2019 Annual Conference

Adult Basic Education and Literacy Education

Concurrent Session (45 minutes)

This presentation focuses on the creation, and growth of a community college's Pathway Program to build bridge to sucess for student through accessible and affordable educational opportunities that meet their needs. Since the inception, this program has connect more than 2,300 community members. 

Higher education faculty and staff, community educators, policy makers, facilitators

The learning outcome for participants will be a growing understanding of they impact pathway programs has within both community and education realms, the steps it took to create the program, and an understanding of the goals that program hoped to accomplish.

This presentation will take participants through the process of the pathways program and the impact this program has had on the community. Since fall of 2016, the ACC Community Pathways Program has connected with more than 2,300 community members, surveyed over 1,200 individuals, and served roughly 1,000 adult students. The Program has offered over 100 course sections in areas such as Survival English, Digital Literacy, Mujeres Emprendedores (Women’s Entrepreneurship), Spanish for Educators, Spanish GED Preparation, and others. ACC has partnerships with 30 sites in Austin and the surrounding area.

In Spring 2018, ACC was asked to offer the basic Digital Literacy course as well as an intermediate Digital Literacy course at 14 Austin ISD school locations for the 2018-2019 school year.  In addition, ACC was asked to launch a Continuing Education Instructional Aide program to serve 14 school locations. This program enables parents to become certified as teacher’s aides and to work in the schools where their children are attending.  As of October 2018, ACC’s Community Pathways Program has held classes in 30 community locations and is continuing to expand rapidly.

This presentation will be given in a lecture style format with innovative power point slides to guide the participants through the presentation, and to ensure timeliness. In addition, there will be hand outs with important aspects, research and talking points for participants to take home.