VALRC

VALRC: Spring 2022 Professional Development Focus Group
2022-05-18 16:00 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Virtual
Our mission and vision at VALRC are to ensure that the Virginia field of adult education and literacy receives innovative and effective training and resources so that adult practitioners have the best available tools and foundation to help adult learners build a better future. In order to achieve this mission, we need to hear and learn from you.
The purpose of this group is to speak with Virginia adult educators about your experiences with and feedback on VALRC professional development offerings and to learn more about what you feel are professional development needs of the field.
We are seeking practitioners, including program administrators, support staff, and instructors working in adult education in Virginia—those who attended our events in Spring 2022 and those who were unable to or chose not to attend VALRC offerings during this time.
Registration is open to the first 20 practitioners who register!

VALRC: TL 101 PLC
2022-05-17 12:00 - 13:30, 2022-04-19 12:00 - 13:30
The registration for the Teacher Leader 101 PLC is closed. To find out about VALRC’s offerings, sign up for our newsletter.

EdTech: Building Relevance and Engagement to Keep Learners Motivated and Moving Forward
2022-05-13 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual
This webinar is focused on keeping learners motivated and moving forward. Ann Marie Przybyl of Literacy New York delivers the first lightning talk, sharing strategies for teaching soft skills by Incorporating Workplace Readiness Skills Into Adult Education. Then, James Brown III of Guilford Tech Community College (NC) will share about Using Formative Assessment and Seat Time Data for Engagement and Retention. After these two lightning talks, join the speakers in a breakout room for 30 minutes to dig deeper and discuss how these strategies relate to your practice.

LINCS: Coffee Break: Meeting Student Social, Emotional, & Learning Needs in Mathematics
2022-05-13 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
Join the Math and Numeracy community of practice in an informal Coffee Break on the Social, Emotional Learning needs of Adult Numeracy and Mathematics Learners. The moderator will walk participants through the research and practical ways of meeting the SEL needs of our learners. This informal session is a group discussion. Participants will be expected to come and share their experiences and questions. Together we can brainstorm ways to address SEL in the mathematics classroom.

LINCS: How the Brain Learns to Read
2022-05-10 15:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Have you ever wondered how the brain learns to read? Find out and use this knowledge to improve your reading instruction during a live one-hour event with subject matter expert Meredith Liben.

EdTech: Staying Healthy EdTech Maker Space Project Showcase
2022-05-06 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
In partnership with Florida Literacy Coalition, EdTech ran the Staying Healthy! EdTech Maker Space in which educators adapted activities from the Staying Healthy ESOL Health Literacy curriculum using Jamboard, Quizlet, and Wakelet, and aligned other language learning, reading, and listening resources to the curriculum. During this webinar, EdTech will showcase what was accomplished and how you can use this curriculum.

OCTAE: National Dialogue on IELCE and Immigrant Integration
2022-05-05 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Join leadership from the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in a national dialogue on the topic of Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education/Integrated Education and Training programming and its connection to immigrant integration and inclusion.
The event also will introduce OCTAE’s Enhancing Access to Refugees and New Americans project. Project staff will share both the results of a recently conducted landscape scan on immigrant integration and inclusion approaches in adult education and upcoming technical assistance opportunities available to the field.

VALRC: Teacher Leader 201 PLC
2022-05-04 12:00 - 13:30, 2022-04-13 12:00 - 13:30 | Online
The Teacher Leader 201 PLC series is a continuation of the Teacher Leader 101 PLC series. This PLC focuses on supporting educators set and implement a goal for improving their practice.

LINCS: Integrating Workforce Readiness Skills in English Language Instruction
2022-05-03 15:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Join experts Ronna Magy and Donna Price as they demonstrate five effective instructional strategies focused on workforce readiness skills that teachers can easily integrate into their English language instruction.

VALRC: Data Office Hours
2022-05-03 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Data Office Hours is an hour long, ongoing monthly meeting for anyone involved in adult ed data collection and reporting. This session provides support for policy and practice related to NRS data collection.
1st Tuesday of Each month from 2:00–3:00 p.m.

VALRC: IET & IELCE PLC Session 4
2022-05-03 12:30 - 14:00 | Virtual
The Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center is facilitating a Professional Learning Community (PLC) on Integrated Education and Training (IET) and Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education (IELCE) for practitioners who are currently implementing or planning to implement IET programming, including IELCE and PluggedInVA. In addition to topics identified in the exit tickets, this session will focus on supporting English language learners in IET and/or IELCE programs.

VALRC: Family Literacy PLC
2022-05-02 14:00 - 15:30 | Online
The Family Literacy PLC is a working group for programs awarded the family literacy planning grant. This group is also working with the National Center for Families Learning, a national organization dedicated to multigenerational learning within families.

Teaching Skills That Matter Maker Space Info Session
2022-04-29 13:00 - 14:00 | Online
This webinar introduces upcoming opportunities to be part of the Teaching the Skills that Matter (TSTM) EdTech Maker Space initiative.
Starting in June 2022, the EdTech Center at World Education will be running a series of seven EdTech Maker Space projects. The goal of the projects is to offer service learning experiences for adult education teachers who want to collaborate to create digital open education resources. Each 6-week online project offers professional development on digital resource curation or creation and evaluation.
These projects will focus on the Teaching the Skills that Matter topic areas – Digital Literacy, Financial Literacy, Health Literacy, Workforce Preparation, and Civics Education.
Over the course of the year, the projects will evolve from 1) curating quality resources to 2) generating activities that incorporate skills such as problem solving and critical thinking to 3) building reusable TSTM-aligned lessons using SkillBlox. Best of all, the resources generated will be added to the all-new SkillBlox to make it easier for teachers to find, organize, and share resources that support TSTM instruction.

VALRC: Serving Refugees PLC
2022-04-28 12:30 - 14:00 | Virtual
This PLC connects adult education practitioners (regional specialists, ESOL coordinators, instructors, tutors, etc.) who are or expect to serve the refugee population to discuss strategies and resources for working with this specific population.
The focus of this session is culturally responsive practices to support instructing refugees.
Registration for this event is now closed. Please sign up for our VAELN listserv to learn about upcoming offerings.

Literacy Minnesota: Teaching Citizenship Webinar
2022-04-27 11:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
The webinar will cover methods for teaching citizenship both in-person and online, led by Literacy Minnesota’s Citizenship Teacher, Jessica Horning. During this webinar, Jessica will go over the different parts of the citizenship interview – personal information questions, yes/no questions, 100 civics questions, reading and writing – and how she teaches them in both learning environments.

Trauma-Informed Care: Course 1
2022-04-26 09:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
The key objective of this six-hour course is to provide information about identifying and responding to trauma with evidence-based resilience strategies when working with an audience whose trauma history may not be known. Participants of this course will receive certification as a Trauma Informed Individual at the conclusion of the training day.
All adult education practitioners are welcome and encouraged to attend!

VALRC: Math Instructor Support Group
2022-04-25 16:00 - 17:00
4th Monday of each month from 4:00–5:00 p.m.

LINCS Coffee Break: Promoting Equity in Student Access to Mathematical Learning
2022-04-22 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
Join the LINCS Math and Numeracy Coffee break on Promoting Equity in Student Access to Mathematics. The moderator will walk participants through a discussion about how they can promote an inclusive mathematical environment.

ATLAS: Spring 2022 ABE Virtual Conference
2022-04-22 08:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
This virtual conference will offer sessions on virtual instruction, ELA, Math, HSE, and equity in adult basic education. Visit this website for more information!

Innovative Remote ESOL Program Models and Promising Practices: Equity in Education for Adult Refugee and Immigrant Learners
2022-04-21 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
Practitioners are seeking information on remote practices that work. Join Dr. Johan Uvin and Jen Vanek to learn about recent research from World Education, Inc., and others on using digital modalities to reach students. Examples of promising practices for remote ESOL programs will be shared.

VALRC: Extending Purposeful Reading for English Language Learners
2022-04-20 16:30 - 18:00 | Virtual
This webinar is designed to provide standards-based activities to extend purposeful reading for English language learners. Participants will have the opportunity to interact with each activity as well as reflect on and ask questions about implementing these activities into their individual teaching contexts.

Creating a Promising Pathway with Pre-apprenticeship
2022-04-20 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
During this session, participants will explore new pre-apprenticeship resources on LINCS and talk with the national Pre-apprenticeship Challenge winner about lessons learned while developing and implementing pre-apprenticeship programming. Visit this website for more information!

VALRC: IET & IELCE PLC Session 4
2022-04-20 12:30 - 14:00 | Online
The Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center is facilitating a Professional Learning Community (PLC) on Integrated Education and Training (IET) and Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education (IELCE) for practitioners who are currently implementing or planning to implement IET programming, including IELCE and PluggedInVA. In addition to topics identified in the exit tickets, this session will focus on recruitment and retention strategies.

LESLLA: April Coffee Break
2022-04-20 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual
Join LESLLA for their first discussion on home language use for LESLLA learning. First, Heide Wrigley, Marisa Partosham, and Cristina Vazquez Dominguez will talk about their work using learners’ home languages to support digital literacy. Then there will be an open forum for discussion on how you use learners’ home languages in your contexts.

VALRC: QTO Open Discussion
2022-04-19 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
This Spring VALRC is hosting two Quality Teaching Online Open Discussions. Each session will have a specific focus and will include some brief information about the topic and opportunities for participants to share their questions, experiences, and resources regarding that session’s topic. The goal is for all participants to leave each session with advice, resources, and new practices or strategies to try in the classroom.
Participants can attend any or all of these sessions and should be prepared to share their current instructional issues and questions, as well as be willing to provide their expertise and advice, and share resources with others.
This session is focused on integrating Distance Education into the online or blended learning classroom
During this session, the following topics may be addressed:

Setting expectations for distance education usage
Orienting learners to distance education platforms
Motivating learners to participate in distance education outside of the classroom

EdTech: The Digital Equity Act and Professional Development with Purpose
2022-04-08 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual
At this month’s Distance Education Strategy Session, Shirley Doan and Judy Mortrude will share information and advocacy strategies for engaging with the Digital Equity State Planning process coming to your state this spring. During the second presentation, Rachel Riggs, Digital Learning Specialist, and Jana Harper, Adult Educator from Arizona, discuss the purpose behind the EdTech Maker Space model and how it has impacted their practice. Visit this website for more information!

LINCS: The Writer's Workshop: An Appreciative Approach to Writing Instruction
2022-04-05 15:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
The LINCS Reading and Writing Group is hosting a free one-hour webinar with language arts expert Dr. Carmine Stewart. Not only will you find out what a Writer’s Workshop is, but come prepared to participate (camera ready) in one as well! Visit this website for more information!

LINCS: Differentiation by Design: Optimizing Learning for All
2022-04-05 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Multilevel adult English classes are challenging for teachers. Join LINCS for a live session with leading expert Betsy Parrish as she shares some practical tools and strategies for meeting the needs of all learners in a diverse class. Visit this website for more information!
