FOR-PD Update

• 5728 students
• 289 sections
• 64 participating districts
• 5 participating universities

FOR-PD Plans for Summer 2004

In an effort to accommodate the schedules and preferences of as many participants as we can, it is our plan at this time to offer BOTH our standard 14 week session of the FOR-PD course, AND two accelerated 7 week sessions of the FOR-PD course this summer.

PLEASE NOTE: Participants who opt to sign up for the accelerated sessions should be aware that the FOR-PD course offered during these accelerated sessions is the same FOR-PD course being offered during the standard 14 week session. The 7 week sessions are NOT abbreviated or less intensive sessions. During the accelerated 7 week sessions, participants will be expected to complete two lessons per week as opposed to the customary one lesson per week expected in our standard 14 week sessions

Tentative scheduling for the summer sections at this time is:

Open Enrollment for these summer sections will begin in April 2004.

UCF College of Education 6th Annual Literacy Symposium

Come join us for a day of fun and learning on April 17, 2004 in the UCF College of Education Gymnasium from 8:30AM - 3PM. Our keynote speaker will be Sharon M. Draper, award winning author, educator, and recipient of the 2004 Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award for her novel, The Battle of Jericho.

This is a free professional day for all elementary and secondary educators, including library media educators, reading specialists, and administrators.

Symposium topics will include:

This event is sponsored by Florida Online Reading Professional Development (FOR-PD), and The Florida Literacy and Reading Excellence (FLaRE) Center. To register online go to http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/litsym/

FOR-PD Evaluation

Dr. Debbie Hahs-Vaughn is currently working with us to complete our Phase 1 evaluation report. This evaluation will assess:

Dr. Hahs-Vaughn holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Educational Research from The University of Alabama with an emphasis in Educational Statistics, Applied Statistics and Educational Foundations.

Reading Strategy of the Month

This month’s featured Reading Strategy is Column Notes. Column Notes is a note-taking strategy that divides a page into two columns. Students write main ideas and concepts in the left column and supporting details and information in the right column. This technique is especially useful for analyzing well-structured, content-rich, sequential reading selections. You can find a detailed explanation and a downloadable reproducible student handout on our website at http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/strategies/.

Chat Transcripts

Would you like to check in on some of the online chats we’ve had with participants and facilitators? You can find the transcripts for the following chats on our website at http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/publications/.

• February 24, 2004 - How does on-going assessment drive instruction? With the approach of FCAT right around the corner this topic is crucial for our understanding of why we need to analyze assessment for results to "individualize" our instruction.
• January 29, 2004 - Why is there so much talk about phonics now? Phonics and the secondary grades: how can we address that in the classroom for struggling readers? What is the difference between phonemic awareness and phonological awareness?
• September 24, 2003 - Due dates and falling behind, completion of assignments, rubrics, monitoring participation, model discussions
• July 30, 2003 - New ideas we want to try at the FOR-PD project.
• March 6, 2003 - Dr. Vicky Zygouris-Coe, FOR-PD content expert, was online to take comments and questions.

FOR-PD Notable Quotables

Kudos this month from a couple of our facilitators:

Do you have comments or news you'd like to share with us about the FOR-PD project or course? Please send them to us at forpd@mail.ucf.edu.