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.

Facilitators:KayLynn Hamilton, Workforce Development Specialist at The Pennsylvania State UniversityFrom career awareness to digital literacy, adult education programs are increasing their efforts to provide opportunities for adults to gain necessary skills for facing an uncertain job market. Join this professional development opportunity to examine tools and techniques for practitioners to include in their practice to support their students, especially when working with adults who may need re-tooling after job displacement or adults entering the job market for the first time. Topics will include career awareness, career goal setting, workforce preparation, and sector focused and integrated instruction. 

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. 

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

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