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| March 2007 | |
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The Director's Corner What's New
Facilitation Fundamentals Housekeeping
Up Close Events
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The Director's Corner Dear FOR-PD Facilitators, Thank you for all that you are doing to assist teachers this spring. We will be opening 19 new sections on March 12th. The participants in these sections will need to complete FOR-PD in order to attend the summer Content Area Reading Professional Development (CAR-PD) Academy this summer or to meet the June 30th certification deadline. Please do what you can to encourage and support these participants. This spring our professional development efforts center on the importance of the facilitator presence in the online environment. The role you fill in the online environment is extremely complex and an often challenging function. Teaching presence is defined as the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes (Anders, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001). There are three major responsibilities identified by this definition: design and administration, facilitating discourse, and direct instruction. I would like to focus on the responsibility of facilitating discourse. Discourse in an online course is critical to maintaining the interest, motivation, and engagement of your participants (Anderson et al., 2001). How can you, as a facilitator, create and maintain discourse within your section? Below are some ways I have seen facilitators achieve optimal discourse:
Your presence is vitally important to your participants. They must know that you are there. They must be engaged in reflection on the text and their own practices. They are expecting your feedback. You, as the facilitator, are in control of the discourse within your section. I encourage you to read the resources provided and interact with your fellow facilitators either through the Facilitator Only Discussion Board or through the Facilitator Professional Development Course.
What's New New Facilitators - Updated Facilitator Training Course to Open This semester we are making updates to our Facilitator Training Course. If you know of someone who is interested in becoming a facilitator, please let us know and have them contact us via email at the FOR-PD Facilitator email. forpdfac@mail.ucf.edu We are going to open the application process for those people who have expressed interest in becoming a FOR-PD Facilitator in April and will begin the course in May. For further information including specific dates, please see the Events and Housekeeping sections of this newsletter. Thank you!
In order to accomodate districts and their teachers working toward CAR-PD, FOR-PD offered to run some new spring sections. These sections are scheduled to begin on March 12, 2007, and all facilitators have been chosen. The complete schedule for these sections is located in the Housekeeping section.
Here are the new email addresses for the FOR-PD Project and staff. Please update your records. Also make sure you update your address books and spam blockers to allow the new email addresses to go through. FOR-PD Project - forpd@mail.ucf.edu
As a reminder, here is the process.
To avoid repetitive contact, which often makes participants irritated or confuses them regarding who to contact, FOR-PD will no longer automatically contact lagging participants at the QAC checks. We feel that the increased communications provided in the new bi-weekly emails will help to encourage participants without sending the same "you are lagging behind" messages. We will, however, send you a report with laggers and non-starters.
We will be happy to support you by contacting those you feel will benefit from our extra communication, after you have made the expected attempts. Second Check:
If you have any questions regarding the QAC process, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our intention is to support you.
Facilitation Fundamentals Spring Professional Development Is Underway If you did not enroll in the self-contained course, it is not too late to join in through the monthly resources. The course offers a bit more indepth view of the topics and requires the facilitators not only to reflect but also to practice using the information in responding to participant postings. However, the monthly resource focuses on the same topics and references most of the same resources. If you have any questions regarding the professional development, feel free to contact Candace Whitehead at cgwhiteh@mail.ucf.edu Last month we discussed the types of interactions that learners engage in which affect and further their learning. At that time, we touched on the technique “Asking Questions” to encourage particular types of engagement with a focus on Bloom’s taxonomy. While Bloom’s has been a traditional guide in education, there are other taxonomies that can help shape questions asked of learners. One of those is the “Taxonomy of Personal Engagement.” As you read the information below and in the linked resources, think about how you might incorporate this knowledge into your facilitation practice. What will you look for now that you might not have focused on previously? Are there behaviors you have seen before that would now have different meaning? How will you use the questions mentioned to develop your own skill in questioning? Please post your thoughts to these and any other questions that come to mind on the FFF Discussion area of the For Facilitators Only discussion board. Originally designed by Norah Morgan and Juliana Saxton (1985) to help drama teachers engage their students in the study and practice of the art, the “Taxonomy of Personal Engagement” has significance to learning other content. The taxonomy is based partly on Bloom's (1964) “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” and Krathwohl's (1965) affective taxonomy, combining both cognition and emotion. The levels of the taxonomy are most recently described in, Chapter 3 - A Question of Feeling from their book Asking Better Questions by Norah Morgan and Juliana Saxton. Today (March 9, 2007) that chapter is temporarily available to read on the web at Stenhouse Publishers. Asking Better Questions 1. Interest - being curious about what is presented The authors point out that the taxonomy is cumulative, and each level of engagement builds upon the one previous. However, learners may move back and forth between the levels, but must progress through all of them, in order to gain the most from the lesson. They believe that teachers can recognize the particular signs that indicate the level of engagement and adjust their teaching to that level. For example, learners indicate "interest," or lack of it, through eye contact, verbal, and non-verbal responses. If they are watching, listening, or responding, they are interested. In an online situation, of course this would be different. Obviously signs indicating "interest" as described in the chapter are easily seen in a traditional classroom, and more difficult in an online situation, but they are visible. For instance, if a participant posts a discussion that is short or with incomplete sentences, posts assignments late, or doesn't respond to questions, then likely their interest level is low. Facilitators might identify participants who are operating at various levels by the following behaviors: • Interest – doing the work, basically turning assignments in on time. Thinking back to your experiences in online classes, likely you can think of examples of times when postings and discussions indicated the movement through the taxonomy of participants' thinking and engagement with the content. Relating the Taxonomy to Questioning So how does this taxonomy relate to the use of questions designed to move participants along in their understanding and implementation of the content? To quote the authors, "…learning happens when we are provoked to question. Unless the question holds the possibility of an answer with personal meaning for the student there can be no change in understanding. The more you know about students’ backgrounds, interests and experiences, the greater chance you have of choosing a question that holds that possibility." FOR-PD places high value on building community with facilitators "getting to know" their participants. From the first posting "Meet Me Here" continuing along through the lessons' discussion postings, Lit Log, reflections, and correspondence, facilitators have the opportunity to "know" their participants. Information shared and clues provided in the process offer the opportunity to identify participants' level of engagement and areas of interest. According to Morgan and Saxton, the taxonomy can be used as "a guide for inviting and sustaining student's engagement with the material." To this end they offer a list of questions that a teacher should ask her/himself as they prepare to ask questions for each level of the taxonomy. For example, if a teacher wants to encourage "Engaging," they should ask themselves "What questions shall I ask to draw them into active involvement where their ideas become an important part of the process?"They go on to describe the function of the taxonomy: Please read the additional example of the questions teachers should ask themselves for each level of the taxonomy on the Tasmanian government’s website for English Teachers, “Asking Questions.” You will need to scroll down to find the information, but may want to do some reading along the way! This site offers a good overview of questioning in general, and contains information that could be useful to all teachers, not just those teaching English. Further Reading: Follow this link, if you have any interest in reading the original work on the taxonomy in relation to drama teachers, Working with Drama: A Different Order of Experience. Morgan and Saxton, Theory into Practice, v24 n3 p211-18 Sum 1985.
What do I do when a participant's answer to a question is very short or incomplete? On occasion, a facilitator will have a participant post an answer to a question that just doesn’t provide enough information. It may technically answer the question, but not really offer any evidence of thought. Or it may include a partial answer. There could be many reasons: Maybe the participant doesn’t understand what is expected, perhaps they do not feel they have a good answer, or they needed more time to think about their answer. Sometimes, even though we wish this weren’t the case, they are just trying to get through the assignment and don’t really want to take the time to respond with a complete or thoughtful answer. Naturally, in most cases, the facilitator should ask for a revision to be submitted. So how would you direct the participant to include the kind of information we expect? Let’s look at a couple of examples. Example 1: One of the most frequent examples happens in the Reflection Journal. The question, What instructional changes do I plan to implement in my classroom? is sometimes answered like this. I don’t plan to make any changes. I don’t have time or resources to make changes. I’m not in a classroom. When a participant makes a statement like I don’t plan to make any changes you could ask them to explain more specifically why they don’t plan to make any changes. What is their reasoning? Are they convinced they are meeting the needs of all their students, or is there some other reason? If time or resources are an issue, you could give an example of a solution that relates to their particular situation. Then ask them to think of an additional solution and/or evaluate your suggestion in terms of their classroom. Responses to those who are not currently in a classroom will vary dependent upon their particular situation. If the participant is in an administrative position, you might ask what they would do to support instructional change for their teachers. How do they want to make a difference in student achievement? If they are a pre-service teacher, you could ask them to think about what instructional strategies they plan to use, once in a classroom. Or what instructional change they think should be made in a classroom where they have observed. In any case, encourage the participant to take another look at the content. Point out specific text. Show them the possibilities in relation to their situation which will help further connect them to the content. Example 2: Another example might happen in Lesson 8. The assignment includes several steps and asks the participant to, “… identify one NRP comprehension strategy you would like to incorporate into a lesson ... specifically describe why you chose the strategy … include the subject area, information about the learners, and the materials that will be used by the students … provide a detailed, step-by-step list of methods on how you will implement the strategy with your students to enhance their comprehension development … Include a detailed analysis explaining how students will be assessed on their use of the strategy …” Sometimes a participant will leave out one of the steps or not explain themselves clearly enough. For example, a participant may choose graphic organizers as the strategy, because they have several students who need further help making connections between the new information and their previous experiences. But in their post, where they are asked to provide a “detailed, step-by-step list of methods,” they generalize saying something like “ I will use several graphic organizers to show how the texts we are reading in our unit on Greek Mythology are connected.” When you are faced with a generalized statement where specific information is asked, use what you know and ask questions that will pinpoint the specific information and encourage them to expand their discussion posting. In this case you might ask, Which texts and graphic organizers will you be using? Why did you choose those? How will that particular graphic organizer help them to make the connections between the texts? Naturally, if you are asking for a revision, you would email the participant privately. However, you might list one or more of your questions designed to elicit further information publicly in response to the posting. This could offer the opportunity for them to add more and others to join in with some ideas. If that opportunity is offered, it may avoid causing embarassment because they had to redo a post. Again, the purpose is to encourage the participant to make connections with the content and their own practice.
Facilitator Roles and Expectations As a reminder, these are the roles and expectations of those currently facilitating. If at any time you have questions regarding your responsibilities, please refer to the FOR-PD Facilitator Roles and Expectations document located in the Facilitator Manual. Early Spring Sections: Middle of Course
Tenth Week of Class At this point, your course will generally be running smoothly. If you utilized those community-building techniques, participants should be responding to you and to each other. Discussions should be going very well. You need to transition your role to participant evaluator. In addition to your normal weekly responsibilities, you will need to do the following:
Later Spring Sections: First Week of Class This is the critical period when some people will log on and get overwhelmed with the course. Your responsibility during this week is to ease fears and start creating a sense of community.
Second Week of Class Your role is transitioning to the motivator. You must continue to do some activities from Week 1, but move into a more coaching/motivational role to keep participants involved. This is also the first week of actual course material (Week 1 is an overview of the technology and the course structure), so you should do the following:
Third Week of Class Again, your motivational role continues, but you will begin to take on a course management role. You need to continue to keep participants interested in the course by responding to them and encouraging discussion; however, you need to also focus on who is not participating. Managing the course is a critical role at this point. Below are some activities that you should do to help the FOR-PD office help you.
Housekeeping
Invoices for the spring sections that began on January 22, 2007, MUST be faxed to the FOR-PD office no later than April 23, 2007. A blank invoice is available for download in the Facilitators' Manual in the For Facilitators Only section. Please follow the directions for submission on the bottom of the invoice.
Often the Help Desk will receive the same question several times. These were this month's two most frequently asked questions along with the very helpful answers! I (or participants of mine) have come across some links in the course that are inactive or do not work. What should I do? A lot of the resources used throughout the course come from outside organizations. If these organizations choose to modify their webpage and/or move content around, it is possible that the link provided in the course will become outdated. If you run into this problem, first check the Resources page within each lesson. The Resources page is a list of all the links used throughout the lesson and can be found on the last page of each lesson. It will contain the most up to date resource information and links. If the link is still inactive on the resources page, then please notify our FOR-PD Help Desk. The Help Desk will notify our Reading Specialist, who will look into updating the link or finding a new resource to replace it.
The quizzes are set up to be automatically graded by the WebCT system. If you have a participant with such a situation, please follow these steps: First, review the answers from the first attempt and compare them to the second (or third) attempt. Many times, we find that participants have chosen the same incorrect answers a second time around. Second, ask the participant to review the feedback provided on his/her first or second attempt. The quiz results provide valuable feedback on the answers participants chose with explanations for both the correct and incorrect answers. Participants can even print out a previous attempt and use it to help them in re-taking the quiz. Finally, if the participant has indeed chosen the correct answers and they have been marked as incorrect by WebCT, please contact FOR-PD with the issue. If participants have questions and/or need clarification regarding the course content, encourage them to contact you for further discussion. For help with reviewing their quiz results, please have participants visit the Quizzes section in Lesson 1. It provides a mini-tutorial on the Quiz Tool and includes step-by-step instructions as well as screenshots. Remember that although the quizzes are not timed, participants will only be able to take each quiz three times. If they do not earn an 80% within the three tries, they will need to contact you. (Note: This does not apply to students taking the course for graduate credit.)
If you need to deny access to any participants, follow these directions: 1. Choose Manage Students. 2. From the Options:Records menu select View Some Students and click Go. 3. Click the box beside Last Name to un-check the boxes beside all students. 4. Check the box next to the student(s) you need to deny access. 5. Click View at the top of the page. 6. From the Options:Advanced menu select Deny Students Access and click Go. 7. The window will say Confirm Deny Access and to confirm this, you click the Deny Access button. Remember, if you are denying access to participants who have dropped the course or lagged seven lessons behind, notify them and include information on registration for the upcoming semester. Then notify FOR-PD forpd@mail.ucf.edu.
Facilitator Training Course Dates April 2 - 16, 2007 - Open application period
FOR-PD Course Schedule Spring 2007
Summer Registration Update: Open Enrollment Registration
Up Close FOR-PD Staff Member - Richard Scott This month we would like to introduce the guy who is the gatekeeper of FOR-PD. He controls entry to our courses, keeps up with our databases, and records the course opening and closing data along with many other tasks. This man is an intregal part of what keeps FOR-PD running smoothly. His name is Richard Scott, or as he is affectionately known in our office, Richard "Rocks" Scott. Regular accolades are bestowed upon him by our facilitators and participants alike because of his helpful and considerate manner. When one declared, "That guy rocks!" that was all we needed to crown King Richard!
FOR-PD Facilitator - Karen Young Finally, we have our first brave facilitator who was willing to share some good news with the FOR-PD "family." Karen Young is becoming a grandmother in a week or two! (BIG round of applause please!) The extra good news is that this event will take place on or near her own birthday. Karen facilitates the FOR-PD course for Manatee Community College and has been juggling those responsibilities with a mother's roles. She traveled to visit and help her daughter, who has had a rough pregnancy and has been in and out of the hospital. Karen says of her most recent visit. "They did let her out of the hospital for the days I was there. Thankfully that was great! We accomplished a lot ... her giving directions, and me carrying them out!" They are planning to take the baby around the 36th week, so please keep Karen and her family in your thoughts. UPDATE: Here is a note from Karen, received just prior to publication. “I have a grandson, born on March 3, 2007 one day before my birthday. What a great birthday present. He weighed in at 4 lbs, 10 oz. and was actually a month early. Mom, Dad and Joshua Michael Sayre are doing fine ... and so is grandma! I will be leaving for SFO on the 10th for 2 weeks of hugs and kisses. Can you tell it is my first?” Events Application Process for New Facilitators Opens In April, FOR-PD will be opening up the application process for those interested in becoming a FOR-PD Facilitator. The application process will open on April 2, 2007 and run through April 16, 2007. When the application period opens, a link will be added to the FOR-PD website and those interested can fill out an application via our website: http://forpd.ucf.edu. On April 30, 2007, selected participants will be notified. The course will begin on May 7, 2007. The new requirements for becoming a FOR-PD facilitator are listed below:
The call for facilitators interested in a summer section will begin April 2, 2007. The last day to respond will be May 14, 2007. Facilitators will be notified on May 22, 2007. If you requested a March 2007 section and were not chosen, your name was moved to the list of faciltators interested in a summer section, unless you notified us to remove your name. If you received a confirmation that you were added to the original list, there is no need to respond to this call. If you feel your name is not already on the list and wish to facilitate a summer section, please email forpdfac@mail.ucf.edu no later than May 22, 2007. Please note: Only requests sent to FOR-PD Facilitator email address will be added to the list. Thank you!
Our very own Principal Investigator, Vicky Zygouris-Coe, Ph.D., and Janine Ireland have organized another spectacular Literacy Symposium! This is a free event for teachers and is sure to be an informative and enjoyable day! Focus: Motivation, Literacy, and the 21st Century Guest speakers will include: Dr. Timothy Blair, Professor in literacy at the University of Central Florida, College of Education. Some of Dr. Blair's books include: Principles and Practices of Teaching Reading (10th Edition), New Teacher's Performance-Based Guide to Culturally Diverse Classrooms (2003), and Teaching Reading: Diagnosis, Direct Instruction, and Practice (2nd Edition). To submit a proposal, register to attend, or for further information, please visit http://forpd.ucf.edu/litsym.
Facilitator Only Chats March: April: Tech Chats March:
WANTED: Do you enjoy reading the FOR-PD Monthly Literacy Newsletter? Would you like to contribute to the Newsletter with your own thoughts and ideas on specific topics and themes? If so, then we’ve got a spot for you! FOR-PD seeks short, practical summaries (250-500 words) on strategies, techniques, or ideas that match the In Focus topic of the month. We welcome personal examples from the classroom and thoughtful advice on the designated topics. At least one month before the publication date, you can e-mail your summary as an attachment to losmith@mail.ucf.edu. A committee will review all submissions for appropriateness. If your summary is chosen for publication, an email will be sent to you. Your summary should include the following information:
FOR-PD strives to share new and interesting research on hot topics that affect teachers and their students. Read our list of upcoming themes for spring and consider submitting your idea or example summary. May 2007 Topic: Scripted
Programs and Material Fidelity
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New Email Addresses 
New QAC Process and Reports 
Professional
Development
How do I teach that? 
Spring Invoice Due Date
Help Desk Questions
