capacity and leadership in California adult education.

WHAT IS CALPRO’S COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE INITIATIVE AND HOW DOES IT IMPACT THE ToT?
Communities of Practice are formed by groups of professionals who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain (adapted from Wenger, 2002). CALPRO’s Communities of Practice (CoP) Initiative aims to increase the field’s focus on supported implementation of skills, strategies and action plans that participants develop in CALPRO trainings and institutes. 

For each CoP training, an online community is established. Participants meet each other and begin learning together online; they continue to build community, knowledge and skills in the face-to-face training sessions; and they have the option of continuing to support each other’s efforts to apply new learning after the conclusion of the face-to-face sessions. CALPRO CoP trainers facilitate the entire process, including online and face-to-face sessions. 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
The ToT is open to applicants from all California Adult Education Program (CAEP) funded agencies (see page 2). The ToT is for individuals who will commit to following up on the ToT by presenting the module for their agency, for their region, or for CALPRO at least once within a year of the ToT. 

WHAT ARE EXPECTATIONS OF PARTICIPANTS?
Participants will be expected to complete pre-Institute assignments online. Participants are expected to attend the entire ToT Institute – no exceptions –  and demonstrate facilitation skills in practice sessions during the ToT. After completing the ToT, participants are expected to be available to facilitate training at their agency, at other agencies, or at CDE- or CALPRO-organized events within a year of the ToT. Trainers will receive an honorarium for training conducted. 

WHAT’S IN IT FOR MY AGENCY? 
Your agency will have trained facilitator(s) on your staff who can serve as an in-house content specialist. Your agency will have increased capacity to provide high quality professional learning opportunities. 

WHICH AGENCIES ARE ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE? 
Employees of all California Adult Education Program (CAEP) funded agencies are eligible to apply. For more information, contact coordinator Marcela Movit. 

Course Description :

This is the first of two online courses from the California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project (CALPRO) on designing literacy programs to be responsive to the needs of adults with learning disabilities. This first session is an awareness session that will help adult educators understand what learning disabilities are and recognize the characteristics and consequences of those disabilities in the learning environment, whether classroom-based, tutor-led, or technology-based distance learning. This CALPRO online course provides an overview of the assessment process (diagnostic testing versus screening) and outlines the legal rights and responsibilities of the learner and the literacy program (estimated course completion time: up to 15 hours). The second CALPRO course in this series addresses instructional strategies appropriate for teaching adults with learning disabilities. Completion of Session 1 is a pre-requisite for Session 2.

Enrollment verification with Moodle login information will be sent to registrants within one business day of registration.

Goals :
Identify a working definition of learning disabilities; • Recognize common characteristics of adults with LD and their effect on learning; • Distinguish between screening and diagnostic testing and the uses of each; • Identify the importance of self-determination, self-advocacy, and disclosure to successful learners and workers; • Recognize the rights and responsibilities of learners with LD as well as of literacy providers; • Begin the process of identifying and bringing about necessary changes to make programs more responsive to adults with LD.

Registration Information :
This course is free of charge to all California adult education programs.

Contact Information :
Please contact CALPRO at calprohelp@air.org or at 916-286-8803 for more information.

Hosted by Los Angeles City College

Civic Education and Democratic Literacy play a pivotal role in empowering students to become engaged and informed citizens. Individuals equipped with this knowledge understand political and civic systems, allowing them to navigate these systems effectively and contribute meaningfully to the improvement of their communities.  

The goal of this CoP is to enhance the capacity of adult educators and programs to provide instruction that amplifies student perspective and voice, builds civic engagement, and dives deep into participatory approaches to democratic processes for adults including those who are developing literacy and language skills.

Date: 1/10/2025

Time: 10 a.m.- 1 p.m.

Location: LACC 

Room: TBD

Registration Information:
This tailored regional CoP is hosted by Los Angeles City College. Participants from neighboring districts or regions may be admitted on a space-available basis. 
There is no registration fee to participate; CALPRO professional development opportunities are available to all California Adult Education Program (CAEP) agencies and employees.