FREE! Adult Education Professional Development Opportunities for May & June 2026
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TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS AND IDEAS!!
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VALRC's Professional Development Interest Survey: While we all begin planning for our next program year, let us know what you'd like to focus on for fall of 2026, winter 2027, and spring 2027. We'll use your input to plan out our offerings for the 2026-2027 year.
Book Club Survey: Book clubs are a great way for programs and classes to come together to learn and discuss important topics as a group over time. And we know that many programs around the state are already using them for staff development and for classroom instruction. We'd love to learn more about what you're doing with book clubs to help support other programs who may want to begin their own AND to create a space where we can share book ideas, discussion strategies, and takeaways to build up this practice.
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VALRC PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR
MAY & JUNE 2026
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The following free professional development opportunities are offered to Virginia adult education practitioners as well as adult education partner organizations. Stay up to date with all VALRC's offerings by checking the event calendar regularly.
Also, be sure to check out VALRC's publications:
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- PROGRESS: Virginia’s adult education and literacy news journal. Articles provide program managers, instructors, staff, practitioners, and the public-at-large with strong evidence-based articles that can help improve practice and promote transformation.
- SPOTLIGHT: An annual online publication that seeks to shine a light on adult education learners, their experiences, and their learning through the creative process. Volume 4 is now available!
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LACES Data Analysis Session #2
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Join a group of Virginia practitioners for a hands-on experience working with data in the LACES system.
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Come discuss IET planning tools, IET maps, and all aspects of programming for IETs, IELCE, and workforce programming in adult education. Come with questions! This month we’ll focus on bridges to postsecondary education, training, and careers.
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Refresher: LACES Data Analysis Session #3
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Join a group of Virginia practitioners for a hands-on experience working with data in the LACES system. This is a refresher session geared towards beginning users.
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Come discuss IET planning tools, IET maps, and all aspects of programming for IETs, IELCE, and workforce programming in adult education. Come with questions!
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LACES Data Analysis Session #3
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Join a group of Virginia practitioners for a hands-on experience working with data in the LACES system.
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Professional Development From Other Organizations
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Literacy Minnesota: Integrated Pronunciation Instruction for Increased Intelligibility
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Effective pronunciation instruction that prioritizes intelligibility can greatly support learners both inside and outside the classroom. Yet, many teachers struggle to identify which pronunciation features to focus on and how to seamlessly integrate them into their lessons. This session will help participants refine their pronunciation diagnostic skills, determine key pronunciation features to address, and explore practical ways to incorporate pronunciation instruction into everyday classroom activities.
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Lightning talks that highlight practical strategies and innovative approaches to leveraging technology in adult education.
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Literacy Minnesota: Promising Practices for a Multilevel Classroom
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English language classrooms feature a wide variety of educational backgrounds, abilities, and learning preferences, which contributes to a multilevel dynamic. This training will highlight promising teaching practices for supporting learners who need additional support, learners who move ahead quickly, and everyone in between. Participants will see concrete ideas for modifying activities to support a range of learner needs and abilities and get ideas for teaching that can be implemented immediately.
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Adult Numeracy Network: Math Instructional Routines
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The Adult Numeracy Network (ANN) website has a collection of math routines for adult math and numeracy classrooms. This is one of a free series of hour-long introductions to some of the math routines from the collection.
The session will focus on one math routine and will include:
- a brief community builder,
- time to experience the routine as learners, and
- time to reflect on how to use the routine in our classrooms.
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Right Question Institute: How the "Why Vote?" Tool Motivates Lower-Income Adults to Vote
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In this free, interactive webinar, RQI will introduce the “Why Vote?” Tool and explain how and why it works. The webinar is designed for staff of direct services and agencies serving low-income communities who want to engage voters but are required to be nonpartisan. Volunteers, community organizers, educators, and others interested in get-out-the-vote efforts are also welcome to attend.
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Literacy Minnesota: How Adult Brains Learn Languages
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Learn what research has to say about how adult brains learn a new language, how trauma and stress impact learning, and how this influences the teaching practices that we use in the language classroom. Participants will leave the webinar with suggestions for ways teachers and tutors can apply brain-based teaching practices as we are helping adult ESL students develop their language skills.
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ANDE Math Course: ANDE isn’t like previous math courses you’ve taught. Available at no cost as an open educational resource (OER), ANDE is an innovative adult numeracy course designed and tested to help you more effectively support learners for success in mathematics on the GED and beyond. ANDE is a complete curriculum and brings together ready-to-use lessons and a collaborative, discussion-based teaching approach across four mini-courses, which in addition to comprehensive professional support and resources, helps adult educators create purposeful mathematics classrooms where learners feel supported and can engage in meaningful math learning that prepares them to be lifelong math thinkers and doers.
CILIA-T Civics/History Integrated Adult ESOL Instruction: This 16-module, open-access curriculum integrates U.S. history and civics content with academic English proficiency and digital skills. Developed by adult educators, CILIA-T is designed to help students expand their vocabulary, knowledge, and essential technology use, while also encouraging community participation and deep analysis of high-interest topics.
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VALRC's On-Demand, Self-Paced Learning & Resource Collection
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Visit VALRC's Training and Resource Collections: Topics include reading instruction, universal design for learning, trauma-informed practice, multilingual learning (including ESOL instruction and multilevel instruction), civics instruction, and career pathways
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- Virginia's assessment policy (newly updated!)
- Working with adults with disabilities
- Science of reading
- English language instruction
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See this announcement with more information about registering for and accessing VALRC's on-demand and self-paced learning opportunities using the Reach 360 platform.
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"Equipping the field of adult education and literacy with essential skills and resources to expand access to high-quality instruction and workforce preparation."
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