It’s been quite a year! As you reflect on the skills and practices you’ve strengthened, the ones you’d like to improve, and your program priorities, what are your PD goals? In the recent UMass Donahue Institute Adult Education System Evaluation Report 2020, 75% of respondents reported that “timing...

Do you want to increase your capacity (and your program's capacity) to skillfully advise students with credentials and degrees from other countries? Please complete this interest form to indicate your interest in having an hour -long coaching call (with the option for follow-up calls). Requests will...

We are pleased to announce that the newest issue of The Change Agent is now available online. Thanks to our partnership with the New England Literacy Resource Center (NELRC), The Change Agent is available to all Massachusetts adult educators for free. If you have not already, please go here to...

Without a doubt, the transition from in-person to remote work has had an impact on all of us. Some Massachusetts adult education programs have found creative ways to promote greater access to technology and improved inclusion of students into the current reality by engaging volunteers. During the...

Making our programs more diverse, equitable, and inclusive is a long, sustained process, not a quick fix, and requires that all staff, with excellent leadership, collaborate on all efforts. Students thrive in programs where collaboration and common understanding of values is known by all staff. The...

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role of distance and blended learning classes. As the pivot to remote teaching and learning highlighted the great digital divide in this country, it also created avenues of access for many learners who might not otherwise be able to participate in...

Adult education programs in Massachusetts include programs in corrections settings, and programs that work closely with learners involved in the carceral system (the entire system of law enforcement from all forms of monitoring to arrest, to the courts and through sentencing and release). The data...

In her article entitled “Trauma Impacts Adult Learners: Here’s Why,” Karen Gross states that we live in a world surrounded by trauma, with all evidence concluding that trauma “affects the capacity of individuals of all ages to learn and retain information.” As we have seen the COVID-19 pandemic...

The SABES PSPDC has been engaging in our own internal reflection and self-education, asking what it looks like to take actions that make our work more aligned with the values of DEI. We can only support adult education programs in their DEI work when we also engage in the same work and ask the same...

The transformative work of making our adult education programs more diverse, equitable, and inclusive calls upon each one of us to examine our identities and the biases we may hold. Our identities inform the lenses through which we see and understand the world, which shapes our interactions, our...