Facilitation with Felicity Newsletter Banner
May 25, 2006
Issue #39     Printer Icon for printing a PDF of the newsletter Printer friendly version of the FFF* eNews

Info Update

ABC's of Facilitation

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FOR-PD Help Desk

The FOR-PD Help Desk will be closed during evening hours from May 27 to June 3. If you require assistance from the Help Desk, please call during daytime office hours.

Thank you,
FOR-PD Help Desk

 

  

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Dr. Z-Coe's Corner

Image of Dr. Zygouris-Coe

Dear FOR-PD Facilitator:

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." ~Margaret Mead

We are that small group of people who are contributing to Florida educators' literacy expertise. Thank you, for your FOR-PD facilitating efforts. Pretty soon the school year will be over - I hope that you have a restful summer. May 9 was National Teacher Appreciation Day. On behalf of the FOR-PD team, we would like to thank you for what you do on a daily basis to teach Florida's students. Thank you for your commitment and dedication to our students.

As you are approaching the very end of the semester, please keep in mind all of the end of the course reminders and thank you for continuing to remind your participants of deadlines and your course schedule. We hope that you will continue to facilitate for FOR-PD in the future.

Professional development is viewed as improving student learning through deepening teachers' knowledge of content. Professional development should also be structured in ways that increase communicatio and collaboration with colleagues over time to ensure sustained attention to critical topics. FOR-PD, along with your help, has been providing the infrastructure, support, content, and online follow-up to thousands of educators in Florida.

We know from research and experience that professional development that supports ongoing, collaborative learning is a must for improving student outcomes. Professional development offers the potential for transforming privately held practioner knowledge into a common professional knowledge domain. Our FOR-PD online approach to professional development offers an innovative means for teachers to plan instruction, obtain feedback, and exchange resources with colleauges. Expanding beyond a single location, this online professional learning community has been meeting the particular needs and interests of teachers on literacy, connecting to their peers at a distance-what a valuable service you have been providing as online literacy coaches! I hope that you are realizing the positive impact you are making on so many teachers and their students.

Thank you for continuing to communicate with your participants as they complete their course this semester. We are here to support you and to help you and the educators in your courses succeed. Please let us know how we can better support you. 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











Last Call for Summer and Fall Facilitators




If you are interested in facilitating this summer or fall don't delay, let us know today! 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.






What are teachers implementing in the classroom?

As part of our project evalution, we surveyed participants in regards to their classroom application of knowledge and skills learned in FOR-PD and their perceived impact of FOR-PD on student learning. One thousand two hundred ninety participants responded to the survey, of those who responded, 87 percent indicated that they completed the FOR-PD course. The results of the survey indicate that an overwhelming majority of respondents (96 percent) felt FOR-PD had positively impacted their classroom.


Almost 100 percent of the respondents indicated they were definitely able to use the reading strategies taught in the FOR-PD course. Very few, only one percent indicated that they were not able to use the reading strategies at all.

Respondents' Level of Use for Various Strategies (reported in percentages)

 

Never used this

Plan on using this in the future

Am using somewhat

Use routinely

Use regularly and am very comfortable with it

Explicit systematic instruction

6

5

17

36

36

Model using think-alouds

2

3

18

34

43

Use shared, guided, and independent reading

2

2

10

30

56

Activating prior knowledge

1

1

7

28

63

Building phonemic awareness and phonic skills

11

5

27

27

30

Building fluency

3

3

17

37

40

Building vocabulary using strategies

1

2

11

36

50

Building comprehension using strategies

1

2

8

34

55

Implement instructional strategies before, during, and after reading

2

2

13

36

47

Use differentiated instruction techniques and strategies

2

4

20

36

38

Print-rich environment, including classroom library & word walls

2

4

17

25

52

Screening diagnosis and progress monitoring

6

5

20

36

33

The chart above illustrates the respondents’ level of use for various strategies. Results of the survey indicate the vast majority of the respondents do use strategies taught in FOR-PD routinely or use strategies regularly and have a high degree of comfort level with them.

Participant Comments
"Thanks for giving me the practice through FOR-PD to become more comfortable with these strategies and therefore I am able to impact the lives of my students."


"It is a wonderful way to have the opportunity to learn these strategies. The course gave real hands on ideas that I have easily applied to everyday classwork."

"I fully believe [this course] has made me a more effective instructor/facilitator and my students are more successful learners."

"I am currently a speech pathologist, but reading and language arts are included in my program. I have found FOR-PD very helpful for me to improve the instructional opportunities in my time with students."


Facilitator Course Closing Survey

After your course closes, don't forget to take the Facilitator Course Closing Survey. The survey will only take a few minutes so please give us your feedback. This information will be used to evaluate the usefulness of FOR-PD and help us make improvements to the project. The data will be compiled and reported in aggregate so your responses will be confidential. Your opinions are valued.

Thank you,
Nancy S. Lewis, Ph. D.
Lead Evaluator, FOR-PD



Spring Facilitator Professional Development Book Club

We will be wrapping up our spring professional development book club this month. 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.

Professional Development Focus - Comprehension

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.

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ABC's of Facilitation Icon

Facilitation Resource of the Month

This month we take a look at discussion and its role in the FOR-PD course. Discussion, or purposeful conversation, is a component of learning and understanding. The question remains though, how do we get students to engage in these purposeful conversations?

This month's article, The Use of Asynchronous Discussion: Creating a Text of Talk, by Allison Black (2005), discusses one professor's experiences in teaching online literacy courses using asynchronous discussions. This form of online discussion creates a text of talk that has the potential to be reflective given the freedom participants have in the response time. However, online facilitators must structure discussion so that it becomes a forum for communication as well as critical thinking.

Read this month's resource and think about your role as a facilitator.

  • How do you create discussion within your FOR-PD sections?
  • How do you encourage participants to initiate discussion?
  • How can we get teachers to be reflective of their teaching practices in the discussions they post?

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 Use of Asynchronous Discussion: Creating a Text of Talk in the FFF Discussions topic.


What's My Role?


Course Closing

This is a reminder that 12- and 10-week courses will close for participants on May 29, 2006. Participants will be denied access on May 30, 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 June 12th!!

  • 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 June 12th. 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.



Quality Assurance Check In What's My Role Icon


I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce a new addition to the FOR-PD staff. Anne Swartley is responsible for many tasks around the office; however, one of her primary jobs will be to assist with the Quality Assurance Checks. In fact, Anne will be taking over this responsiblity for all Community College sections and possibly the district sections this summer. Anne recently moved to Orlando from St. Petersburg. She is attending UCF for her MA in elementary education, specializing in reading and language arts. Anne hasn't had must time to read books that are not assigned to her, but the most recent book that she enjoyed was The Lovely Bones. The Lovely Bones tells the story of a young girl who was murdered and shares what it is like to watch life continue without her. The book goes on to include her journey in solving the mystery of her death. Although the book may sound a bit morbid, the way the story is told, it is very endearing. As far as hobbies go, Anne use to be a triathlete but lost her self-discipline about a year ago. She recently realized how much she missed it and has decided to start training again so that she can get back into the sport. Many of you will be hearing from Anne at the beginning of summer. We are both looking forward to working with those of you who will be facilitating this summer!

As many of you know, almost all Quality Assurance Checks have been completed! Thank you for all of your hard work and efforts this semester. Facilitators are so very important in the success of our participants. Knowing that many of you are ready for the summer break, I encourage you to continue to engage yourselves in the weekly discussions as we have found that many participants need extra motivation toward the end of the semester! Also, please make sure that you are aware of the course closing tasks that were included in the second facilitator check email. All facilitators must complete these tasks within two weeks of their course closing. Keep up the good work and please remember that FOR-PD appreciates all that you do.

-Sarah Johannssen
Quality Assurance Specialist
sarah@orion.itrc.ucf.edu



Dear Felicity,

Dear Felicity,

It is now the final week of the course and I have a few participants who are behind by two or three discussions. Am I able to provide them additional time? If so, what do I need to do?

Sincerely, Miss I.M. So-Kind

Dear Miss I.M. So-Kind,

I truly appreciate the fact that you are willing as a facilitator to help these participants complete the course. Remember that once the course closes, facilitators have two weeks to complete any administrative duties, however, we recommend that you give participants a week to complete any missing assignments. This is important because you only have a limited time to grade. If you wish to provide additional time to these participants, you can simply provide them access to the course. Follow the steps below to provide access:

  • Go to the manage students section of your course. (Gradebook)
  • Click on the student you wish to grant access.
  • Below the students name there will be four buttons. You will click on the button that says "Allow Access".
  • Web CT will confirm that you wish to proceed – click yes.

Remember that you give students access after the course has closed, you must also deny them access before you close your course with FOR-PD.

- Felicity

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COMMUNITY COMMENTS

"FOR-PD has been the best inservice I have participated in many years. I have recommended it to all my friends and it also gives them a solid base for which to make taking ESOL courses easier for them! " - participant comment

"I think one of the nice things about being a facilitator when you read all those postings, everything, you know the knowledge that you gain and the ideas you get from all the people in the other areas. And I think that when you carry all that back to the classroom, that makes you more effective." - Facilitator comment

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.


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