Course Descriptions
This page provides descriptions of facilitated and self-directed CALPRO online courses. Go to the Course Catalog to register for courses.
Click on the 
image next to each workshop name to view the workshop description.
Facilitated Online Courses
Designing Programs for Adults with Learning Disabilities, Session 1. Understanding Learning Disabilities: Awareness for Adult Educators
Do you wonder if some of your students have learning disabilities? This course will help you understand what learning disabilities are and recognize common characteristics of adults with LD. You will review the screening process and explore the legal rights and responsibilities of both the learner and the literacy program. This course is a pre-requisite to Sessions 2 and 3.
Designing Programs For Adults With Learning Disabilities, Session 2.
Effective Instructional Strategies
Become familiar with and practice strategies for helping adults with learning disabilities succeed in your classes! Learn to select appropriate accommodations to meet diverse learning needs. This course presents an overview of various instructional approaches and helps you design one instructional activity using an LD-appropriate approach. Session 1 (either the face-to-face workshop or the online course) is a pre-requisite for attending this course.
Just-in-Time Leadership: Smart Fiscal Management for Adult School Administrators
This course is intended for the new administrator (with one year experience or less) who has direct responsibility over their adult school’s budget. The course provides an overview of adult education fiscal and budgeting processes. Participants learn the vocabulary related to adult education fiscal management and practice using the forms and formulas for developing a local agency budget. Participants develop a preliminary adult education budget based on data from their agency.
Plan and deliver effective lessons! This course takes participants step by step through the process of lesson design and helps you create a lesson plan using the online OTAN Lesson Plan Builder. Participants will learn up-to-date strategies for planning lessons using a combination of the WIPPEA stages and “backward design.” Using the information and skills taught in this course, participants will find that lesson planning becomes a quick, easy process.
What’s all the excitement surrounding the topic of learner persistence, how does it differ from student retention and motivation, and how do I encourage my students to persist in their learning? Based on research on factors that promote learner persistence, this professional development course engages participants in brainstorming implications for changing practice in the four areas of intake, orientation, instruction, and program activities.
Organizing and Monitoring Instruction to Improve Learning Gains
How can you improve and document learning gains of your English as a Second Language (ESL) students? This professional development course presents strategies for using multiple accountability measures to improve student learning gains. It presents a variety of accountability measures that can be used with ESL students at any level of proficiency. Participants will consider the classroom contexts in which they use accountability measures and will learn a variety of ways to monitor and document student progress.
Managing the ESL Multilevel Class
How do you meet the needs of English as a Second Language (ESL) students in a class with skill levels ranging from beginning to intermediate to advanced? This course presents strategies for planning lessons for learners of widely varying language skills.
Understanding the Adult Learner, Session 1.
Adult Learning and Development
This course examines how adults learn and the implications for adult literacy programs. It explores the unique characteristics of adult learners as well as adult motivation, needs, and self-concept and their effect on learning. The course also explores adult development and the implications for effective teaching.
Using Questioning Strategies to Improve Instruction, Session 1. Questioning Strategies that Improve Cognition
Are you frustrated at not getting the right answers from your students? Maybe it’s because you are not asking the right questions! This course offers questioning strategies that foster higher-order thinking skills while developing responses beyond the level of recall. Help students connect the dots as they process new information to answer questions designed with a purpose.
Self-Directed Online Courses
Orientation for New ESL Teachers
To a new English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher in an adult education program, the task of teaching English can seem overwhelming. A teacher new to ESL often asks such questions as, "Who will my new students be?" "What is their English proficiency?" "What materials should I use?" and "How do I assess my students and document their progress?" Many local agencies have procedures and practices that address these issues and will provide guidance to new teachers. The California Department of Education (CDE) has specific requirements and also provides certain documents to guide you. This self-directed, self-paced online course orients new teachers to the most immediate and important aspects of teaching adult ESL in California. Based on The ESL New Teacher Resource Guide, available as a PDF file on the CALPRO Web site, this course offers numerous supplemental application activities and delivers content in a variety of formats.
Orientation for New ABE Teachers
The task of teaching basic literacy skills can seem overwhelming to the new Adult Basic Education (ABE) teacher. This self-directed, self-paced online course orients new teachers to the most immediate and important aspects of teaching ABE learners in California. The new ABE instructor may wonder about many things, such as “Who will my new students be?” “What are their literacy proficiencies and needs?” “What materials should I use?” and “How do I assess my students’ skills and document their progress?” In some cases, individual agencies have procedures and practices that address these questions; in other cases, the California Department of Education (CDE) has specific requirements and provides documents to guide you. Based on The ABE New Teacher Resource Guide, available as a PDF file on the CALPRO Web site, this course offers numerous supplemental application activities and delivers content in a variety of formats.
More Information
For more information, California residents can call CALPRO toll-free at 1-800-427-1422, and select Option 5, or send a detailed e-mail to calprohelp@air.org.
