IDEAL Consortium Resources Available to Minnesota Adult Educators

Minnesota Adult Education staff can access many valuable instructional and PD resources via the IDEAL Consortium. This national group helps member states, including Minnesota, establish quality innovative distance and blended learning programs by offering professional development, providing technical support, and facilitating a network of distance education leaders from across the country.

Transition to Transforming Distance Education Course

Minnesota is currently transitioning from the use of our online DL Basics course to the IDEAL Transforming Distance Education Course, effective March 1, 2021. This course was designed for education providers and practitioners teaching adult basic academic skills, ESOL, and literacy at a distance and/or through blended learning. It provides strategies and resources that are essential for both setting up and implementing distance education or teaching with a blended approach. The Minnesota DL Support team is augmenting the course content to reflect information specific to Minnesota Adult Education, which will be available in early March.  Full details and registration information will be available at the Spring 2021 Un-Regional Event on March 5.

The course includes four modules:

• Getting Started With Distance And Blended Learning
• Outreach, Screening, & Orientation: Supporting Distance Learners From The Start
• Effective Distance & Blended Learning Instruction
• Assessment

Each topic is a micro-learning lesson that can be completed independently at your own page; upon completing each lesson, ABE professionals can earn a digital achievement badge and CEUs. Here is a detailed course description.

Additional free resources through IDEAL Consortium

Minnesota’s IDEAL membership allows free access to many other PD  resources and courses. Courses include:

• Intro to Blended Learning
• Intro to Mobile Learning
• Intro to Open Educational Resources

Links to these courses and instructions on how to enroll can be found on the MN ABE Distance Learning website professional development page.

Other resources include Tips for Distance Learning, the MLearning Resource Hub, and the Workforce EdTech tech tools repository.

IDEAL also facilitates Distance Education Strategy Sessions every 2nd Friday, and Distance Ed Strategies and Solutions every 4th Friday; here are the times and registration information. You can also access these Technology and Learning PD resources for free.