Resources
Results
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 & Training Design Toolkit
The Integrated Education and Training (IET) Toolkit was developed 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 of WIOA. The IET Design Toolkit guides users through a team-based approach to developing customized IET solutions that address the needs of adult learners and local businesses through four iterative phases: Research and Assess, Design and Plan, Develop and Implement, and Evaluate and Improve.
ABE Acronyms
Adult Basic Education (ABE) is chock-full of 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.
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.
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.”
Understanding Implicit Bias
The Kirwan Research Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity works to raise awareness to the complexity and impact of implicit bias and the ways it acts as a barrier to access. This website provides a concrete definition of implicit bias and the ways it operates to broaden social inequality. You can sign up to receive their newsletter to get updates on their interdisciplinary research.
New Resources
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Adult Foundational Education
This 2023 brief from the CREATE Adult Skills Network sheds light on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility conditions, opportunities, and challenges as they manifest in adult basic education across the country.
Community Interpreter Credential
Resources related to Community Interpreter have been collected by an ATLAS Credential Specialist experienced in this field. The PDF includes information on the credential including testing, ABE and non-ABE providers that offer training, curriculum links, potential participants, Minnesota wage and outlook information and additional certifications on this career pathway.
Certified Nursing Assistant Credential
Resources related to Certified Nursing Assistant have been collected by an ATLAS Credential Specialist experienced in this field. The PDF includes information on the credential including testing, ABE and non-ABE providers that offer training, curriculum links, potential participants, Minnesota wage and outlook information and additional certifications on this career pathway.
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
April 24, 2024
6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Online
Reading Activities for Beginning Literacy and Beginning English Language Learners
Online
Registration Deadline: WED. 4/24/24 Teaching and tutoring very beginning level ESL readers can be intimidating for volunteers and professional teachers alike. Attend this webinar to get practical activities and ideas for one-on-one, remote and in-person instruction with tech and no-tech options. Leave feeling ready to provide your learners… Learn More
Online
April 25, 2024
2:30 pm–4:00 pm
Online
Learning Math Asynchronously: Best Practices, Resources and More
Online
Registration Deadline: THU. 4/25/24 Students have incredibly busy schedules and this can prevent them from attending scheduled classes to meet their needs. In the past, we may have simply offered students access to a distance learning platform. Today we have access to a variety of tools and resources… Learn More
Online
April 26, 2024
9:00 am–12:00 pm
Online
CASAS STEPS and Burlington English Prep Virtual Conference
Online
Registration Deadline: FRI. 4/26/24 Come learn about the new CASAS STEPS assessment and the new BurlingtonEnglish CASAS preparation materials. We’ll collaborate together in person, sharing strategies learned from states who have already adopted the new CASAS Steps assessment, gaining confidence with the English Language Proficiency standards, and receive… Learn More
Online