Info Update

• Dr. Z-Coe's Corner
• Open Enrollment Update
• Important Course Opening Tasks
• Bi-monthly Facilitator Discussion Topics
• NSDC Free Trial Membership
• Facilitator Leadership Board Activities
• Literacy Log Update
• Chat Update
• Course Closing Reminder

ABC's of Facilitation

• Facilitation Resource of the Month
• What's My Role?
• Dear Felicity,

Chatterbox

• Community Comments
• Monthly Online Chat
• Future Chats

Dr. Z-Coe's Corner

Dear FOR-PD Facilitator:

Happy New Year! Thank you for collaborating with the Florida Online Reading Professional Development (FOR-PD) Project. We are excited to be working with you this semester. FOR-PD staff specializes in quality services and support to educators. You, as our online facilitator, provide one of our core services to districts and teachers. We continue to learn and brainstorm new ways to support our facilitators and participants. This semester we will be providing new layers of professional development to facilitators in hopes of increasing their knowledge about facilitating/coaching adults and helping teachers successfully complete the course. Our goal is to have an 80% course completion.

I wish you success with the facilitation of the course this semester. This month our focus is "Bringing about Change through Professional Development." I believe that you will enjoy our facilitator resources, the January reading strategy, news and events, and literacy and project related information. Please feel free to share your feedback with us or contact us for any needs you might have—we are here to serve you and help you meet your professional development goals.

The key to continuous facilitation improvement is professional development. How do you know if you are improving? How do you know what really works in online facilitation? How do you know how to "coach and mentor" other adult educators? What do you consider as progress in your facilitation skills? How do we get results and measure them in terms of teacher growth and learning? 

School, teacher, and student improvement are not a mystery. Twenty-five years ago John Goodlad (1970) told us that "innovation" is not enough. "Behind the classroom door" even teachers who think they are implementing an innovation, often just "twist" it back into what they have always done. Professional development is important. Results are important. Implementing on an ongoing basis what you know works and assessing its effectiveness are even more important. Results will not negate the process. On the contrary, results "tell" which processes are most effective. Process exists for results and results inform process.  

Teachers (or adults, in general) perform more effectively if they collaborate with others. Learning communities get results. Collegiality brings results. Meaningful (facilitator-participant and participant-participant) collaboration will bring results in your section. Teacher isolation is an enemy to teacher learning and classroom results. Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) stated the following:

Collegiality among teachers, as measured by the frequency of communication, mutual support, help, etc., was a strong indicator of implementation success. Virtually every research study on the topic has found this to be the case (p. 132). 

• Are ongoing and meaningful collaborations between yourself and your students and also among your "students" taking place in your section? What can you do this semester to invite and strengthen facilitator-participant and participant-participant collaboration?

 Lortie (1975) researched teacher isolation and reported the following:

Individualism combines with pretentism to retard the search for occupational knowledge. Teachers who work in isolation cannot create an empirically grounded, semantically potent common language. Unless they develop terms to indicate specific events, discussion will lack the clarity it needs to enlighten practice...Individualism supports pretentism by inhibiting work with others in a search for common solutions. Teachers do not undertake the collegial effort which has played so crucial role in other occupations (p. 212). 

• Because this is an online course, it does not mean that it is an independent or void of communication or collaboration course. I think we need to reread this statement a few times and reflect each time on its meaning. How is a facilitator going to develop a common language of literacy, a common language of collaboration, a common language of a learning community, and a common language of learning if all s/he does is a checklist approach to facilitating in this course, or just tells teachers to turn in their assignments without providing meaningful feedback, eliciting and participating in discussions, giving suggestions, and initiating dialogue among teachers in the course? What do you plan to do in your section to create a learning community? What are some of the factors that prohibited you from creating a strong learning community in the past? What impedes teamwork? How do you plan to lead out and provide consistent feedback to fellow-teachers?

The characteristics of successful academic professional learning communities include the following:

• Supportive and shared leadership
• I encourage you this semester to reflect on how you provide supporting and shared leadership to fellow-educators in the course. Think of alternative ways to provide additional support to your section participants. Think of ways to initiate meaningful discussions. Teachers are lonely. Teachers don't have much time. Teachers have high expectations of inservice. Are you helping meet their goals, needs, and expectations? Are you talking and sharing ideas with other FOR-PD facilitators? The online FOR-PD facilitator is the role model of adult professional development. What you do or not do will affect teachers' learning and growth and in turn will affect what they do or how they view professional development and ongoing learning.
• Shared values and vision
• I also would like to encourage you this semester to make the course goals and requirements very clear to your "students." Yes, they are listed for them, yes you remind them, but what else can you do to help them meet them? Do you share your learning or your classroom challenges? Do you help them connect information across lessons so they can better understand it and possibly implement it in their own classroom? Keep the course goals and vision in front of them at all times.
• Collective learning and application of learning
• How are teachers in your section learning together? What are they learning together? What do they talk about? If they don't talk much, what do you do to stimulate discussions? Do you share with them what you thought about the material and any learning you applied either in your facilitation and/or in your (preK-12) classroom? If what they are learning is not being applied, they are not learning. Please initiate opportunities for teachers to talk, learn with one another, share what is working or not working, and also share with them all the results of your or their application of learning.
• Supportive conditions
• A supportive environment is a learning environment. Educators have many challenges to deal with. Your section can either be a haven, a place/space where teachers can talk to true colleagues, or an "empty" space/place. Teachers in your class need lots of direction and encouragement. A supportive environment is also an environment where the facilitator provides good, specific, and ongoing feedback. A supportive environment is not one where students are left alone to complete assignments whenever possible, or even try to complete this comprehensive course in two weeks! That is not an example of supportive environment. Please think carefully and provide a supportive environment for our course participants.
• Shared practice
• Teachers love to share ideas, brainstorm together, and even plan together. There are so many assignments in this course that invite shared practice. Continue to model and elicit shared practice through active and consistent discussions, sharing of ideas that work in the classroom. Teachers are looking for support and collegiality. Will you provide it?

References 

Fullan, M., & Stiegelbauer, S. (1991). The new meaning of educational change. New York: New York: Teacher's College Press. 
Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Thank you for all you do and please remember that you are not alone! We are here to support you and help you provide effective facilitation in any way possible. We look forward to an exciting, productive, and successful semester. Please feel free to contact me in case you have any comments or questions at vzygouri@mail.ucf.edu or (407) 207-7296.

Regards,

Vicky Zygouris-Coe, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator, FOR-PD
vzygouri@mail.ucf.edu

Open Enrollment Update

Open enrollment ends on Friday, January 14, 2005. As of Wednesday, January 12, we have nearly 800 students registered for Spring 2005 classes! We also have over 20 district registration sections as well. We are very excited to see such a great turn out. Facilitator notification for spring section selection will be on Tuesday, January 18^th.

We look forward to a productive and educational semester!

Important Course Opening Tasks

Spring courses are just around the corner - many are starting on January 24. When courses start, there are many important tasks facilitators must do in order to prepare for a successful semester.

• Post a welcome message - it is required that you post a welcome message in the discussion area for your participants. This lets your students know that you are present in the class. Imagine if they logged in to an online course and there was no message for them to see! They would probably feel lost and wonder if they were in the correct place and wonder what to do next. In this welcome message, set the tone for the course. Tell them your expectations and how often you will check the course and respond to email (you should do that several times a week).
• Post a course schedule - many facilitators are frustrated that students do not keep up with the suggested one lesson per week. Did you post that information anywhere? How are students to know that is what is expected? Adults need to have clear expectations and timelines to work with. Let them know they have until Midnight every Saturday to finish each lesson. Provide a suggested time for them to have read lesson 1 and a suggested time for them to have posted a discussion posting and another suggested time for them to respond. The more clear and concise directions you can provide, the better off your students will be as well as more responsive. This is very important.
• Log in to the course at least 4 or 5 times a week - this is not a suggestion. During the first week of class, you need to log in daily in order to answer any questions your participants may have and to calm their fears. An online course may be a thing of ease for you, but many participants have never done anything like this before. They need to "see" that you are there and readily available to answer their questions. Also - your behavior in the beginning of the class models to the entire student population what you expect from them. If you only log in once or twice to answer questions, your students will begin to stop logging in frequently as well.
• Set the tone for your discussions - respond to people with thoughtful comments. Probe their responses to get them engaged with the material.

What you do in the first few weeks really determines how your participants will respond to you throughout the semester.  Set a good example by being an active participant in your courses as well as a good facilitator. You will be amazed by the results!

Bi-Monthly Facilitator Discussion Topics

We continually think about professional development at FOR-PD. Not only do we believe in the professional development of our participants through the information provided in our course, we also believe in the professional development of our facilitators! I personally like the National Staff Development Council's goal: All Teachers in all schools will experience high-quality professional learning as part of their daily work by 2007. Well we want to help contribute to that! We are going to begin having informal, bi-monthly online facilitator discussions in the For Facilitators Only course. Twice a month (around the 1^st of the month and the 15^th of the month), we will post discussion topics on the For Facilitators Only discussion board under the new topic "Bi-monthly Facilitator Discussions."

The topic for Jan. 14 - Jan. 31 is Best Practices for FOR-PD Facilitators. We started to dive into this topic in the final chat for 2004. I know many of you have specific things you do in your sections that work very well. Other facilitators would benefit from your knowledge so let's share your ideas. Post your thoughts to the new topic, Bi-monthly Facilitator Discussions, under the "Best Practices, 2005" thread. On February 1^st, let's see how this discussion is going. If we need to change subjects, we will. Look to the discussion board for announcements about a new topic! Consider the articles we have been reading thus far in the facilitation resources of the month (see the FFF* Discussion topic for links to those articles). There are several listed in this month's resource of the month, Emoderation. Have you used any of the suggested activities from the articles?

We also welcome your ideas for new topics! Have something you are particularly interested in? Is there something you recently learned at a conference that you feel will generate discussion from other facilitators? Feel free to share your topic ideas with us. Just email forpdfac@mail.ucf.edu. We look forward to seeing you online!

NSDC Free Trial Membership

The National Staff Development Council (NSDC) is the largest non-profit professional association committed to ensuring success for all students through staff development and school improvement. The Council views high-quality staff development programs as essential to creating schools in which all students and staff members are learners who continually improve their performance.

Currently, the NSDC is offering a free 3-month trial membership to learn what the organization is all about. Just go to their web site and you will see a little pop-up screen about the trial offer.

Facilitator Leadership Board Activities

The FOR-PD Facilitator Leadership Board continues to work for you! Currently, we are reading a book titled Systems for Change in Literacy Education: A Guide to Professional Development by Carol A. Lyons and Gay Su Pinnell. We will be providing this book to all Spring '05 facilitators to follow along with us. The Leadership Board and the FOR-PD staff will post summaries of chapters on a monthly basis in the For Facilitators Only discussion board, pointing out the important aspects of the book in relation to facilitating the online FOR-PD course. Even if you don't have the book, you can post your thoughts based on the summaries that we will post monthly. We look forward to your participation in discussion about this book!

Literacy Log Update

Facilitators, we understand that many of you do not require your students to complete the literacy logs because they are not part of your district requirements. As we mentioned in the December 2004 issue of the FFF, we need all facilitators to require every participant to complete a literacy log. This is a very important part of the course and really helps many participants synthesize the information. In our end of the semester chat, many facilitators joined us to talk about best practices. One idea was to have a chat about the literacy logs. This is a great idea! Of course, it is difficult to mandate a chat in your courses, but it is nice to give participants the option of attending a chat about the literacy logs. Think about how you can incorporate the literacy logs into your course. Many facilitators are already doing this. What are the things you are doing? We started a thread about this last semester in the FFF* Discussions topic in the For Facilitators Only course. Let's continue this discussion. Post your thoughts to the Literacy Logs thread in the FFF* Discussions topic.

Chat Update

Another source of professional development for you, as a facilitator, is our monthly online chats. We recently took a poll about the standard chat time. You spoke and we listened!

Many of you were very interested in meeting the required 2 chats a semester during the Fall 2004 term and you vigilantly tried to attend the chats. However the time was a challenge for many of you to manage. Facilitators in several western counties had to be available at 6:00 to meet online at 7:00 PM EST due to Daylight Savings. Many facilitators also have children who are hungry for dinner or who need help with homework at this time. In response to your comments, we are offering our chats at various times throughout the semester. We will continue to provide chats at 7:00, but incorporate some from 7:30 - 8:30 EST. Additionally, we will maintain our Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday chat offerings to accommodate those who have evening commitments on specific days. We hope that our change in chat times will help many of you attend this important professional development opportunity. As always, the chat transcripts will be posted online for your viewing pleasure! See the Monthly Online Chat area of the FFF for details on upcoming chats.

Course Closing Reminder

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Facilitation Resource of the Month

In keeping with our past few articles on models of facilitation, this month's resource focuses on yet another one. Emoderation, an article by Mel Ashford, pulls together many resources, including an interactive interpretation of the original work published by Dr. Gilly Salmon (see picture on the right). Dr. Salmon is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Information & Innovation at the Business School of the UK Open University and Visiting Professor at School of Economics and Management, Queens University, Belfast. She researches and publishes extensively on online teaching and learning and is the author of the extremely successful book e-Moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online.

Dr. Salmon's original work focused on 5 stages of facilitation. Ashford took the original model and made it a bit interactive in Emoderation. What are your views on this model? Do you agree with the stages? Do you think they are applicable to facilitating a FOR-PD course? What about the activities required of the facilitator—do you think they are valid activities that should be required or just good suggestions? Or do you think they are not appropriate for a FOR-PD facilitator at all? Post your thoughts to this month's resource of the month discussion in the For Facilitators Only discussion board. Go to the FFF* Discussions topic and see the thread "5 stages ." I'd love to hear from you!

What's My Role?

Classes are ending and beginning—all at the same time! Whew! It is important to remember that despite the craziness of terms ending and starting, your role remains much the same. You are to be a source of support for your participants. The encourager, the teacher, the discussion participant, the grader, the listener. These are all important roles. For those of you ending courses, remember to be diligent about providing deadlines. We have to end the courses and get the new ones started. Stick to your deadlines and send us an email as soon as the courses close (see the Course Closing Reminder article).

For those of you starting a new course, here is a reminder of what was first published in the September issue of the FFF. Much of this is a review of what is posted above in the Important Course Opening Tasks article above.

During the first few weeks your goal is to help participants feel as comfortable as possible in the online environment. Below is a list of key things ALL facilitators should do during the first few weeks of class.

• All facilitators should post a welcome message to the students in the Discussion Area. Remember to review the rubric for a good online posting and following is closely. This is your chance to model to your students what you think constitutes a "good" posting!
• Consider sending a welcome email to the participants as well in order to introduce them to the email function within WebCT.
• Describe your expectations. Remember to be specific! Your adult learners need specific details about what you want from them so they can budget their time accordingly and accomplish the course in the manner you desire.
• Let participants know what the course schedule is. Layout a course calendar with the various weeks and the associated lesson. Remind them when assignments are due. Be as specific as possible. You can post this in the course discussion area.
• Be aware of participants who stop being active participants. It is crucial that each participant follow the one lesson per week schedule for maximum learning. Do not allow your participants to do 4 or 6 or 12 lessons in one week. Do not allow participants to jump ahead. This is a semester-long course and interactive discussion is a required piece of the course.

Our goal is to support your efforts, so do not hesitate to contact us immediately if you notice a problem with a student or cannot contact someone. We cannot let students fall behind—an integral part of learning in this course is discussion with peers. Let's make an effort to do all we can to help our students succeed.

Dear Felicity,

Dear Felicity,
I know we have talked about the 80% completion rate in the past, but with the courses closing, I am still concerned. I have read about national completion rates and am not encouraged. Can you elaborate on this just a bit more? I am pretty frustrated.

- 80% Outraged

Hi! I just thought I'd let you know that, because of
this course, I've decided to drop the rest of the
reading endorsement classes. ;) Don't worry, this is a
good thing! I've decided to go ahead and get my Masters
now instead of later! Yay! This course was incredibly
motivating and I really liked the online format.

-- Anonymous

So here is a comment from a participant—it was to one of our facilitators, Kay Daily. I wanted to share this comment with you because I think all too often we get bogged down in our day to day activities and forget the impact we have on people. Not only are you, as facilitators, educating participants about online reading strategies, you are also introducing many to the world of online learning! Thanks to you all for all the work you do—even the work you may not realize you are doing!

---

Do you have comments about the course? Have you received any comments from participants? We always look for feedback so send it our way. Email forpdfac@mail.ucf.edu with your stories!