About Propel

We envision an adult education system in New Mexico where practitioners are valued and fairly compensated for their professional knowledge, skills, and experience and where learner outcomes are supported by transformative, collaborative, and effective professional learning. 

We provide relevant, high-quality professional learning that is grounded in current research and best practices to increase professionalism and build capacity among NM adult education practitioners and support improved services for learners and their communities. 

• We are transparent in our actions, intentions, and expectations for our professional learning system.

• We acknowledge and respect the unique experience and expertise that each person brings to the field.  

• We center the knowledge, skills, and experience of New Mexico participants and prioritize the building of our state’s capacity as we select, develop, and invest in professional learning opportunities.

• All adult learners, including faculty and staff, are creative and resourceful. Our professional learning system respects and builds upon their creative solutions and innovations that address their unique professional circumstances.

• Professional learning opportunities are anchored in research and best practices and are informed by sociocultural theories of learning, the theory of critical professional development, and the principle of lifelong learning.

• We offer professional learning opportunities that are relevant, rigorous, participant-centered, and reflective.  Adult education practitioners are professionals, and our system’s standards and activities reflect a high ideal and expectation of professionalism. 

• Propel’s professional learning offerings and the system as a whole are evaluated regularly, systematically, and in a manner that incorporates data analysis to demonstrate effectiveness for participants and students.

• We take a collaborative and inclusive approach to the development and implementation of our PL system. 

• We value learning communities that engage participants in reflection and analysis, deepening and strengthening learning and practice.

• We provide collaborative professional learning that offers meaningful opportunities for input and participation.

Sociocultural theories of learning fundamentally underpin and inform Propel’s approach to professional learning. We embrace theory because understanding how people learn is key to system design and development decisions, as well as to explaining those decisions to others. Theory informs the practice of adult education in useful ways and can help us solve problems. As we face challenges, we can turn to theory for new perspectives. We can ask ourselves, “Since we value x and we believe that learning is best promoted by y, how would the theory guide us to address this problem?” In other words, theory has the potential to suggest alternative routes; to get us unstuck. Theory also provides us, as practitioners, frameworks within which to grow in our practice and help each other grow. Bringing theory into our conversation can sustain and deepen it, suggesting new directions in the issues we all grapple with. Constructivist, sociocultural theories of learning, as well as critical approaches, have shaped Propel’s system design, designs for professional learning, and the instruction and support that we promote. We briefly introduce two of these theories here: 

• Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation. This theory presents a framework for how people learn. It reflects a view of learning that is not merely the cognition of the individual, but instead as a fundamentally interactive and participatory process. In other words, learning is a collective process, not an individual one. Learning is situated; it is meaningful to the extent that it is relevant to and reflective of the authentic activities of daily life for the learners. This theory holds that learners participate in communities of practice, which are groups of people who share a common set of understandings, interests, or problems and work together toward common goals. Through a process called legitimate peripheral participation, new community participants gradually move from the periphery, or edge, of the community to its center, toward full participation in the community. Through this process, they develop and change facets of their identities, and change the community itself through their participation within it. This theory helps us conceptualize learners as moving along a trajectory and helps us see the roles that not only instructors play, but crucially the role of peers and other mentors play, in learning. 

• Critical professional development. Theorists with a critical approach to learning recognize that societies are not equitable and emphasize the uncovering of assumptions so that we might challenge them. Education is not neutral; it is empowering. Instructors inspired by critical pedagogies encourage their students to become aware of, critique, and transform their realities. Notable critical theorists that have inspired adult educators include Paolo Freire (1970) and the writings of bell hooks. Typical professional development requires that the learner adapt to an outside system and it could be argued that typical approaches assume the learner is deficient, needing to be trained in the “correct” and sanctioned ways of working. We can use critical approaches to upend this typical focus and instead center practitioners’ needs. We can actively encourage practitioners’ full participation in their own learning. Although any professional learning system in our field will necessarily include some things that simply must be addressed (such as the use of approved content standards), we can use critical approaches to emphasize a balance between the needs of our system and students and the needs of the individual practitioner and the practitioner community. If we truly value the professionalization of our field, then we must always treat teachers as creative and capable professionals.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.