CALIFORNIA ADULT LITERACY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Providing Professional Learning to Improve Student Learning

CALPRO provides facilitated and self-directed online courses free of charge to instructors working in programs funded by the California Department of Education, Adult Education Office. Online course participants have the option to log in to an online course at any time to complete coursework.

Facilitated Courses

In these facilitated courses, participants interact with a subject-area expert and a group of colleagues typically over a span of about four weeks, following the course start date. Discussions occur asynchronously: within a given week, participants may log in at their convenience to read and post written comments on a shared discussion board and to complete course activities and assignments.

The objectives of online courses mirror those of the face-to-face workshops of the same name.

Facilitated Online Courses for Teachers

Teachers may enroll in any of the following facilitated online courses:

1. Designing Programs for Adults with Learning Disabilities, Session 1: Understanding Learning Disabilities: Awareness for Adult Educators
2. Designing Programs For Adults With Learning Disabilities, Session 2: Effective Instructional Strategies
3. Effective Lesson Planning
4. Enhancing Learner Persistence
5. Managing the ESL Multilevel Class
6. Integrated and Contextualized Workforce Skills in the ABE/ASE Classroom
7. Integrated and Contextualized Workforce Skills in the ESL Classroom
8. Managing the ESL Multilevel Class
9. Optimizing ESL Instructional Planning: Management, Monitoring, and Reflection
10. Postsecondary Transitions, Session 1: Getting Started: Key Components, Strategies, and Best Practices
11. Postsecondary Transitions, Session 2: From Theory to Practice: Next Steps and Action Plans
12. Understanding the Adult Learner, Session 1: Adult Learning and Development
13. Using Questioning Strategies to Improve Instruction, Session 1: Questioning Strategies that Improve Cognition
14. Integrated Education and Training

Self-directed Courses

Self-directed online courses are entirely self-paced and foster independent learning. No course facilitator leads the course and individuals work on their own, without other participants. Self-directed courses offer great flexibility in professional development: participants may decide when to work on the course and how much of the course they wish to do; registration and the courses themselves are open continuously.

Self-directed Courses for Teachers

Self-directed courses available for teachers include:

1. Adult Learning and Development
2. Learner Goal Setting in Adult Education Programs
3. Learner Persistence
4. Math Instructional Strategies
5. Orientation for New ABE Teachers
6. Orientation for New ESL Teachers

CALPRO offers two types of online training in real time, interactive Online Workshops and Webinars.

Online Workshops

Highly interactive, these online workshops in real time share the same objectives and research basis as their corresponding CALPRO face–to–face workshops. For a list of workshop topics and additional information, visit the Online Workshops page.

Webinars

Among the four series of Webinars, instructors may be especially interested in the Instructors Forum and the Adult Education Research Webinars series. Past Webinars are archived in the Video Library. Additionally, CALPRO’s electronic Community of Practice (e-CoP) sponsors Webinars and maintains an archive of its own Webinars at http://calproecop.groupsite.com. To register for all upcoming Webinars, visit the CALPRO Event Calendar.

CALPRO has updated its instructor competencies self–assessment, based on a nationally validated instrument. Using this tool, teachers rate themselves in up to 31 different competencies spanning six different categories, determining areas of greatest relevance to their teaching, priority, and individual ability.

Instructors may view their own results and identify their top five professional development competencies. The self-assessment tool then provides specific recommendations for research-based professional development resources that form the basis of a teacher’s annual, individual professional development plan.

For more information, visit http://www.calpro-online.org/competencies/instructorselfassessment.asp

Go to the Instructor Competencies Web page.

This resource provides links to videos relevant to adult educators in California, including major CALPRO trainings from the recent past as well as CALPRO Webinars. The goal of this video library is to increase individual adult educators’ access to professional development on emerging priority topics. To access this resource, visit the Video Library page.

CALPRO’s Web site features three Virtual Workrooms with professional learning resources on the following high-priority topics:

• Virtual Workroom for Multilevel ESL Instructors
• Virtual Workroom on Workforce Readiness
• Virtual Workroom on Best Practices in ABE Reading Instruction

Accompanying the Virtual Workrooms is CALPRO’s electronic Community of Practice (e-CoP), located at http://calproecop.groupsite.com. Inside the e-CoP, members can exchange ideas, share resources, access an archive of e-CoP Webinars, and collaborate with other adult education instructors from across California to help increase their students’ learning.

CALPRO offers the following online Resource Guides designed for teachers.

• ABE New Teacher Resource Guide
• ESL New Teacher Resource Guide
• Health Literacy Reference Guide

To access these guides, please visit the Resource Guide Web page.

CALPRO has published research digests, summaries, and annotated bibliographies on various topics of interest to teachers.

Teachers can download these documents from the CALPRO Publications Web page.

The Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) provides listings of online lesson plans, class activities, and other Web-based tools at http://www.otan.us under Teaching Tools and Resources.

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) Web site at http://www.ctc.ca.gov provides information on the licensing and credentialing of professional educators in the state of California.

The Catalog of CALPRO Professional Development Resources represents a comprehensive guide to CALPRO’s many professional development products and services for administrators and teachers in California.

The catalog provides information about workshops, online courses, and publications related to helping adult learners.

Teachers can use the catalog to find information about online courses, workshops, fact sheets, and publications related to teaching English as a second language, adult basic education, and adult secondary education as well as resources addressing learner persistence, learning disabilities, and reading instruction.

Download the Catalog of CALPRO Professional Development Resources [PDF]