High levels of student engagement are the holy grail of teaching. This is true for adult education just as much as it is true for K-12 education. Adult students are busy and may decide they have better things to do if they do not feel engaged and active in your classroom; therefore, the successful teacher has lots of ideas -- lots of tricks up his or her sleeve -- to keep students engaged with the learning at hand.

One strategy is the "gamification" of the learning objectives. Turn your lesson into a game and you will tap into students' desires for competition. Explore this search on Edutopia.org to learn more about both the theory and practice of gamification.

An existing free resource can help you develop a game for a new lesson. A newsletter from LoTi Connection recently shared an easy-to-use template for making your own Jeopardy-type game. You can download the Google Slides template and create your own questions and answers.

You may like a single list of ideas that you can consult when you are brainstorming about your lessons and how you will engage your students. There is one document that has compiled 280 different ideas for you. Titled Interactive Teaching Techniques , this document is organized by lesson type, and it really does have 280 entries! Categories range from "Pairs" and "Large Group" to "Twitter" and "Second-Chance Testing." There are many useful ideas in this document that can help you inspire and enable your students to engage with the lesson every day.

Summer reading list for teachers

We all want to do some reading while relaxing during the summer, and we hope you have been able to do so. To help guide you towards books that are both interesting and helpful in your role in education, Edutopia has shared a list of six books for summer reading for teachers. These books include practical ideas that can help you personally ( Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators ) and professionally ( Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age ).

Work-related texting lesson idea

Communicating through text messaging is becoming more prevalent throughout our lives, and this includes communicating with your employers. LINCS moderator David Rosen has shared an idea for a possible writing skills lesson that includes texting etiquette. David suggested a blog article and video that you could incorporate into a lesson to review this important skill with your students.

Helping Students Beat Test Anxiety

Edutopia recently shared an article with a few strategies that you can use with your students to overcome test anxiety. Though some high schoolers face the stresses of the SAT and other big standardized tests, the stress that adult students feel when faced with their high school equivalency exams is no less real. This article focuses on a brief writing exercise that can help students reframe the way they feel about their anxiety and use it as a positive force.

Webinar: Maximizing WIOA and Non-WIOA Performance Data

Staff from the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), and Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), and representatives from several states will present a webinar about developing a plan for maximizing your use of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and non-WIOA performance data. Discussion will include how to make sense of it, what to do with it, and how to present it to stakeholders in an understandable way. This webinar will take place on Tuesday, July 23, 1:00-2:30 p.m. Learn more and register online .

Using info from the Career Pathways Student Report

The Career Pathways Student Report (CPSR) is just one example of a data tool that many programs have been using to collect career pathway information that they can use to inform future programming. Over the next few weeks, student report summaries will be shared with programs that submitted reports. The  Adult Ed Resources' Data Collection page , along with personalized technical assistance from Workforce Development Project staff, will help guide programming decisions around partnership development and growth, student supportive services, sector-focused instruction, and employer engagement activities. 

College Scorecard updated to include student debt information

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education shared news regarding recent updates to the College Scorecard , a resource published by the Department to give students information necessary in making informed decisions about their options for education after high school. The College Scorecard will now include information about post-graduation student debt broken down by field of study. This information could be meaningful to adult students looking to continue their education. Also, this report now includes 2,100 non-degree granting institutions.

Grant basics: Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes

The writing of a successful grant should include a focus on the three areas of your goals, objectives, and outcomes. To write a complete and balanced proposal, consider and develop these three areas together. A recent blog post from GetEdFunding titled, Back to Basics: Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes describes how you can do this in order to write your best possible proposal.

Great letters of support with your application

An important aspect of many grant applications will be the letter of support. If you need to include a letter of support with an application, it makes a big difference who you ask and what they write. GetEdFunding has recently shared a blog post titled Who and How -- The Best Letter of Support which discusses this crucial aspect of grant applications and gives strategies for success.

The job postings below are for adult basic education programs that are funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and, at least in part, by WIOA Title II funds. They can also be found on the  paadultedresources.org  website. To post a job, please email the job advertiseme nt to  [email protected] . 

Executive Director, Community Learning Center - Philadelphia, PA

Visit  www.paadultedresources.org  for the latest PA adult education news and resources. Recent additions to the site include:

State and national organizations' newsletters are listed below and may be of interest to you. To receive the most recent editions by email, please subscribe directly to the newsletter. 

OCTAE Connection, US Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, & Adult Education. Features news and resources for adult basic, career, and technical education

June 21

World Education/U.S. Features resources and information from World Education projects including The Change Agent, College for Adults, EdTech Center, National College Transitional network, and many others

June 27 July Newsletter

Families Learning: News of the Week, National Center for Families Learning .

Features information and resources for family literacy, early childhood education, and parent education

June Families Learning Insider June 28 July 5 July 12

Workforce GPS, Workforce3 One. Features career pathways and workforce development information

June 18 June 25 July 10

COABE Journal, Coalition On Adult Basic Education. Features national information, resources, and initiatives for adult basic education

July 15 Research 2 Practice

Rural Perspectives, The Center for Rural Pennsylvania. Features data and research findings related to a variety of topics relevant to rural PA

June Newsletter