Extra hands, fresh energy, and a bigger sense of community are just some of what great volunteers can bring to your adult education program. In this interactive session, we’ll dig into real examples, brainstorm roles that fit your program, and send you off with practical ideas for making volunteers a meaningful part of your team.
About This Session
Description
Volunteers can be powerful partners in adult education, helping address classroom challenges and creating more opportunities for learner success. In this interactive session, participants will explore real-life examples of how volunteers have supported instruction, provided targeted learner assistance, and strengthened classroom community.
Together, we’ll discuss a wide range of meaningful tasks volunteers can take on so that instructors can focus on teaching. Participants will brainstorm volunteer roles specific to their own programs and share strategies for engaging, training, and retaining these valuable team members.
By the end, you’ll be ready to “get on the volunteer bandwagon” and make the most of the extra hands, hearts, and minds available to support ABE learners and programs.
What we'll cover:
In this workshop, we will expand on the benefits of having volunteers in the adult education classroom, and how to set both volunteers and learners up for success with a positive, strengths-focused mindset and clear expectations and roles.
In this session, we will dig into a variety of in-person and virtual volunteer roles that are available, discuss how to set clear expectations for volunteers so that they can make the most of their tutoring time, and explore different training resources to support programs.
Topics & Focus
Primary Topic Area
Session will also cover:
Assigned by TCALL
Pending
Audience
Level
Case study?
Promotion?
A note from the presenter:
No other info available at this time.
Handouts & Materials
No handouts or materials available at this time.
“Name of Session” – session presentation slides (PDF)
Name of Document – lesson sample (PDF)
Name of Document (PDF)
Name of Document – infographic (JPG)
Presenter
Andrea Echelberger
LESLLA
Andrea Echelberger has worked in the field of adult education as a classroom teacher and an instructional trainer for over 20 years, providing training and support for English language teachers on both a state and national level.
Andrea has worked extensively with refugee-background adult emergent readers, served as an EL Fellow and EL Specialist with the US State Department, and has developed a wide variety of workshops and classroom instructional materials for ABE teachers of all levels. She served for three years on the international board of LESLLA, an organization that focuses on adult emergent readers. Andrea’s favorite areas of research are universal design for classrooms, healing-centered classroom practices, and pronunciation instruction.
Breakout26 – ECHELBERGER
Page checked or updated: 6/10/2026
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