2026 Iowa Adult Education & Literacy Conference

Join leaders from the Central Iowa Workforce Development Board, Title I, Title II, and the One‑Stop Operator for a candid conversation about what it really takes to build meaningful collaboration across workforce and adult education. We’ll share successful strategies as well as the honest lessons learned from projects that didn’t go as planned. This session will give you practical steps, replicable ideas, and realistic insights to help you strengthen your own workforce board relationships and move beyond coordination to true collaboration.
 

Adult learners juggle busy lives and career goals, yet traditional surface instruction often leaves them unprepared for real-world demands. This interactive session explores how attention span influences persistence, why deeper learning matters, and how active learning strategies can bridge classroom instruction with workforce readiness. Participants will gain practical tools to move learners from memorization to application—building critical thinking, communication, and teamwork skills that strengthen both educational and career outcomes.

Many adult education and continuing education programs want to offer workforce certification training but face real barriers to building it: curriculum development takes time, qualified instructors are hard to find, and upfront costs are hard to justify before a program has proven it can fill. In this session, Pearson will walk through a live demonstration of a self-paced certification training platform designed for adult learners pursuing careers in healthcare and IT, showing how the program is structured to build skills and keep learners on track. We'll open the floor for questions and discussion throughout, and close with a brainstorm on how your institution could partner with us to expand workforce pathways and impact more Iowans!

Integrated Education and Training (IET) programs rely on strong collaboration between instructors to successfully blend adult education and literacy, workforce preparation, and workforce training. However, co-teaching is often implemented without clear structure, shared planning time, or defined roles—leading to inconsistent student outcomes.
This session explores practical, field-tested co-teaching models designed specifically for IET settings, including adult learners and non-native English speakers. In addition to instructional strategies, the session will examine the working relationship between content specialists and ABE/ESL instructors, with a focus on role negotiation, shared authority in the classroom, and leveraging complementary expertise.

Participants will explore how to align expectations, communicate effectively across disciplines, and navigate common tensions—such as balancing technical rigor with language and literacy support. Through real-world examples and interactive activities, attendees will learn how to implement multiple co-teaching approaches (e.g., team teaching, station teaching, parallel instruction) and determine which models best fit their program structure.

Discover how to design Career Pathways that align with WIOA regulations and support IET program success. This session will highlight essential components such as employer engagement, partnership development, and using Labor Market Information (LMI) to inform program design. Participants will explore a practical framework for building comprehensive, industry-focused pathways and receive templates for local implementation. The session also includes guidance on designing Single Set of Learning Objectives (SSLOs) that integrate academic instruction with workforce preparation.

Many adult education and continuing education programs want to offer workforce certification training but face real barriers to building it: curriculum development takes time, qualified instructors are hard to find, and upfront costs are hard to justify before a program has proven it can fill. In this session, Pearson will walk through a live demonstration of a self-paced certification training platform designed for adult learners pursuing careers in healthcare and IT, showing how the program is structured to build skills and keep learners on track. We'll open the floor for questions and discussion throughout, and close with a brainstorm on how your institution could partner with us to expand workforce pathways and impact more Iowans!

This session focuses on how to create powerful connections between education and employment. Participants will share models, partnerships, and strategies that lead to real workforce outcomes.