World Education, Inc. - 
 
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Professional Development

World Education, Inc. offers online professional development opportunities that include self-paced tutorials or courses facilitated by prominent specialists in their field. Click the categories below for more information, including course descriptions, schedules, fees, and how to register. Read the Online Course Policies [PDF].

If you are looking for the Accelerating Opportunity online courses, please visit professionalstudiesae.worlded.org/ao.html.

Courses Dates Fee Registration
Adult Multiple Intelligences
Adult Multiple Intelligences Theory Self-paced Free Take it now!
Adult Multiple Intelligences in Practice Self-paced Free Take it now!
Adult Student Persistence
Helping Students Stay: Exploring Program and Classroom Persistence Strategies Facilitated
TBD
$269.00 Add yourself to interest list
Helping Adults Persist Self-paced Free Take it now!
Supports and Barriers to Persistence Self-paced Free Take it now!
Goals and Self-efficacy in Persistence Self-paced Free Take it now!
Adult Student Persistence: An Overview Self-paced $24.95 Take it now!
Student Retention Through Student Success Self-paced $24.95 Take it now!
Authentic Contexts
Overview of Critical Literacy Practices Self-paced Free Take it now!
Philosophy of Using Authentic Curriculum Self-paced Free Take it now!
Using Authentic Curriculum and Materials Self-paced Free Take it now!
Building Teacher/Learner Collaborations Self-paced Free Take it now!
College and Career Readiness
College Readiness for Adults: Beyond Academic Preparation! Facilitated
TBD
$269.00 Add yourself to interest list
Integrating Career Awareness into the ABE and ESOL Classroom

Facilitated
TBD

$269.00 Add yourself to interest list
Introduction to College Transition Math Facilitated
TBD
$269.00 Add yourself to interest list
General Educational Development (GED)
GED Research and Policy Self-paced Free Take it now!
Going Beyond the GED Self-paced Free Take it now!
Activity-based Instruction: Why and How Self-paced Free Take it now!
Using Beyond the GED Self-paced Free Take it now!
Life, Health, and Work
Promoting Mental Health in the ABE/ESOL Classroom: Addressing the Impact of Chronic Stress on Learning

Facilitated
June 2013

$269.00 Register!
Managing the Learning Environment
Differentiated Instruction Facilitated TBD $269 Add yourself to interest list
Strategies for Building Learning Communities Self-paced $24.95 Take it now!
Numeracy
Foundations of Teaching Adult Numeracy Facilitated
TBD
$189 Add yourself to interest list
Teaching Reasoning and Problem-Solving Strategies Facilitated
TBD
$189 Add yourself to interest list
Number Sense: Teaching About Parts and Wholes Facilitated
TBD
$189 Add yourself to interest list
Geometry: Teaching About Shapes and Measures Facilitated
TBD
$189 Add yourself to interest list
Data: Helping Students Interpret Numeric Information Facilitated
TBD
$179 Add yourself to interest list
Algebra: Introducing Algebraic Notation Facilitated $179 Add yourself to interest list
Reading
Principles of Diagnostic Assessment and Teaching in Adult Reading Instruction Facilitated TBD $269 Add yourself to interest list
Reading Profiles Self-paced Free Take it now!
Teaching Learners What Reading Is All About Self-paced Free Take it now!
Reading Difficulties Self-paced Free Take it now!
Ideas for Teaching Reading Self-paced Free Take it now!

Course Descriptions

Adult Multiple Intelligences

Research conducted by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy shows that instructional practices inspired by Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory have resulted in high levels of authentic instruction and student engagement.

Adult Multiple Intelligences Theory: Howard Gardner's research has shown that adults can possess many different kinds of "intelligences" beyond the linguistic and logical abilities that teachers usually expect. Through this course you will learn to recognize the eight intelligences of MI Theory among your students and plan instruction to exploit their unique strengths.
Completion time: 3 hours

Access this course
Fee: None


Adult Multiple Intelligences in Practice: Investigate how practitioner researchers used Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory in their ABE, GED, and ESOL classrooms and in counseling. Discover their experiences and consider how MI theory might apply in your situation. You’ll finish the self-study by naming ways you can use MI in working with your own learners.
Completion time: 3 hours
Recommended pre-requisite course: Adult Multiple Intelligences Theory

Access this course
Fee: None


Adult Student Persistence

Helping Students Stay: Exploring Program and Classroom Persistence Strategies:  When you focus on helping students stay in programs, you address all the ingredients of program quality and effective instruction. Student persistence is, in fact, an indicator of program strength. In this six-week course, you will use the six core “drivers” of persistence, identified in the New England Learner Persistence Project, to organize and review a wide range of successful persistence strategies, and to prioritize the ones that might have the most impact in your own programs.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $269.00

 

Helping Adults Persist: The researchers featured in this course interviewed Pre-GED students to find out what supported or hindered their persistence in adult basic education programs. They identified four supports to persistence—management of positive and negative forces, establishment of a goal by students, progress toward reaching a goal, and building self-efficacy. You'll want to learn more about these four critical supports to persistence.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Supports and Barriers to Persistence: Find out what students interviewed for the research study listed as the negative and positive forces that affect their ability to persist.  This course will help you and your students devise strategies for increasing the positive forces and reducing the negative forces that hinder them.
Completion time: 3 hours
Recommended pre-requisite course: Helping Adults Persist

Access this course
Fee: None

 

Goals and Self-efficacy in Persistence: Building self-efficacy, establishment of a goal by the student, and progress toward reaching a goal are three supports suggested by the researchers for increasing student persistence. This course will help you promote mastery and vicarious experiences and explore other ways to build self-efficacy. You’ll be challenged to try out a new idea for supporting student persistence.
Completion time: 3 hours
Recommended pre-requisite course: Helping Adults Persist

Access this course
Fee: None

 

*Adult Student Persistence: An Overview: Gain a better understanding of how adult students participate and what helps them to persist in learning. Learn how to apply instructional and programmatic strategies for improving student persistence in this course.

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Fee: $24.95

 

*Student Retention Through Student Success: Explore the relationship between students' retention and their own sense of self-efficacy.  You'll learn new and more meaningful processes for tracking students' progress toward meeting educational goals.

Access this course
Fee: $24.95


Authentic Contexts

Research conducted by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) has shown that the use of authentic materials in class supports an increase and change in learners' literacy practices outside of the classroom. Explore the research and its implications for your instruction in the following courses.

 

Overview of Critical Literacy Practices: If you've been waiting for a user-friendly way to dip into critical pedagogy, this is it.  This self-study is a starting point to developing a theoretical background on critical pedagogy. Learn to what extent education programs reflect critical pedagogy in their structure and practices and analyze your own practices for the degrees of critical pedagogy across six elements of an adult education program.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Philosophy of Using Authentic Curriculum: A curriculum is a guide for learning. Everyone who chooses or creates curriculum (or textbooks) needs to develop a personal philosophy of teaching and learning, examine the values and beliefs behind that philosophy, and design or select a curriculum that reflects those beliefs and values. Compare three approaches to curriculum—traditional, learner-driven, and critical—and begin to articulate your own philosophy of teaching and curriculum development.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Using Authentic Curriculum and Materials: The team of researchers led by Victoria Purcell-Gates found that adult literacy instruction is more effective if teachers use materials and activities that adults actually encounter in their daily lives.  This course will encourage you to work collaboratively with your students to identify a topic for a lesson that uses authentic materials and activities. You will be using the handbook, Creating Authentic Materials and Activities for the Adult Literacy Classroom, as a guide in moving toward contextualized literacy instruction.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Building Teacher/Learner Collaborations: In coding the data for the Literacy Practices of Adult Learners study, the researchers found that the learners themselves were attributing changes in literacy practice to life changes, such as changes in employment, living situations, family situations/children, and health. Explore the social nature of your learners' literacy practices and how those practices may change from the beginning of instruction. Develop a strategy for collaborating with learners to identify a topic on which to build instructional activities.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None



College and Career Readiness

College Readiness for Adults: Beyond Academic Preparation! The overall objective of this course is to assist educators, counselors, administrators and postsecondary partners to better prepare their students for postsecondary education. You will identify, organize, and reflect on the broad array of readiness skills and abilities that adults need to be successful in postsecondary education and training. Then you will consider how to change our practice to incorporate what we have learned.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $269.00

 

Integrating Career Awareness into the ABE and ESOL Classroom The purpose of this course is to prepare you - instructors and counselors - to implement the Integrating Career Awareness into the ABE & ESOL Classroom (ICA) Curriculum Guide within the context of your situation. The hands-on activities will increase your level of comfort and familiarity with the curriculum guide and the related topics.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $269.00

 

Introduction to College Transition Math: Reflect on your own and your students' math backgrounds, examine and experience the college placement test your students take, try out math activities and exercises you can use in your classrooms, and explore the math knowledge and skills you will want to present to your own college transition students.

Required text: Safford-Ramus, K. (2008). Unlatching the Gate: Helping Adult Students Learn Mathematics. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation. (Copies can be ordered from Xlibris Corporation at 1-888-795-4274 or Orders@Xlibris.com. The cost is $19.99 per copy. Allow minimum of two weeks for delivery.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $269.00


General Educational Development (GED)

Research conducted by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) has determined that GED students experience educational and financial gains when engaged in GED preparation courses that focus on cognitive development in addition to exam preparation. Recommendations from the study suggest that programs support students who want to transition to postsecondary education and training.

 

GED Research and Policy: In this self-study, you’ll focus first on general GED information and the research on the economic benefits of attaining a GED credential. Then you’ll think about the policy and program issues related to preparing students for the GED examination and supporting them for the transition to postsecondary education and training.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Going Beyond the GED: Learn why the adult education system should focus on enabling students to develop the academic skills necessary to not only complete the GED, but also to enter postsecondary education and training. Identify strategies for supporting adult education-to-postsecondary transitions for adult education students in your own program or classroom.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Activity-based Instruction: Why and How: Activity-based instructional approaches emphasize cognitive development, a critically important ability for GED students who plan to enter postsecondary education and training. Examine the implications of the research reported in Cognitive Skills Matter in the Labor Market, Even for School Dropouts. Outline the pros and cons of two activity-based instructional methods—collaborative learning and project-based learning.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Using Beyond the GED: Beyond the GED: Making Conscious Choices About the GED and Your Future, offers lesson plans and helps teachers create activities that will give adult learners an opportunity to practice writing, use graphs, read charts, and analyze research findings on the economic impact of the GED. Learn why it is important for students to understand the economic impact of the GED, preview the lessons, and think about how your students might benefit from the lessons.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None


Life, Health, and Work

 

Promoting Mental Health in the ABE/ESOL Classroom: Addressing the Impact of Chronic Stress on Learning: This course will explore the ways in which chronic stress, trauma, and adverse life experiences affect learning. It will also introduce some teaching approaches and strategies that promote emotional and psychological well-being to help students learn more efficiently. We will look at our roles as educators in helping learners practice healthy coping skills, develop supports, and connect to community resources. In addition, we will explore the value of expressive arts as a way to build community, encourage creative imagination, and enhance mental health for adult learners.

Schedule: June 16 - July 29, 2013
Course Overview and Schedule
Register online or download a printable form.
Fee: $269.00

 

Managing the Learning Environment

Differentiated Instruction: Adult educators almost always face many different levels of learners in their classrooms, with all the attendant difficulties in teaching. In this facilitated, interactive course, you will learn how differentiated instruction can help produce effective teaching in your classes. You will learn to make the strong learning objectives required to keep multilevel instruction on target. Both research and specific strategies will be addressed. By the course end, you will produce your own lesson plan with effective learning objectives and differentiation suited to your own environment.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $269.00

*Strategies for Building Learning Communities: Research has shown that creating learning communities or "cohorts" within the classroom helps students to persist in achieving their goals.   In this course you will examine how learners differ developmentally and learn strategies for creating community among students.

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Fee: $24.95


Numeracy

**Foundations of Teaching Adult Numeracy: In this foundational course you'll learn how to keep students at the center of numeracy instruction. You'll explore the context, content, and cognitive and affective components of numeracy, how to address the needs of students with learning gaps, how students' styles of learning math and levels of math knowledge affect their math skills, and ways to build student's success in learning math. You'll plan classroom activities, test them with your students, and share your experiences with fellow teachers.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $189.00

 

**Teaching Reasoning and Problem-Solving Strategies: Numerate adults do more than calculate figures. They think about the relationships between mathematical concepts and real-life situations. They look for patterns, make predictions, and evaluate their conclusions. They can form problems, represent them, and solve them. They apply critical thinking skills. This course examines mathematical reasoning and problem solving strategies and provides numerous teaching strategies and activities that you can apply to your teaching right away.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $189.00

 

**Number Sense: Teaching About Parts and Wholes: Teaching students how to use estimation, mental math, benchmarking, and calculators will enhance their conceptual understanding of numbers and what numbers represent. This course focuses on helping adult students develop number sense by addressing two key questions: When is it necessary to have an exact answer, and when is an estimate sufficient? When calculation is necessary, which tool is appropriate to use? You'll design math activities that are permeated with estimation, mental math, and reasonableness strategies.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $189.00

 

**Geometry: Teaching About Shapes and Measures: Adult basic education students need foundational geometry and measurement skills not only to succeed in GED math, but also in the workplace. In this course, you will explore key topics in geometry, such as area, perimeter, and volume, and their importance in everyday life. You'll look at numerous instructional activities for teaching about angles, spatial relationships, symmetry, similarity, and figure transformations on a coordinate graph system.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $189.00

 

**Data: Helping Students Interpret Numeric Information: Data, or numerical information, can be described, represented, analyzed, and interpreted in various ways for various purposes. This course looks at some common uses (and misuses) of data. Learn about the measures of central tendency statistics, graphs, and probability. Through the course readings, activities, and discussions, you'll review basic concepts and explore strategies for introducing and teaching these concepts to your adult students.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $189.00

 

**Algebra: Introducing Algebraic Reasoning: Research suggests that math topics, including algebra, should be taught at all levels, not just when a student is ready for GED preparation. In this course, you'll learn how to introduce algebraic reasoning to your students, and you'll experiment with strategies for teaching numeric patterns, relationships, and functions based on real-life situations. You'll also explore strategies to help students model quantitative relationships using graphs, tables, words, and equations.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $189.00


Reading

Principles of Diagnostic Assessment and Teaching in Adult Reading Instruction: This six-week course has three parts. The first part consists of readings, discussion boards, and self-quizzes on the components of reading and diagnostic assessment. The second and third parts use the case study approach to give participants the opportunity to practice scoring and interpreting adult learners' assessments in reading.

Schedule: Next session coming soon!
Add yourself to the course interest list to be notified once new session dates are available.
Fee: $269.00

 

Reading Profiles: The Adult Reading Components Study, conducted by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL), found that adult readers at the same comprehension level have varying skills in fluency, decoding, and vocabulary. The researchers identified 11 reading profiles. Learn why developing reading profiles for students will help you, as a teacher or tutor, to plan better, more focused reading instruction. Learn how to prepare instructional plans for students using the tools and reading profiles on the Assessment Strategies and Reading Profiles website.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Teaching Learners What Reading Is All About: Understanding What Reading Is All About: Teaching Materials and Lessons for Adult Basic Education Learners, is based on findings from reading research conducted by NCSALL and others. This guide offers 13 lessons designed to help learners understand the components of reading that are part of becoming a more fluent reader. Review Understanding What Reading Is All About, consider why it is important for learners to know about the components of reading, and determine how and when you could use this guide with learners.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Reading Difficulties: In “Lessons from Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children for Adult Learning and Literacy” the authors outline risk factors identified in children with reading difficulties and compare these to those of adult literacy students. Instruction should address the social risk factors with which adult learners contend as well as the component reading skills. Reflect on your assumptions and beliefs about teaching reading and consider how the personal and social risk factors may impact learning how to read.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 

Ideas for Teaching Reading: Explore some of the research on reading and its implications for the development of curriculum and instructional techniques. Read articles that relate to your role in the program—ABE instructor, ESOL instructor, or program administrator/counselor. Consider how the findings or practices might apply to your situation and develop plans for trying out some of the ideas.
Completion time: 3 hours

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Fee: None

 



*Course developed for ProLiteracy
**Course produced and offered by ProfessionalStudiesAE.org, a partnership between ProLiteracy and World Education/U.S.