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Levels of Knowing Mathematics
This resource outlines the levels of knowing math proposed by Mahesh C. Sharma: intuitive, concrete/experiential, pictorial/representational, abstract, applications, and communication. The chart explains each level and gives an example of what that level would look like in the classroom.
Integrated Education and Training Design Toolkit (Initial Release)
The Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) supported development of this Integrated Education and Training (IET) Toolkit to assist state and local adult education staff to plan, design, implement, and evaluate effective IET programs that are responsive to state and local labor market demands and fulfill the requirements…
ABE Acronyms
Adult Basic Education (ABE) is chock-full is acronyms! There’s one right there! But fear not; we have compiled this list of the most common acronyms that apply to Minnesota Adult Education and/or our learners. ABE Acronyms…
Refugees in America
This is the official United Nations High Commission for Refugees website, which can serve as a primer for ABE educators who work with refugees to understand who refugees are, where they come from, and relevant statistics and facts about refugees.
Best Practices for Serving LGBTQ Students
This is a guide for educators on how to work towards creating a more LGBTQ-inclusive school environment. This guide includes four key areas: policy checkup, classroom culture, instruction, and family and community engagement.
Reppin’ the Rainbow: LGBTQIA+ Topics in ABE
ABE professionals can use this presentation to better understand and discuss topics around gender and sexuality in the classroom. Included are materials, discussion questions, resources and research. Scroll down to the second topic listed on the website to find these resources.
CCRS for Adult Education
The College & Career Readiness Standards for Adult Education (CCRS) is the document that lays out the standards for English Language Arts/Literacy, Math, and Foundational Reading Skills. CCRS is one of the three components - along with the Transitions Integration Framework (TIF) and the Northstar Digital Literacy Standards - of the Minnesota ABE content standards.
Creating Questions to Engage Critically with Texts
The strategy described in this article provides tools to create questions that help students engage critically with central texts and examine them for issues of power and social inequity. The activities suggested here also encourage readers to bring their knowledge and experiences to the reading of a text.
Academic Language and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know
This article helps educators understand the role that academic language plays in their classrooms and in ELL student success. The article also includes information on social vs. academic language, as well as numerous examples of the different kinds of academic language needed for all students to fully participate in classroom activities and assignments.
A Strategy of Giving Corrective Feedback to ELLs
This article explains how using sentence frames and explicit feedback can provide the right balance of structure and scaffolding for English language learners.
8 Strategies for Building Relationships with ELLs in Any Learning Environment
Learn how educators can build authentic relationships with ELLs in virtual and hybrid settings, as well as how they can connect students' experiences to meaningful instruction. This article was written for a K-12 audience, but ABE teachers will find the recommendations to be helpful and easily implemented with adult learners.
Teaching To Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
This book offers educators tools to increase democratic participation in the classroom and to think about education as a practice of freedom. From the back cover: "Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for the author, the teacher's most important goal."
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Brazilian educational activist Paulo Freire originally published the seminal book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1968. This book is essential reading for any educator interested in adult literacy and equity. Freire explains how traditional schooling perpetuates colonization and domination over oppressed classes of people and the way to liberation is through literacy and evoking critical consciousness in education.
Secondary Traumatic Stress and Self-Care Packet
Educators, counselors, and other support staff who work with students exposed to trauma are at risk of being indirectly traumatized as a result of hearing about their students’ experiences and witnessing the negative effects. In the first section of this packet, learn about secondary traumatic stress and related conditions; in the second section, use the tools and strategies provided to help you create individual and schoolwide plans to promote staff self-care and resilience.
Reducing Stress and Promoting Mental Health in the ABE/ESOL Classroom
The ideas in this resource were developed through the Managing Stress to Improve Learning project at World Education in Boston, MA. The project was informed throughout by trauma-informed practice and recent research on how the brain is affected by chronic, toxic stress. The authors have tried here to include very practical, hands-on approaches to help teachers practice— proactively and responsively—creating safe and stable learning environments where students can manage their stressors and persist in their learning goals.
Trauma and Learning: Impacts and Strategies for Adult Classroom Success
Exposure to potentially traumatic events, which can have a significant impact on brain mechanisms for language learning, is high in adult ELL classrooms. This article outlines strategies that target attention and memory networks which may make it easier for adults to learn.
Race, Identity, and English Language Teaching
A Joint TESOL Quarterly and TESOL Journal Publication This is an online database of articles on race and teaching curated by editors from TESOL Journal and TESOL Quarterly, to support TESOL’s statement against racial injustice and inequality.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Author Peggy McIntosh explains, "I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group." Proceeding from her studies on male privilege, her list outlining the "daily effects of white privilege" is a starting point to help people understand how this dynamic shows up in our lives regardless of intent and without our conscious participation - so that we can begin creating a more equitable society.
Worth the Risk: Towards Decentering Whiteness in English Language Teaching
In this article the author reveals how English Language Teaching (ELT) centers whiteness and its negative impact on teachers and students of color. The author also provides suggestions for how ELT educators can de-center whiteness in the ELT field.
On the “Flip” Side: A Teacher Educator of Color Unveiling the Dangerous Minds of White Teacher Candidates
Dr. Cheryl Matias teaches urban education courses at the University of Kentucky to prospective teachers, many of whom are White women. She identifies how the "white savior" narrative serves as a motivator for many of her students, and she examines its implications in the classroom. Dr. Matias also discusses the impact that her students’ whiteness ideology has on her as an educator of color, and how she counteracts the psychological harm done to her through the “pedagogy of trauma.”
New Resources
Federal Reserve Education – Critical Thinking
This is an excellent resource for teaching financial literacy and personal finance skills. The collection can be searched using keywords or by applying filters for audience, type, topic, or standards. No account is needed to access all the resources.
Federal Reserve Education – Navigating Systems
This is an excellent resource for teaching financial literacy and personal finance skills. The collection can be searched using keywords or by applying filters for audience, type, topic, or standards. No account is needed to access all the resources.
Story by Story (2008)
Story by Story was developed for Beginning ABE students needing (and wanting) systematic and contextual phonics instruction. However, it has been successfully used with many Beginning-Intermediate ESL students as well. This website provides 12 printable Story by Story lessons that each include the story text, a word study, and sentence-writing exercises.
Presenter Information
Get information about stipends, reimbursements, and other instructions for presenters.
MN ABE YouTube Channel
The MN ABE YouTube Channel is a free online PD resource that you can use to explore teaching techniques and classroom ideas in action! Find out more in this MN ABE Connect newsletter article.
Upcoming ABE Events
January 27, 2022
8:30 am–4:00 pm
Online
Language & Literacy Institute 2022 – Virtual Event
Online
Registration Deadline: THU. 1/27/22 If you require ASL interpretation, please contact Gail Rutan at grutan01@hamline.edu The PROGRAM SCHEDULE contains the daily schedule (also shown below), session descriptions, and presenter biographies. Learn More
Online
January 31, 2022
6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Online
Developing and Practicing Reading Fluency
Online
Registration Deadline: MON. 1/31/22 Come and review the important role of fluency in reading instruction. We will discuss the three key components of reading fluency and look at a variety of activities tutors and teachers can try. We will talk about the mechanics of doing fluency practice via… Learn More
Online
February 2, 2022
2:00 pm–3:00 pm
Online
Google Suite Webinar Series #1: Introduction and Resources for Educators
Online
Registration Deadline: WED. 2/2/22 In this kickoff to our spring webinar series, participants will get an overview of Google Suite applications and resources for educators. Learn how to become a Google Certified Educator, explore the Google Applied Digital Skills Curriculum and the Northstar Digital Literacy Google… Learn More
Online