California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project (CALPRO)

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The California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project (CALPRO), a project of the American Institutes for Research, is funded by the California Department of Education (CDE) Adult Education Office to offer a comprehensive, statewide approach to high quality professional development for the full range of California’s adult education and literacy providers. CALPRO’s overarching goals are to

  • Plan and provide high quality professional development in collaboration with CDE, other state Leadership Projects, and local service providers;
  • Develop, maintain, and support a regional structure for delivery of professional development services through regional Professional Development Centers (PDCs); and
  • Enhance the quality of instruction and services delivered to adult learners that ultimately result in learning gains.

AIR/CALPRO is committed to providing professional development that is research-based and that helps adult education practitioners translate research to practice. As a result, every workshop module developed by CALPRO has a research basis, whether the topic is critical thinking and problem solving, working with persons with learning disabilities, enhancing learner persistence, helping learner set realistic goals, effective use of questioning strategies, etc. After CALPRO authors have developed drafts of the workshop modules, CALPRO field tests them, makes revisions, and conducts a Training of Trainers (ToT) for several persons from across the state who will serve as workshop facilitators. The ten Professional Development Centers (PDCs) schedule these workshops using the CALPRO online calendar. The workshops are generally well attended.

The PDCs also host networking meetings on a variety of topics (ABE, ESL, adults with disabilities, EL Civics, Learner Persistence, etc.). Networking meetings provide an opportunity for teachers to share strategies and ideas as well as engage in problem solving. In addition, the PDCs house resource libraries from which adult educators can borrow materials. Independent of the services provided by the PDCs, CALPRO develops and hosts institutes as well as training of study circle facilitators. Currently, more than 30 programs across the state are engaged in site-based study circles on learner persistence (the NCSALL model). Plans are underway to host training for study circle facilitators on a new topic: Research-based Reading Instruction. Two CALPRO institutes held this year are on field-based research (practitioner inquiry) and a learning community for site-based professional development. Approximately 10 programs participate in each of these initiatives, both of which represent an attempt to develop more site-based opportunities for professional development.

CALPRO is in the process of building an online course delivery system and currently has three facilitated online courses offered using the Blackboard platform: Effective Lesson Planning, Designing Programs for Adults with LD, and Managing the Multilevel ESL Classroom. The purpose of online course delivery is to provide opportunities for adult educators in remote areas of the state to take these courses, particularly if they would otherwise need to travel considerable distances to attend a workshop at a PDC. The online courses mirror the content of the face-to-face workshops. CALPRO has arranged with a local university to offer Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for persons who complete the activities of an online course.

The CALPRO Web site, www.calpro-online.org, houses a number of publications, including the entire archived database of the former ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education as well as NRS trainings for the past four years and several AIR/Pelavin documents and resource guides related to professional development. In addition, CALPRO develops and produces research publications and bibliographies on specific topics and posts these to the Web site.

Submitted by
Mary Ann Corley, CALPRO Director
Erik Jacobson, CALPRO Research Analyst
Wendi Maxwell, CA Department of Education Programs Consultant and CALPRO Project Monitor

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