California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project

March 21, 2018

How can adult educators integrate employability skills into instruction 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 webinar provides a brief overview of the middle skills jobs landscape, both nationally and in California, and an employability skills framework. The presenter highlights strategies and hands-on resources to connect the needed employability skills for these jobs within adult education settings.

September 28, 2017

Facilitator: Esther Prins and Carol Clymer - Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy

Career pathways (CP) has become a popular buzzword, but we know little about how adult education providers are integrating CP into their services, how programs are designed, who they serve, what kinds of outcomes they are achieving, and how these are measured. This webinar will present findings from a researcher-practitioner partnership project that mapped the landscape of adult education career pathways in Chicago, Houston, and Miami. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the project included the Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy at Penn State, Chicago Citywide Literacy Coalition, Houston Center for Literacy, and Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

May 11, 2017

This webinar will provide an overview of results from a recently released study called the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) Prison Study. This study provides information on skills and competencies of incarcerated adults, and compares them to those of adults in U.S. households. The study also includes information on the extent of inmates' participation in formal education and job training programs.

Compared to the household population, the incarcerated population is disproportionately male, Black, and Hispanic and has lower levels of education. A large majority (94 percent) of incarcerated adults have no more education than a high school degree (and many have less) compared to 64 percent of adults in the general U.S. household population. Compared to the U.S. household average, incarcerated adults' literacy scores are significantly lower (by 21 points) and their average numeracy scores are significantly lower (by 35 points). About 20 percent of incarcerated adults are currently studying for a formal degree, with 70 percent of those currently not studying reporting they would like to enroll in an education program.

January 24, 2017

In October 2016, the American Institutes for Research, under contract with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, published the English Language Proficiency Standards for Adult Education (ELP Standards for AE). This report presents and explains the ELP Standards for AE and their relevance to adult education programs. This webinar will provide an introduction to the standards, explain the development process (including guiding principles and design parameters), and provide an overview of the structure, use, and supports for the standards that are found in the report. These supports include two views of the standards with their correspondences to the College and Career Readiness Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy, and Mathematical and Science Practices, scenarios that provide examples of instruction based on the standards, a glossary of key terms, and examples of instructional scaffolds and supports for learners at varying levels of English language proficiency. The intended audience for the webinar, and for the report itself, is broad and includes all practitioners involved in the education of adult English Language Learners.

October 13, 2016

Facilitated by Mariann Fedele-McLeod (Project Director, LINCS ESL Pro), this session will introduce the three suites of new evidence-based resources created as part of the LINCS ESL Pro project. The project conducted by the American Institutes for Research was funded by OCTAE. Each suite addresses an important topic associated with instruction for Adult ELLs: 1) Meeting the Language Needs of Today's English Language Learners 2) Integrating Digital Literacy into English Language Instruction 3) Preparing English Learners for Work and Career Pathways The suites each include an issue brief, online learning modules, and a companion learning resource. The resources are designed as professional development tools that can be used for groups of educators working collaboratively, or for independent study. These resources, which include customization features, are intended to build the capacity of teachers, programs, and states to improve and sustain the effectiveness of adult ELL instruction. We will offer examples of effective professional development that utilizes the resources learned through a multi-state technical assistance effort.

May 4, 2016

Facilitator: Heide Spruck Wrigley, PhD, Senior Researcher and President of Literacywork International

The coming years will present an interesting challenge for Adult Education in terms of how to prepare students for jobs that pay family-sustaining wages through career pathways. In this webinar, Heide Spruck Wrigley, PhD, Senior Researcher and President of Literacywork International, presented approaches and models that have been used successfully in the field. Each of these have inherent advantages and challenges, but the models can be adapted to meet the needs of different subgroups, including the needs of low-skilled English learners.

March 14, 2016

Facilitator: Jodi Crandall, Professor Emerita of Education and former Director of the Ph.D. program in Language, Literacy and Culture at UMBC

What does teacher effectiveness mean? In this webinar, we will discuss what teacher effectiveness is and its importance in the context of adult education. The Adult Education Teacher Competencies and professional development around these competencies are one way adult education teachers can develop the teacher effectiveness they need to help their students be successful, not as measured by test scores but by the achievement of broader goals.

September 2015

Presenter: Mariann Fedele-McLeod is Principal Researcher at the American Institutes for Research (AIR)

There is a growing body of evidence that having an effective teacher is the single most important factor in student success. In this session, Mariann Fedele-McLeod from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) discusses the Adult Education Teacher Competencies developed the through the Promoting Teacher Effectiveness in Adult Education project, under a contract with the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE). The competencies identify the knowledge and skills expected of any adult education teacher. They also offer a structured approach to determining the knowledge and skills that adult education teachers still need to develop and the professional development activities that will help them to acquire them.

May 2015

Presenter: Dr. John Tibbetts, consultant to the American Institutes for Research for 20 years, is co-founder of San Francisco State University's Center for Adult Education. Dr. Tibbetts has authored many research publications and has taught adult education at the University of Auckland and University of Southern Maine.

In his presentation, Dr. John Tibbetts, co-founder of the San Francisco State University Center for Adult Education and a CALPRO consultant, shifted the focus from instructional practice to student learning. Among the questions Dr. Tibbetts addressed were: Which leadership approach, what instructional facilitation, and what student activities most improve student learning? What supports do students need and what should learners be doing to achieve maximum learning? How do we verify student learning gains?

April 2015

Presenter: Dr. Anestine Hector-Mason serves in several leadership capacities as Director of several federally funded projects for AIR. She is a member of AIR's Institutional Review Board (IRB) and an Editor for the Adults Learning Maths Journal ? an international peer reviewed journal on adult mathematics literacy. With over 19 years of experience in English language learning at the kindergarten through college and adult education levels, Dr. Hector-Mason has strong expertise in teaching as well as in qualitative research design, methodology, theory, and large scale document and content analyses.

In this session Dr. Anestine Hector-Mason from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) discussed Evidence Based Instruction (EBI), including the core principles and literature base that informs this type of practice in the field of education. The presentation introduced the concept and then led into a broader discussion centering on the practice of evidence-based instruction within the field of adult education. The presentation concluded with critical questions vis-�-vis the practice of EBI within the field of adult education.

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