California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project

Course Description:Adult education plays a significant role in the lives of immigrants. Often adult education is the first door through which a new immigrant encounters the world of services and supports available to them as they seek to increase their skills to reach their life goals. As described in the white paper by ALLIES on the Immigrant Integration Framework: “Immigrant integration is... a two-way process involving learning and adaptation by both immigrant communities and receiving communities. Broadening an understanding of diverse perspectives and cultural resources ultimately strengthens both the immigrant and receiving communities, and increases the entire community’s capacity to adapt and respond to a changing global environment." This facilitated online course will help educators support immigrants through civics education as understood within the lens of the California Immigrant Integration Initiative and aligned to approved EL Civics metrics.Goals:Participants will be able to locate and adapt Teaching Skills that Matter lesson materials on Civics Education topics in order to support immigrant students at all levels of ESL to become successful members of their communities.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.

Author: Anne Mishkind, CALPROThis brief provides an overview of research on effective teaching that can be applied in multiple settings by a broad range of teachers across diverse settings. Adult education in California takes place in environments including school districts, community colleges, community-based organizations, libraries, and correctional facilities, and serves students with skills that range from basic literacy to international professional training. Across contexts, research finds that effective teaching is enriched by:thoughtful attention to student backgrounds,collecting and using student data to inform the implementation of evidence based practices including (1) learner-centered instruction, (2) rich and contextualized content knowledge, (3) use of standards to inform learning objectives, and (4) attention to foundational skills and higher-order thinking, and planning for professional development that targets specific teacher competencies

Authors: Mariann Fedele-McLeod, Anestine Hector-Mason, Steve Hinds, Rob Jenkins, Maricel Santos, Susan Pimentel, Jodi Crandall, American Institutes for Research, 2015This document outlines the core knowledge and skills that adult education teachers need to succeed in their roles. The Adult Education Teacher Competencies help teachers improve their effectiveness and learner outcomes. They also assist instructional leaders, professional developers, and teacher preparation faculty prepare effective professional development activities for teachers. 

Produced by California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project, 2008; augmented 2018Based on the Management Competencies and Sample Indicators for Improvement of Adult Education Programs (CALPRO, 2025), this self-assessment helps administrators to identify priority areas for targeted professional development, based on their assessment of relevance and current personal capacity across a variety of criteria. In 2018, the self-assessment was augmented with an addendum introduced to identify additional knowledge and skills that program administrators need to possess in order to be effective in today's adult education landscape in California. For each competency and performance indicator, the addendum also suggests professional development resources to assist in building an annual, individualized development plan. Note: This fillable form can be downloaded, saved, and printed (using Adobe Reader or a similar application).

Authors: Renee Sherman, Dionne Dobbins, John Tibbetts, Judith Crocker, and Michael Dlott, American Institutes for Research, March 2002This publication introduces an assessment instrument to help programs implement the management competencies. What follows is a detailed description of the Management Competencies Assessment Instrument (MCAI), including an overview of the various types of evidence that will help verify of the existence of the competencies. To see and use the updated Management Competencies Self-Assessment (2018) visit the following webpage:https://calpro-online.org/resource/management-competencies-self-assessment