CALIFORNIA ADULT LITERACY
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Adult Education Leadership Institute

Goal

The Adult Education Leadership Institute is a two-year leadership development program offered to California’s new (three years or fewer) adult education administrators.

The goal of the Leadership Institute is to enable adult education administrators to gain effective management and quality leadership skills that will enhance their capacity to operate an adult education program. Ultimately, the Leadership Institute helps to ensure that California has strong adult education leadership for the future.

Content

The program focuses on developing participants’ skills along two primary dimensions: Effective Management and Quality Leadership. The first year of the Institute covers topics and skills that new adult education administrators need to perform their jobs effectively. For example, Year One topics under Effective Management include Budgeting and Fiscal Management, Accountability, Increasing Benchmarks, Identifying Funding Sources, Marketing and Public Relations, Personnel Management, and Grant Writing, while topics under Quality Leadership include Creating a Shared Vision, Team Building, Community Asset Mapping, Building Community Support, Planning for Your Staff’s Professional Growth, Effective Decision-Making, and the Leader’s Role in the Change Process. Year Two of the Institute structures each day’s program to reflect one of the components of the Adult Education Programs of Excellence application process: Curriculum and Instruction, Learner Outcomes, Leadership and Planning, Learner Support Services, and Community Involvement and Collaboration.

Expectations of Participants

Attend all sessions, five days a year for each of two years. There is a two-day session in February and a three-day session in July. Complete all assignments. Those who successfully complete all requirements of the Leadership Institute receive certificates of completion and are recognized at the annual ACSA Adult Education Conference in September. 

Timeline for 2009-2010 Leadership Institute

Please check our Web site in August for the 2009-2010 Leadership Institute timeline and application.

Programs of Excellence: Process for Continuous Program Improvement

Each year the California Department of Education identifies and recognizes exemplary adult education programs through its Programs of Excellence Awards.

Go to the Programs of Excellence Web page below to learn more about using the Programs of Excellence quality indicators for continuous program improvement.

CALPRO Workshops

As part of a move towards site-based professional development, the California Department of Education is making CALPRO research-based adult education workshops available to all California adult schools and WIA Title II funded agencies.

The California Department of Education and CALPRO encourage local adult education agencies to use these workshops for site-based professional development opportunities for their staff members.

Over the past seven years, CALPRO has trained more than 180 California adult educators to deliver workshops on various topics. These facilitators are available at your request to help you ensure that your teaching staff continues to grow professionally.

Click on the link below to download the fact sheet.

• Fact Sheet for Site Administrators: Process for Scheduling CALPRO Workshops [PDF]

Online Courses

CALPRO offers online courses. These discussion-based courses are facilitated (i.e., they have an instructor who poses questions and responds to participants), and they also are asynchronous (i.e., participants do not need to log on at a specified time during the week; instead, they can complete the weekly tasks at their convenience).

For a description of each online course, check the CALPRO Online Course Description page. For more information about CALPRO online courses, go to the Online Courses Web page.

Online courses of special interest to administrators are:

• Just-in-Time Leadership: Smart Fiscal Management for Adult School Administrators
• Enhancing Learner Persistence
• Understanding the Adult Learner, Session 1: Adult Learning and Development
• Designing Programs for Adults with Learning Disabilities, Session 1: Awareness for Adult Educators

Site-Based Professional Development

Administrators interested in supporting the professional growth of their staff may take advantage of one or more of the following:

Learning Communities for Site-Based Professional Development

CALPRO offers intensive, multi-session training for program administrators and professional development specialists/lead teachers to learn to establish professional learning communities among staff, assess staff professional development needs, and draft an agency professional development plan.

CALPRO accepts up to 12 programs a year for this program.

Study Circle Facilitator Training

Study circles provide practitioners the opportunity to meet on a regular basis to read research, reflect on new ideas, and consider how to apply what they have learned to their classroom practice.

CALPRO periodically invites practitioners to attend the full-day study circle facilitator trainings. Facilitators then return to their schools to conduct site-based study circles using guides created by the National Center for the Study of Adult learning and Literacy (NCSALL).

Go to the Study Circles Web page for more information about Study Circles training.

Research-Based Publications

CALPRO has published various research digests, summaries, and annotated bibliographies.

Administrators can download these, print them, and distribute to staff, inviting them to read a specific research publication prior to a staff meeting.

At the staff meeting, the administrator can use the Guidelines for Facilitating Discussion Groups to conduct one-hour discussions among staff on the topic of the publication.

Download Publications

To view and download publications, go to the Publications Web page.

Resource Guides

CALPRO offers the following online Resource Guides designed for administrators.

• Adult Education Administrator Guide
• Success for Small Adult Schools: A "How to" Guide for Administrators
• Shaking the Funding Tree: A Grant Writing Guide for Literacy Programs

Download Resource Guides

To view and download these guides, please visit the Resource Guide Web page.

LPRP Connections Electronic Discussion List

CALPRO hosts a national electronic discussion list (listserv) on literacy policy, research, and practice. The list presents an opportunity for adult educators to network with researchers and to dialogue about implications of research for policy and practice.

Subscribe to Discussion List

Go to the Literacy Practice, Research and Policy Discussion List - LPRPConnections Web page for more information and instructions on how to subscribe to this free discussion list.

Questions to Consider When Evaluating the Research Basis of Commercially Available Textbooks

CALPRO often fields questions from adult educators about how to determine whether the content of a commercially available textbook is based on research. CALPRO asked members of its Research-to-Practice Task Force to help develop questions to guide teachers and administrators when reviewing and considering textbooks for adoption.

Click on the link below to download the list of questions.

Questions for Evaluating Research Basis of Commercial Text Books [PDF]