Bradley Wheeler, 2023 LARAEC's Innovation Awardee for Kinesthetic Language Learning - Bradley Wheeler, Culver City Adult School ESL Teacher, was awarded the 2023 Los Angeles Regional Adult Education Consortium's Innovation Award for Kinesthetic Language Learning. Throughout his classes, Teacher Brad creates multiple opportunities for students to engage in meaningful dialogue and movement as they learn English. His classes are dynamic as he facilitates participatory and interactive simulations, presentations, student-generated videos, role-playing, and hands-on projects and competitions. Students also use shared apps to practice and improve their skills in English as they post information and videos and provide feedback to one another on English grammar and sentence structure. He inspires students to speak, listen, read, and write in fun, memorable, and purposeful ways. We celebrate his commitment to adult learners by furthering students’ language learning.

Teacher Aaron Mendelson, awardee of 2023 LARAEC's Innovation Award for Flipped Learning and Student Empowerment: Aaron Mendelson, Culver City Adult School ESL Teacher, was awarded the 2023 Los Angeles Regional Adult Education Consortium's Innovation Award for Flipped Learning and Student Empowerment. He integrates many edtech tools into his lessons, including the use of Google Suite apps for his students, empowering them with much-needed 21st-century digital literacy skills. He has continued to use Flipped Learning to prioritize active, reciprocal learning in his classroom, and many of the student-created Flip videos have inspired other teachers to explore technology in the classroom. We are celebrating his work publicly to not only acknowledge his hard work, but also to highlight the importance of social studies education in our adult learning community. Teacher Aaron’s recent achievement in receiving the Award for Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice from the California Council of Social Studies is also outstanding. His dedication and contributions to the field of English as a Second Language education are truly commendable. Teacher Aaron has consistently demonstrated exemplary leadership and innovation, engaging students and fostering critical thinking skills. His passion for language learners is evident in his commitment to excellence, and he serves as an inspiration to educators across our district.