| Info
Update
ABC's of Facilitation
Chatterbox
|
|
Dr. Z-Coe's Corner
Dear FOR-PD Facilitator:
Happy April!
I enjoyed seeing some of you at the recent FASCD conference. The 8th Annual UCF Celebrate Literacy Symposium was a success! We had approximately 500 educators attend the event. It was wonderful to see so many of you there. You may access ReLeah Lent's and Enrique Puig's presentations through FLaRE's web site.
We are already planning for fall 2006 and beyond. This summer we will be updating the FOR-PD course and also the facilitator training course. FOR-PD is still going strong! We anticipate a very busy summer semester. Please inform us of your interest to facilitate for us this summer and fall as soon as possible.
Last year's evaluation report is complete; we have collected some great data on all aspects of the project. Your feedback, as always, has helped us improve many aspects of the project. As we are approaching the end of the semester, please keep in mind all of the end of course reminders and thank you for continuing to remind your participants of deadlines and your course schedule.
Our focus is still on online learning communities as this is the focal point of all we do with this project. We all continue to learn about how to improve and sustain our online community. I hope that you will find some of the information I have included in this issue useful as you reflect upon the ways you create and sustain an online learning community with your FOR-PD section.
In an online learning community:
- People learn together.
- People feel part of a larger whole.
- The community must be nurtured.
- Enthusiasm is shared between facilitators and participants.
Many literacy coaches (I refer to our FOR-PD facilitators as online literacy coaches) who are not familiar with what you are doing don't realize how much effort and time goes into building and maintaining an online community. Many people have erroneous assumptions. For example:
- Who needs goals and expectations for an online learning community? Well, all of us know that without goals and expectations there'd be no community at all between FOR-PD and facilitators and among facilitators. The work FOR-PD is doing with facilitators and also the facilitation you provide help advance our mission.
- Everyone will want to participate in an online discussion. Okay, we hope that everyone will want to participate...but...not everyone does. Actually, most or all of you at some point had to ask your participants repeatedly, had to call them, and had to work hard to stimulate their participation. Many teachers in our courses have misconceptions about online learning; they think they are lone rangers on their own island. Of course, there are many other reasons for their lack of participation; e.g., time, technology available to them at home or school, etc. We have seen progress in this area, but we also have much work to do.
- Building and maintaining an online community doesn't take much time or staffing. WOW! Is this a misconception or what? It takes an entire project and much more to build and support an online community. Think about all you have been doing; think of all the ways we support you and participants in trying to develop and maintain the online learning community. It takes expertise, time, qualified staff, and support mechanisms to do so.
- We don't need strategies to promote our online community. We absolutely need ongoing planning, implementation, evaluation, and reflection for promoting and maintaining our online community. Vision, planning, data-based decisions, and ongoing evaluation are a must for building and supporting the FOR-PD online community.
Thank you for your time, efforts, and leadership with the FOR-PD course. I wish you continued success. Remember that we are here to support you and help you in your facilitation. 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.
Principle Investigator, FOR-PD
vzygouri@mail.ucf.edu
FOR-PD Summer and Fall Registration Dates for 2006
Summer 2006
| Open Registration Begins |
May 8, 2006 |
| Open Registration Ends |
June 26, 2006 |
| Summer Classes Begin |
July 10, 2006 |
| Summer Classes End |
October 9, 2006 |
Fall 2006
| Open Registration Begins |
July 10, 2006 |
| Open Registration Ends |
August 7, 2006 |
| Summer Classes Begin |
August 21, 2006 |
| Summer Classes End |
December 4, 2006 |
Call for Summer and Fall Facilitators
It's that time of year again! We are planning for our summer and fall courses and
are in need of facilitators. Would you like to facilitate a summer or fall open enrollment or
district course? Please let us know by emailing forpdfac@mail.ucf.edu as soon as possible. Summer courses begin July 10, 2006 and fall courses begin August 21, 2006. Please keep in mind that the two semesters will overlap for a short time. We look forward to working with you this summer and fall!
**
If you are interested in facilitating either semester, you must have all required paperwork up to date - Facilitator Conditions of Service and your W-9. This paperwork will only need to be updated by those facilitators who did not update in the fall.
Facilitator Payments for Spring 2006
 In July, FOR-PD will transition to a new budget year; therefore, we are requesting that ALL district and open enrollment facilitators for Spring 2006 submit their invoices for payment by April 28, 2006. As you may or may not be aware, our funding is on a yearly basis so we must close and open accounts within a short time span. Submitting your invoice will insure that all paperwork for your payment will be generated in a timely manner during this transition time. If we do not receive your invoice on or before April 28th, we cannot guarantee that you will be paid in a timely manner for your spring facilitation. Please download and fill out the blank invoice provided for facilitators and fax it to FOR-PD at 407-207-4965. Faxing is our preferred method of receiving your invoices; however, if you must mail your invoice please email Monica to let her know that you have sent it via US Mail.
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Monica Clayton at 407-207-4962 or Richard Scott at 407-207-4940.
e-Store Now Open
 FOR-PD is offering the following materials to Florida educators. To get any of these items for your school or classroom, fill out the form located on the E-store page and FOR-PD will mail you the items free of charge, while supplies last.
FOR-PD Flyer: the flyer for the Florida Online Reading Professional Development online course
FOR-PD Brochure: the brochure for the FOR-PD online course
Instructional Posters - These posters are designed to assist teachers during reading instruction. FOR-PD suggests that teachers laminate these posters and use them during instruction to model various reading strategies. After instruction, teachers can post them in their room as a reference for students.
Check out the new e-store page for more details! http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/publications/estore.html
Spring Facilitator Professional Development Book Club
If you have not had the chance to join our discussion now is the time! Remember to check out the Book Review area of the discussion board. FOR-PD would like to thank those facilitators who have contributed to this month's focus on vocabulary.
May Professional Development Focus - Comprehension
 Dates: May 1, 2006 - June 2, 2006
Where: For Facilitators Only Course - Book Review discussion area
Resources:
- A Focus on Comprehension [PDF 549.35KB]
by Fran Lehr, MA; Jean Osborn, MEd (2005)
A Focus on Comprehension examines what research tells us about factors that affect
reading comprehension and about what instruction must contain and what it must
do to help students better comprehend the content they read.
- Teaching Reading Workshop -
This is a video workshop provided through Annenburg Media. We will be using the Workshop 3: Building Comprehension. Comprehending text is one of the main goals of reading. In this session,
literacy expert Nell Duke discusses what good readers do and strategies teachers
can use to help students build comprehension skills. Classroom footage provides
examples of comprehension strategies.
You will need to fill out the Annenburg registration form in order to view the video workshop.
Join us for the spring facilitator professional development series. Additional information on this month's focus has been placed on the facilitator discussion board under the topic "Book Review." It is a requirement that facilitators participate in professional development opportunities.
Return to Top
Facilitation Resource
of the Month
This month's article, "The Role of the Online Instructor/Facilitator" by Zane Berge (1995), lists the roles and functions of the online instructor. The most important role of the online instructor is to model effective teaching. Berge (1995) has categorized the necessary conditions for successful online instruction into four categories: pedagogical, social, managerial, and technical.
- Pedagogical: This area is certainly one of the most important for the FOR-PD facilitator. Do you focus discussions on critical concepts and principles covered in the lesson(s)? Do you ask questions or probe students' responses for deeper meaning?
- Social: The creation of your online environment is critical to successful online communities. How do you develop community within your section?
- Managerial: This is another important aspect for the FOR-PD facilitator. We all have full-time jobs during the day and facilitate the course in our spare time. Managing the interactions between participants can be time consuming. What tips or tricks do you use that you could share with other facilitators?
- Technical: The technical aspects of the FOR-PD course are important for both the facilitator and participant. Participants often turn to the facilitator as their first contact when they have technical difficulties. How comfortable do you feel with the technology? How do help participants feel comfortable using the technology?
Read this month's resource and think about your role as a facilitator.
How would you answer the questions above? How would you describe the role you have taken as an online facilitator for the FOR-PD course? After reading this month's resource, post your thoughts about the article and the preceding questions on the facilitator discussion board under the heading, "The Role of the Online Instructor/Facilitator" in the FFF Discussions topic.
What's
My Role?
Force Grading
The Help Desk has received a higher than normal volume of calls concerning quizzes. Many times the issue is that the quiz needs to be force graded. Each week facilitators should check to see if participants have completed the quiz for that week's lesson. You can do this by going to your grade book and the quiz column for that week to view the submissions for that quiz. If a student's quiz is not graded, you will need to force grade. If you are uncertain how to do this, please check out the Force Grading Tutorial.
This should also be done for the Literacy Log. If you view the participant's log and it appears to be complete, you can click the Grade button and it will process the log. Once it has been processed, you will see a 0 in the grade column for that log.
Grading Literacy Logs
Course Closing
This is a reminder that 14-week courses will close for participants on May 1, 2006. Participants will be denied access on May 2, 2006. These two dates should be on all course calendars.
Course Closing Reminders
Last Few Weeks of the Course
The facilitator's role is similar to the previous weeks' in that the motivational role is critical as the course comes to a close. Additionally, student evaluation is still very important and there are several tasks associated with these roles that should be completed during this time.
- Continue monitoring discussions and probe postings as necessary.
- Respond to questions in a timely manner.
- Grade weekly.
- Praise the students!
- Encourage the students!
- Send a progress report to students. During the last few weeks of the course, send a progress report letting each student know where s/he stands in terms of finishing the course. Are there any discussions that need to be re-posted? Are all quiz grades appropriate? This is just a friendly reminder of the course expectations and where each student stands in terms of these expectations.
- During the last week of class, remind students to review their grades and post any missing assignments. Let them know they will no longer have access to the class after the last day, so they must turn in all assignments prior to the end of class.
- Remind students that all literacy logs must be submitted into the Web CT program.
- Remind students to get a copy of their grades, if necessary.
- Remind students to download any discussions they may want to refer to later as they will be denied access to the course immediately after the course closing date.
After Course Closing Date As mentioned above, students will be denied access to the course the next business day following the course closing date listed in the FOR-PD database. After the students have been denied access, you will need to do some wrap-up activities. Please complete these tasks before May 15, 2006!!
- Finish grading all assignments. Your progress report should have helped students see what they needed to turn in. Make sure you review ALL discussion areas for any discussions you may have missed. If any students have requested a copy of their grades, be sure to send them a copy of the final grades if you posted anything after students were denied access. As mentioned above, students will be denied access to the course the day after the official course closing date. You have the option of allowing access to any students who have a lesson or two to finish as long as you can still have your information to our office by May 6th. Remember to DENY ACCESS to these students when they finish.
- Post grades to the grade book including Literacy Log grades.
- Send FOR-PD your course closing email with a roster of ALL of your students listed as a.) Those who successfully finished the course, b.) Those who never started the course, and c.) Those who started but did not finish (as well as the last lesson they successfully completed). All students who successfully finish the course will be sent a Certificate of Completion. If you have let any students back into your course, remember to wait and send your course closing email AFTER these students have finished and you have graded their work.
- Email the students in the class who completed, congratulating them on a job well done (using outside email).
- Send your invoice to FOR-PD.
|
Course Schedules
This spring some of you are facilitating 14-week courses, while others of you are facilitating 10- and 12-week courses. If you are facilitating a shortened course, please make sure that you adhere to the course completion schedules below. Because the courses are shortened, it will be extremely important that facilitators stay on top of participants who start to lag behind. Please make sure you contact these participants immediately. Also remember, that during the two weeks after the course closes, you are able to allow access to those participants who may need to finish a lesson or two. If you have any questions regarding the schedule, please contact the FOR-PD office at 1-866-227-7261 or email forpdfac@mail.ucf.edu.
12-Week Course Schedule
|
Lesson(s) |
Week 1 |
Lesson 1 |
Week 2 |
Lessons 2 & 3 |
Week 3 |
Lesson 4 |
Week 4 |
Lesson 5 |
Week 5 |
Lesson 6 |
Week 6 |
Lesson 7 |
Week 7 |
Lesson 8 |
Week 8 |
Lessons 9 & 10 |
Week 9 |
Lesson 11 |
Week 10 |
Lesson 12 |
Week 11 |
Lesson 13 |
Week 12 |
Lesson 14 |
10-Week Course Schedule
| |
Lesson(s) |
Week 1 |
Lesson 1 |
Week 2 |
Lessons 2 & 3 |
Week 3 |
Lesson 4 |
Week 4 |
Lessons 5 & 6 |
Week 5 |
Lesson 7 |
Week 6 |
Lesson 8 |
Week 7 |
Lessons 9 & 10 |
Week 8 |
Lessons 11 & 12 |
Week 9 |
Lesson 13 |
Week 10 |
Lesson 14 |
Quality Assurance Check In 
Summer is almost here and Spring courses are rapidly coming to a close! I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all facilitators for the effort and hard work you have put into the courses this semester. FOR-PD greatly appreciates you and what you bring to the courses. There are many different things that both participants and facilitators must complete before the course ends so I wanted to give you a friendly reminder of a few things that are important for you to keep in mind as the courses begin to close.
Some helpful hints:
- Many facilitators have contacted me with questions about force grading the literacy logs. Please do not forget to force grade the literacy logs and quizzes if need be. Take a look at our Dear Felicity section for more information about this.
- Please continue to actively participate in discussions and keep up the encouragement! We have found that many students start to lose motivation and really benefit from words of praise towards the end of the course.
- Please remind participants that they will be denied access to the course the day after the course closing date. This is very important because each semester there is confusion about this among participants.
- I have noticed that many participants are up-to-date with their discussions, but are lagging behind in their literacy logs. Please remind participants that they must complete each discussion, quiz, and the literacy log with a score of 16 out of a possible 20 points (80%) or higher in order to get credit for the course. Also, you may want to remind them that the literacy logs can be very time consuming and it would be beneficial for them to keep up with them.
- It seems that many sections have participants who are lagging behind. Please remember that if a student falls more than 7 lessons behind, you have the ability to tell that student to re-enroll at a later time. You will not be required to grade his/her late work as long as you have: (1) Attempted communication with this participant to get him/her involved with the class. (2) You have communicated with him/her that you recommend s/he re-enroll in a later class. This is why it is important to save all of your email communication attempts with lagging participants. If a participant comes to the FOR-PD Office to complain that a facilitator will not grade his/her work, we will ask the facilitator to provide us with verification of the communication attempts with the student.
- There may be participants who are close to finishing the course but something happens and they cannot finish in time. We understand that "life happens." As a result, facilitators have the ability to allow individuals in this situation back into the course after they have been denied access. However, this is up to the facilitator's discretion and you do not have to allow this. Also, if you choose to grant a participant access after the course is closed, please remember to deny them access again after they have completed the needed tasks. Lastly, please remember that all facilitators are required to have completed all grading, etc. two weeks following the course closing so be sure that you give yourself plenty of time to complete these tasks.
I am also including the course closing task list so that you can begin to prepare for the course ending. Many of you may have already received this in your second facilitator check email and others will be receiving it shortly.
You will have 2 weeks after the course closing date to complete the following tasks:
- Grade all work and post grades to the grade book.
- Notify participants of their completion status.
- Email a complete report of all participants in your course to Richard in the FOR-PD office (richard@orion.itrc.ucf.edu). Please see the example below:
Facilitator:
Section:
Section Dates:
Students who completed:
Joe Florida
Students who never started: (did not complete lesson 1)
Jane Orlando
Students who started, but did not complete: (be sure to identify the last completed lesson)
John Naples - finished through lesson 8
Jane Jacksonville - finished through lesson 5
- Finally, please complete the End of Course Facilitator Survey. You can find the link to the survey in the Navigation Bar of the For Facilitators Only course under "Course Closing Survey." You must complete this survey once per course.
Keep up the good work and best of luck with the remainder of your courses! If you have any questions or concerns please remember that the FOR-PD staff is here to help you!
-Sarah Johannssen
Quality Assurance Specialist
sarah@orion.itrc.ucf.edu
Dear Felicity,
Dear Felicity,
I am really confused about the literacy log. I check my participants' submissions and often it says 'in progress.' I look at what they have written and it seems that they have completed the log. Or when I check the submissions it says not graded. I have never had to force grade before so I am not certain exactly how to do this. Please help!!!
-Force Grading Novice
Dear Force Grading Novice,
This semester it has become ever more important that facilitators understand how to force grade both the literacy log and the lesson quizzes. You will force grade a literacy log if the student has not received a grade. It is important for you check student submissions each week and force grade those that need to be force graded. When you look at the literacy log submissions you will see one of three things:
- not taken - this means that the students has not started the literacy log.
- in progress - this means that the student has started the literacy log, but has not submitted it. Check these submissions to see if the student just hasn't completed the submission process.
- not graded - this means that the student has submitted the literacy log, but it did not grade correctly.
If the student's submission has not been graded you will need to force grade the log. You can do this one of two ways.
- You can view all submissions for a particular literacy log by clicking the word "submissions" in that column of the grade book. This will bring up every student in the course and whether or not they have submitted their log. In this view, you can click on the boxes next to participants' names and then click the grade button to the right of the screen. This will force Web CT to process the logs of each student you have selected.
- The other way to force grade literacy logs is to actually view the students' submission. To do this you would view all submissions for a particular literacy log by clicking on the word "submissions" in grade book column of the literacy log you wish to grade. This again will bring up every student in the course and whether or not they have submitted their log. To look at individual logs you would click on the number that appears under the submissions column. This will bring up a student's literacy log submission and allow you to type responses to the participants. Most facilitators type "good job" or "literacy log ok" in the general comments box. In this view, if you click "update grade" it forces Web CT to process the log.
You will know if the log has been submitted properly by the 0 that appears in the grade book column. Please make sure you have viewed the Literacy Log Tutorial found in the Facilitator Tutorials.
-
Felicity
Return to Top
 |
What factors contribute to student success in the FOR-PD course? Our participants say the facilitator!!! We all know it has been a semester of change and each of us has had to adjust to those new changes. Everyone has done a great job! Keep up the wonderful work that you are doing! (Data from FOR-PD's Phase III Evaluation Report.) |
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!
Future Chats
Spring Tech Chats: The tech chats have become very popular and are extremely useful to our participants. During these chats, participants are able to chat live with the technology experts at FOR-PD. Please share these chat dates and times with your participants and encourage them to follow the chat protocol.
WHEN: Tuesday, May 16, 2006
TIME: 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM EST
WHERE: General Chat for All Courses
WHO: participants & facilitators
TOPIC: Technology Chat
GUEST: Ed Baldwin, Helpdesk Supervisor |
Facilitator Only Chats - Spring Debriefing: These two chats will focus on the spring semester - changes made to the course, changes made to the Literacy Log, and changes to your role as a facilitator. Please come prepared to share your thoughts and to brainstorm solutions.
WHEN: Tuesday, May 9, 2006
TIME: 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM EST
WHERE: For Facilitators Only Course Chat Area, Room 1
WHO: facilitators
TOPIC: Spring Debriefing
GUEST: FOR-PD Staff |
WHEN: Thursday, May 11, 2006
TIME: 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM EST
WHERE: For Facilitators Only Course Chat Area, Room 1
WHO: facilitators
TOPIC: Spring Debriefing
GUEST: FOR-PD Staff |
Return to Top
|
