Mission Statement and Overview

The purposes of the Capital Region Professional Development Collaborative on Adult Literacy are to:

• Build and sustain a solid collaboration of adult literacy practitioners and programs in the Capital region
• Provide and support adult literacy staff through increased, diverse, and high quality professional development opportunities that are both information-driven and participatory in approach
• Improve the learning opportunities and outcomes of adult students in the Capital region

A spirited group of professional development taskforce members began to meet on a monthly basis in June 2008. In addition to creating a mission statement, the task force initiated a schedule of training opportunities and began to grapple with the longer range objective of constructing a regionally-focused system-wide approach to professional development. The more immediate result has been a working model of face-to-face and online resources. These have included quarterly workshops, the first two of which have been held on:

• Functional Context Education Theory
• Learning Differences

As the work of the Collaborative expands topics for additional workshops will be developed in collaboration with increased field input. The Task Force is also in the planning stages of establishing various study formats to explore the important issue of student persistence within adult literacy programs. Stay tuned for updates.

The Capitol Region Professional Development Collaborative on Adult Literacy On-Line Professional Development Resources

The collection of resources accessed from this page merges an information rich website with a highly interactive social network function through the discussion list format. It is an integral aspect of the expansion of the Capital Region’s entire adult literacy professional development enhancement project currently underway.

This collection of online resources is designed to be comprehensive in meeting the diverse needs of students, teachers, and support staff of adult literacy programs, including:

• Community-based volunteer tutoring programs
• Town-based Adult Basic Education programs
• Community College courses in ESL and reading and writing development.
• Workplace literacy and job readiness programs
• Family literacy programs
• Health literacy and citizen preparation courses and initiatives

The online resources, including links to Capital region agencies and to field-wide professional development resources in adult literacy, offer many opportunities to enhance staff and professional development. There is much to draw from whether you are:

• Seeking additional information for teaching a class;
• Offering a workshop, or;
• Interested in exploring issues in greater depth

The best way to learn about the information on this website is to check out the links in areas of most interest to you. Once you start exploring the range and depth of available resources our bet is that you will return here often. When you do, tell us about it. Even better; post a message to the Adultliteracy@creclsrv.org or the Adultsupports@creclsrv.org.

If you haven’t yet done so you can find more information and subscribe to these excellent discussion lists here and here.