Transcript for presentation by Mariann Fedele, American Institutes for Research
Welcome and Introduction, CALPRO Transition Resources
MARIANN FEDELE: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the California College TransitionInstitute. It is a pleasure to have you hereand uh, we at CALPRO, I am Mariann Fedele,the director of CALPRO. Uh, we thank you formaking long journeys to be with us here. Our presenters and our participants, for taking time out from very busy schedules and from taking time out from, from complex circumstances that you're handling in your districts and in your programs and in the various um, offices and governmental bodies that are represented here today. So we thank you, we recognizeyou and we appreciate you. Thank you for coming.
So before I say one more word aboutthe Institute, I'm going to ask all of you to join me in welcoming and congratulatingsomeone who is a special guest and that who's going to opportunity speak both during this presentation session today and later on in the evening. I'm going to encourage all of you to have a chance to ask questions later in the day and to enjoy the presentation this afternoon, the former president, outgoing president of Dorcas Place Family and Adult Learning Center, the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, chair of theAdult Learner Forum and Academic Senate, AcademicStudent Affairs Subcommittee, an educator'seducator and an advocate for adult learners,our new Assistant Secretary of Education, Dr. Brenda Dann-Messier. So Brenda, thankyou for making the long trip, we appreciateit. Thank you.
So our purpose in these nextthree days it was terrific to get to workwith a group of you yesterday in our firstcohort of the National College TransitionNetwork College toolkit training. We look forward to working with second cohort of participantsat tomorrow's training. And for those of youwho are just joining us for the day, we'regoing to look forward to your input aboutother professional development and technicalassistance opportunities that you would liketo see. So our purpose, in today's summitmeeting is to introduce policy considerations,research findings and best practice associatedwith transitioning adult learners from adultbasic education to postsecondary education.And we really have a terrific line-up of speakers--Ithink the best in the nation and in the state--whoare going to be addressing these issues withus.
I'm going to do a quick review of ouragenda and some of the materials that arein front of you. We're going to be hearingfrom Dr. Larry Condelli from the AmericanInstitutes for Research, who's going to giveus an overview of the Changing the Odds Symposium,Informing Policy with Research on How AdultLearners Succeed, which took place in Septemberin Washington DC. We're be hearing from Debra Jones from the California Department of Education,who will give us the update on uh, policy considerations in California. We're goingto be hearing from Brenda Dann-Messier, onfederal policy directions. We are very pleasedto have with us from the California CommunityCollege Academic Senate, Dr. Janet Fulks andDr. Nancy Jones, who are going to be talkingabout strategies for collaborating betweenadult schools and non-credit community collegewith the credit side of California's communitycolleges. We are going to have a working lunch.There will be plenty of time to eat and tostretch, but we're going to try and maximizethe day, so there will be a working lunch. Right before we break for lunch. I'll introducethe activity that were doing, and it'll bean opportunity for all of you--and you aresitting in tables that are organized by region--to work with your regional representativefrom the California Department of EducationAdult Ed. office staff. So thank you all forparticipating in the day and joining and facilitatingthe afternoon activity.
In the afternoon we'regoing to hear from Silija Kallenbach, alsofrom World Education and part of the NationalCollege Transition Network team, on what researchsays about effective college transition foradults. We'll be hearing on best practicefrom Burbank Adult School's Principal, Dr.Cherise Moore, and Annie G. Reed from LosAngeles Valley College, on their efforts atcollaboration and creating a pathway for adultlearners from adult basic skills to collegecredit earning classes. We're also to be hearingfrom Sylvia Ramirez and Ruth Gay from MiraCostaCommunity College on their development ofbridge programming, and again, moving adultstudents from non-credit basic skills coursesinto the credit baring community. You're goingto have, we're going to wrap it up: there'san evaluation in your folder, and dinner onyour own this evening. And we're going toprovide some, I think we have maps up frontwith some restaurants in the vicinityof this hotel. And then you are invited and,and really encouraged to come back from 6:00to 8:30 to have our WIA Community Conversationwith Assistant Secretary Dann-Messier to talk,for an opportunity for her to hear from youon the future and direction of adult literacyeducation. So we're very pleased that Brendawanted this opportunity to hear from you and thank her for that.
In front of you, you havea folder. If you want to, if you haven't alreadyopened it up, on the left side you'll seetoday's agenda as well as following behindit in order of presentation, all of the speakers'presentation material. So as we change speakersyou'll have that material just one-by-one.On the right side: the participant reactionform, for the end of the day, and two CALPRO,two of our latest newsletters that addressissues of postsecondary transitions for adultlearners. I see that it, it got pretty, prettywiped out.--the Take One table in the backof the room--and that's good that it's wipedout. It was materials for you all to takeone of that addresses there's policy briefs,research briefs, working papers and some datasnapshots relevant to the subject of collegeand postsecondary transitions for adult learners.So if you haven't gotten to the Take One table,please grab as much material as you want totake home.
So, this event is an opportunityfor us to discuss these issues, to hear fromexperts in addressing these issues. But, it'salso not the last step, or the last thingthat CALPRO has planned in order to supportall of you in moving this forward, movingthis initiative forward at the program level.We're going to be following up this Institute,a Summit meeting, with a series of webinars.The first of which is December 1st, and itwill be specifically for this audience, youall here at the Institute and Summit. So theparticipant reaction forms are actually goingto be very valuable to us in terms of whatwe need to address uh, afterwards and in ourplanning as we go forward. Following thatDecember 1st webinar, is a January 26th Webinar.We're going to be exploring--and this is inpartnership with the National College TransitionNetwork--we're going to be exploring issuesof curriculum and instruction that are tiedto transitioning adult learners to postsecondaryeducation, the counseling and support issuesassociated with transitioning adult learners,and the collaboration and partnership pathwaybuilding activities that are important fortransitioning adult learners. So take downthese dates; invitations will be coming out.Again, we, we really hope to hear from youand see you back at those events. All of these dates are Tuesdays from 2:30 to 3:30, so youcan clear your calendar now.
In addition tothat, about half of you in the room I thinkhave already signed up to be a part of thehave joined us on the California College TransitionNetwork: an e-PLC, Electronic ProfessionalLearning Community. Those of you who haven't,check your spam folder, you got an invitation. And I'm going to encourage you to join thenetwork and it will provide it's a socialnetwork platform of the e-PLC and it allowsfor collaborative inquiry planning and action.All of you will have the ability to startdiscussions, post resources, begin new forumsin groups, and we do encourage you to participateactively. There will be resources that I posted,but I hope that there's more than just mein and couple of others posting resources.It's a venue for all of you to begin to worktogether. And here's the snapshot for thoseof you have not yet joined the e-PLC. Andif you need some technical assistance we wouldbe happy to provide it: all you have to dois call.
In terms of the ongoing professionaldevelopment efforts that are related to thisissue at CALPRO, we are right now workingwith a terrific group of authors, as wellas a workforce advisory group on buildinga career pathway for adult learners to workforceand workforce credentialing postsecondary.We're developing four workshop modules: twocontextualized workforce instruction in theABE classroom, and two contextualized workforceinstruction in the ESL classroom. It'll beCALPRO workshops we're going to be launchingas a pilot in early spring 2010. So ifyou're interested in being a pilot site, pleasetalk to us. Then in June 2010 we'll have ourTraining of Trainer event, where if you reallywant focus in this area, you'll have the opportunityto send one of your team to our Training ofTrainers and have embedded at your programa contextualized workforce instruction facilitatorof our module.
Also on the Take One table,and I want to really encourage those of youwho haven't seen the application to thinkabout joining the Professional Learning CommunitiesInitiative. This has been endeavor of CALPROfor the last few years. This year we havea really terrific team. It includes a coupleof folks who are here, Jacques LaCour, KarenBarroso, John Tibbitts, and others, where we'vereally been focusing on the concept of ProfessionalLearning Communities, putting it in the formof an institute, and that CALPRO PLC institutewill provide adult education agencies with the framework and the training needed to developand sustain a Professional Learning Communityat your school or at your site. It'll introducea process of program improvement focused onstudent learning through use of data differentiatinginstruction and embedded professional development.For those of you who have, since this is aneffort that's been going on for the last fewyears, if you've already gone through theinstitute, we're doing the real re-designthis year. There's changing circumstancesso we're changing a lot of our work to meetthe needs of those circumstances. So if you'vealready done it, I'm still going to urge youto take a look at the application and considerjoining us at the PLC institute. You couldgo to our Website or there's applicationsand a Q and A on the Professional LearningCommunity Institute on the Take One table.The dates are December 7th, 8th and 9th forthe kickoff, and there'll be two dates inMay where we do the follow-up. There's alsogoing to be an opportunity this year for mentoringfrom a PLC expert. A couple of the folks whoI mentioned who have been key in establishingProfessional Learning Communities at theirsites are going to be able to join you andreally help you tackle the issue of establishinga PLC at your site. So again I'm going toencourage you to look at that applicationand to consider joining us.
Our ongoing effortsto meet, again circumstances, inthe field, the need in the field, we've been really building out our 24/7 professionaldevelopment. Our online course catalog isavailable online. This year we're offeringthirteen courses that cover eight topics aswell as having three, right now these arefacilitated, expert facilitated, courses thatare offered asynchronously. So you have achance to at midnight, join us, leave, dosome work, leave comments for your facilitator,but actually hear back from somebody. So againthis is a just-as-needed opportunity. Youcan jump in and out and it's meant for youto do with at the time that you have available,to do this professional development. We arealso offering three self-directed courses,so not facilitated, but also asynchronous,on ABE instruction, ESL instruction, and learnergoal setting is our new one that will be outin November, I think in the next couple ofweeks actually. In addition to that we alsohave other e-PLCs addressing other areas andthe work we're doing on contextualized workforce instruction is going to have an online componentas well. We're going to look forward to developingthat as we go.
So, any questions you haveat all about any of the initiatives or whatwe've raised today, please feel free to chatwith me at lunch and I'd be happy to bringyou, give you more information about whatwe have planned. Without further ado, I'mvery pleased to introduce our next speaker.Our California--oops, I'm sorry, I, I actuallygot a little ahead myself--to hear more aboutthe initiatives of the American Institutefor Research, and of CALPRO, I'm really pleasedthat joining us from Washington, DC, is Dr.Larry Condelli, the managing director of theEducation Human Development and the WorkforceDepartment of the American Institutes forResearch. Larry, welcome.
Mariann Fedele, CALPRO DirectorPage 1