California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project

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. 

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.

Course Description :

Do you wonder how to integrate employability skills into your adult education setting to support workforce preparation for middle skills jobs? Employability skills also referred to as 21st-century workplace skills, soft-skills or non-cognitive skills, are needed by our adult education students for readiness and success regardless of the industry or job position. This course will provide an overview of the middle skills jobs landscape, an employability skills framework and highlight strategies and hands-on resources to connect the needed employability skills for these jobs within the adult education setting (estimated course completion time: up to 15 hours).

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

Goals :
By the end of the course, participants will be able to: • Define “middle-skill jobs” and provide several examples. • Define “employability skills” and explain why they are important. • Categorize employability skills using the Employability Skills Framework. • Describe the connections between the Employability Skills Framework and the College and Career Readiness (CCR) Standards for Adult Education. • Apply the Employability Skills Framework to their lesson plans to identify ways to improve their instruction.

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.