What is reflective practice?

“Reflective teaching is the practice of colleagues joining together to observe and analyze the consequences for student learning of different teaching behaviors and materials in order to gain insights that will result in the continuous evaluation and modification of pedagogy.”
– Chapter 11: Professional Development and Reflective Practice By William Powell 

Reflective practice can help us think through these questions and arrive at solutions.

Would you like to learn more about reflective practice?

AlphaPlus has created a website with a collection of reflective practice resources to support literacy educators develop a reflective process that works for them and the people they work with.

Would you like to engage in reflective practice with an AlphaPlus coach or a cohort of literacy practitioners?

In the Educator Network Blended Learning program and Planning Your Digital Toolbox, participants have the option of working through the Reflections on teaching with digital technology workbook. Join us or try it our with your colleagues (sign in to a Google account and make a copy).

If you’re interested in using a reflective practice process to plan and explore digital technology for learning, please contact Tracey or the AlphaPlus coaches.

If you’d like a copy of the Reflective Practice for Literacy Practitioners site to use as a starting point to adapt and expand for use in your program, please get in touch. AlphaPlus can give you a copy and support you in learning how to use a website builder such as Google Sites or Weebly as online learning spaces for learners, staff and volunteers.

Are you a literacy practitioner looking for resources to support a remote learning option for learners?

AlphaPlus started this site during the pandemic of 2020-22 to support adult literacy learners and practitioners during the pivot to remote learning. We’ve kept it going because the interest in offering remote learning options has increased.

The Resources for Practitioners page is a collection of resources you can use to build remote learning “classrooms.” Some of these resources were developed or reviewed by Ontario literacy practitioners. 

You may also find The AlphaPlus Guide to Getting Ready for Remote Learning and the AlphaPlus Guide to Building Community in Remote Learning useful resources.

If you’re interested in exploring remote learning options for your program, please get in touch. 

If you’d like a copy of this site to use as a starting point to adapt and expand for use in your program, please get in touch. AlphaPlus can give you a copy and support you in learning how to use a website builder such as Google Sites or Weebly as online learning spaces for learners, staff and volunteers.

What is a HyperDoc?

A HyperDoc is a teaching and learning tool that helps you organize content and instructional activities using text, audio, video, images and, of course, hyperlinks.  Think of it as an interactive lesson or unit plan. 

HyperDocs can be short, specific lessons, like introduction to fractions and their uses. They can also be more general and then applied to different topics and subjects, like the inquiry template. They can even be a comprehensive collection of learning activities, resources and ideas that you can use to develop smaller lessons or modules, like digital storytelling ideas. 

Creating a single HyperDoc does take time and effort. But what if it’s not all up to you to do the work? What if we could build a collection — sort of a crowdsourced effort? This is something we’re currently exploring.

AlphaPlus developed four HyperDocs to model their use and help you transition from paper to digital planning and activity development. 

Visit the Hyperdocs site to learn more:

  1. Review copyright with paper and online resources.
  2. Think about what you’re digitizing and why.
  3. Organize your digitized content using Google Drive.
  4. Explore ways to make your activities interactive .

These energizing and inspiring Zoom sessions showcase how innovative Ontario literacy program workers and instructors use digital tools and approaches to connect and work with learners and colleagues remotely.

Each session features guest presenters who share their approaches, strategies and tips followed by a Tech Q&A to explore some of the digital tools mentioned during the session.

Yet another inspiration to try something new to help my learners!

There is a vast amount of knowledge out there and to be able to listen to how people are using the various apps/tools was very informative.

It was such an informative couple of hours. Many bits of information stood out. The sharing of information was so exceptional.

This site is for people in the ACE* or Adult Upgrading programs at Ontario Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) programs who want to upgrade their computer skills in preparation for post-secondary education. We made this site especially for people in programs that do not include digital skills upgrading on site.

It is a companion to the Post-secondary digital skills readiness assessment developed by the College Sector Committee for Adult Upgrading and AlphaPlus.

Learners can use this site on their own or educators can use the site as a resource to develop a digital skills curriculum.

*ACE – Academic and Career Entrance program

In 2018, a college upgrading instructor came to AlphaPlus with an idea. 

He had developed an assessment tool to determine whether literacy and adult upgrading (AU)Nlearners were ready for the ways they would be using digital technology as post-secondary students. He wanted to enhance that resource and make it available to all literacy and basic skills (LBS) instructors.

Six other LBS college instructors joined him and worked with AlphaPlus and the College Sector Committee for Adult Upgrading (CSCAU) to determine the digital technology skills that learners need as they enter post-secondary education. 

The working group developed assessment tools that college LBS/AU programs can use to help assess their learners’ digital skills readiness for transition to post-secondary studies.

Learners can try out their skills and knowledge in a quiz and a set of holistic assessment activities for Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel. There are two versions of each of the holistic assessment activities that cover the same set of skills in different contexts and that can be used as a pre- and post-assessments.

If learners find that they need to work on a particular skill or suite of skills, we’ve collected learning resources to help with that: Technology Readiness

AlphaPlus curated a collection of shareable, free and high-quality learning materials that adult literacy educators can use to enhance their personal and program collections. 

Learning materials

The collection is divided into five sections for learners working at Ontario Adult Literacy Curriculum Framework (OALCF) Levels 1 and 2:

  1. Reading texts
  2. Practice tasks and writing
  3. Numeracy and mathematics 
  4. Professional learning and how-to guides
  5. Creating, modifying and analyzing your own materials

Shareable

We looked for materials that could be copied, printed or posted in online and offline environments. This means you can add materials to a website or learning management platform, attach them to an email or share them with learners in Google Drive. They can also be printed. In addition, some materials are templates or permit adaptations, allowing you to build and modify materials for your own use. Copyright information and Creative Commons licensing details are included for all materials.

Download a PDF version below or click here to open the collection in your Google Drive.

In 2018, we decided that a guide on writing effective case notes for digital literacy training services would better support our work as coaches. 

We hoped that our guide and our record of how we developed it might be useful to others working in literacy and basic skills (LBS) as they develop, enhance or extend their own system of sharing information through case notes.

Our main finding was that case notes on their own aren’t a solution to the dilemmas in our work, but there are two outcomes of the project that will make a positive contribution to the field: case studies and reflective practice.

Case studies became the Wayfinders Studio and reflective practice became the Educator Network (eNet).

eNet

Join eNet to collaborate with inspiring educators and explore blended learning tools and approaches.

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Wayfinders Studio

Join literacy educators who are experimenting, piloting and reflecting on how digital technology can enhance learning.

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Digital technology can support personalized learning in several ways:

AlphaPlus created this site in December 2018 for a community-based adult literacy program we were working with in Toronto. They were looking at increasing the use of tablets and were interested to see how digital technology could enhance an instructor’s capacity to personalize learning for a group with diverse needs, goals and desires.

If you’re interested in exploring the ways digital technology can personalize or individualize learning, please get in touch. 

If you’d like a copy of this site to use as a starting point to adapt and expand for use in your program, please get in touch. AlphaPlus can give you a copy and support you in learning how to use a website builder such as Google Sites or Weebly as online learning spaces for learners, staff and volunteers.