FOR-PD Update

Dear Colleagues:

Greetings from the FOR-PD team. We have closed the open enrollment for summer 2005 and have just started our summer sections. Summer 2005 will be very busy for us. We continue to receive registration files from districts from across the state.

I recently came across five commandments of effective professional development that made me reflect on what we do and how we deliver our products and services to Florida’s teachers. Here are a few examples:

• Thou shalt be a visible learner
• We hope that the message we communicate to our participants and stakeholders is one of a learning team. We value learning and we continue to exhibit through our efforts to provide quality products and services, as well as monitor the quality of the course instruction. Please visit our website; you will find much evidence of our learning attitude. I strongly recommend that you visit our reading resources and publications.  
• Thou shalt treat all individuals individually
• Our quality assurance monitoring reflects our emphasis on individual teacher performance in the course. We continue to work with teachers who have had certain challenges or who might need additional feedback in the course. We value each teacher and facilitator as an individual and do our best to accommodate their needs.
• Thou shalt find your own voice
• The FOR-PD project has its “own voice” in the sense that it is an online reading project with a unique design, infrastructure, and delivery. We have also been “developing” our own voice through the follow-up we provide to teachers in terms of resources, reading reminders, reading strategies, and ongoing communication through online newsletters.  
• Thou shalt see things as they ought to be
• We value each teacher and hold his/her professional development needs as our primary goal. We value quality of services and products and continue to deliver both to our participants. We continue to seek ways to place more resources in the hands of all teachers.
• Thou shalt model the model
• We strive to model effective reading instruction, effective professional development, and effective facilitation. We focus on modeling reading strategies and provide teachers with relevant preK-12 classroom applications.

We are thankful and honored to be able to provide quality products and services to our preK-12 educators. We thank all of you who have helped us to provide this valuable task. We have learned so much and we continue to learn as we work with partners, school districts, literacy and technology experts, educators, and facilitators.

Here is our proposed Summer 2005 and Fall 2005 Open Enrollment and Course Schedule:

Summer 2005
3/14/05	Open enrollment registration for Summer begins
5/2/05	Open enrollment registration for Summer ends
5/16/05	Summer classes begin
8/22/05	Summer classes end
Fall 2005
6/20/05	Open enrollment registration for Fall begins
8/15/05	Open enrollment registration for Fall ends
8/29/05	Fall classes begin
12/5/05	Fall classes end

Teachers wishing to register for either summer or fall courses will be able to do so from our registration page.

In this update you will find information about our current numbers, sample activities, resources, and plans. We value your feedback and collaboration. Please feel free to contact me at vzygouri@mail.ucf.edu and/or (407) 207-7296.

Best wishes,

Vicky Zygouris-Coe, Ph.D.
FOR-PD Principle Investigator

Latest FOR-PD Numbers

• 8410 students
• 582 sections
• 65 participating districts
• 6 participating universities

New FOR-PD Website Launched!

On May 4, 2005 FOR-PD launched its newly redesigned website in a continuing effort to provide quality reading resources to educators and support students enrolled in the FOR-PD course. The FOR-PD website received more than 17,000 hits in April with more visitors coming every month.

We have changed our design and streamlined how we store information. Please enjoy the new design and let us know if you have any comments!

 

FOR-PD in the News

The FOR-PD course was mentioned in the Stenhouse Newslinks. This is the Stenhouse Publishing Group's newsletter for K-12 educators.

Additionally, there is a nice article about FOR-PD in the Middle School Diaries from Middleweb. MiddleWeb was established in 1996 with grant support from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's Program for Student Achievement, which focused its grant making on middle school improvement.

This article highlights the reading strategy of the month, the reading strategy of the month archive, and our publications page. These are all great resources to share with your participants! Refer them to the article or simply point them to our website.

 

FOR-PD Literacy e-Newsletter

Please read the May issue of the Literacy Newsletter. 

This issue focuses on helping our diverse learners. You will find much useful information on Literacy Leadership. The newsletter is also loaded with comprehensive resources and support in literacy for preK-12 educators. Special thanks to Catherine Glass, our reading specialist, for developing this great literacy resource. We receive a lot of positive feedback from past graduates and current participants who enjoy our resources. You may reach Catherine at cc@orion.itrc.ucf.edu. 

 

FOR-PD's Reading Strategy of the Month

I hope that you enjoy and benefit from our literacy newsletter. As you can tell, it is a research-based, comprehensive, and rich publication with relevant reading research and resources for preK-12 educators, researchers, and other specialists.

This month's reading strategy is Reciprocal Teaching which has been identified as an effective, research-based teaching strategy. Reciprocal teaching helps to scaffold students' use of four comprehension strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. In May, we will focus on two of the four strategies: predicting and questioning. In June, we will focus on the other two strategies: questioning and summarizing. Finally, in July we will bring all four strategies together and present a teaching sequence that has been shown to improve student learning. Please examine our current reading strategy and the examples provided from elementary and secondary levels. We hope that you try this strategy in your classroom and then email us to tell us how it worked for you and your students (forpd@mail.ucf.edu). Also, don't forget to share the strategy with your colleagues. Each month we feature an effective reading strategy, explain the rationale behind the strategy, give directions on how to use the strategy with students, ideas for adapting the strategy to different content areas, ideas for assessing the strategy, and of course a printable PDF version of the strategy. Visit out our Reading Strategy Archive to see past Reading Strategies of the Month.

 

Facilitating with Felicity

Please also read our May Facilitator Newsletter. 

In our "Facilitating with Felicity" Facilitator e-newsletter, we continue to address issues of professional development, facilitation, communication, and teacher participation. This month's issue is on the importance of collaboration in creating an online learning community. Professional development that improves the learning of all students provides educators with the knowledge and skills to collaborate with each other. The FOR-PD course provides teachers with many opportunities to collaborate on assignments and on sharing of knowledge and experiences. This newsletter is a powerful vehicle for providing ongoing professional development and communication with all FOR-PD facilitators. Special thanks to Wendy Bedwell, our Facilitator Support Specialist, for this wonderful facilitator resource. Our facilitators enjoy the support and resources provided through this newsletter. You may reach Wendy at Wendy@orion.itrc.ucf.edu.

 

Facilitator Training and Certification Course Registration Information

The Facilitator Training and Certification Course has recently been under revision. We are pleased to announce that the course will be launched this summer! We are calling all interested potential facilitators! The Facilitator Training and Certification Course application process opens on Monday, May 16 and runs through Tuesday, May 31. Please pass this along to anyone who is interested in facilitating for FOR-PD. Here are the basic requirements:

• Successful completion of the FOR-PD course. (Scoring at the 80% level or above on all assignments and quizzes.)
• A minimum of three years teaching experience
• Master's Degree in reading or other related area
• Advanced knowledge of scientifically-based research  
• Ability to provide explicit instruction in core elements of reading as they apply to preK-12 grades: e.g., phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension
• Ability to systematically use effective reading strategies that have been tested and have a record of success to help all students succeed
• Identified by school or district as a reading/literacy leader

The course is 7 weeks long. It will run from Friday, June 3 through Monday, July 18. We look forward to receiving applications!

New Additions to the FOR-PD Course

We have added some useful tools to the FOR-PD course! Below are the new additions as well as a description of how each is to be used.

Course Calendar - facilitators are required to post a course schedule in the FOR-PD course. This should include the start date, the end date, and the weekly lesson assignment due dates. The course calendar will facilitate entering these dates.

Facilitator Announcements - the Main discussion area is now titled Facilitator Announcements. Facilitators should post ALL important announcements in this area. Many like to send out emails and this practice can continue; however, a discussion posting should also be made to the announcements area. Facilitators should also post a Welcome Message in this area. Facilitators welcome participants to the class and inform them that the first week is intended to provide them with time to familiarize themselves with the course structure and layout. Facilitators will indicate when they will be available online, how much time participants should expect for facilitators to respond to them (should be within 24 hours), and when they plan to grade (should grade at least once a week).

Student Expectations Document - in the Facilitator Announcement discussion topic, the FOR-PD Project has posted a Student Expectations Document (the expectations for university sections are slightly different). This is a list of some basic expectations for students to do in order to successfully complete the course on a week by week basis. This document can help serve as a guideline.

Quality Assurance Survey - In addition to the quality assurance check emails the FOR-PD office will be sending a quality assurance survey roughly 2 weeks after the initial quality assurance check. This data will really help us understand how the quality assurance checks are assisting facilitators and participants and evaluate the impact of this new type of facilitator support.

 

FOR-PD New Help Desk Hours

Help Desk hours are:
Monday through Friday 9:00am - 4:00pm EST
Monday, Tuesday and Friday 6:00pm - 10:00pm EST
Saturday 10:00am- 3:00pm EST

The phone number is 1-866-863-READ (7323) toll free, Florida calls only. For non-Florida calls only 407-249-4702. Technical support is also available through AOL Instant Messenger, screen name "forpdhelp". You can also reach the FOR-PD Help Desk via email - helpdesk@orion.itrc.ucf.edu.

 

FOR-PD Notable Quotables

The following quotes come from participants who attended our most recent chat:

• I was worried about taking this course due to my limited computer knowledge, but it was very user friendly.
• Thank you. I have never taken a class online before, I would never have guessed that it could be so life changing. Thank you!
• It's amazing how much technology I've learned by just taking this course.
• I had a huge breakthrough on how reading needs to be taught in the middle and senior high schools.
• I think those of use who have taken this course should SELL it to our colleagues.

 

Please share with us your opinion of the course. Email us at: forpd@mail.ucf.edu.