Consideration in Making Literacy Meaningfulby Kelly Fonner & Scott Marfilius, Education & Assistive Technology Consultants Complexity exists in teaching educators to support literacy development in school-aged children with disabilities. It is found at many levels, age groups, and across disability labels. It involves more than instructing individuals how to teach kids to read or how to use a particular software program. We are working in a time when there is more focus and research on reading instruction and supports for students with disabilities. This focus is being promoted through organizations such as CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) and the Center for Literacy and Disabilities Studies. With the information that is gathered and studied through these organizations and others, educators of students whom reading was not a successful adventure, are being confronted with change. Change is a process. It involves gaining information, practicing with new skills, getting support during that practice, having the opportunity to review the change and ongoing monitoring. This would suggest that it is difficult to make change from offering one after-school or a full day in-service that is in isolation. Yet, that is the time that trainers are often presented with in order to improve the practice of our participants. One of our challenges as presenters/staff developers/consultants is delivering information that makes connection with our participants. Therefore, creating the interest in and seeing the purpose in making change in their practice, in their program, and in their experiences. We certainly cannot give all the examples in this short column; however, the following real life examples are a few illustrations of how presenters are doing this in literacy and assistive technology training. Example #1Type of Workshop—1 Full Day In-service/Conference Workshop Title of Workshop—Supporting the Writing Process with Assistive Technology by Scott Marfilius and Kelly Fonner Activity in Workshop—Participants are grouped by the chronological age of the students that they have on their caseload. Participants are not assigned to groups, they self-select in which age group to participate, so those who serve multiple age groups choose their group. The goal of these groups is to produce a list of writing tasks required in school settings by students of the age group; the groups are not to be focusing on writing tools. It is best to have groups of more than three and less than seven people. The responsibility for the instructor is to monitor the groups and keep them on track in their group discussions. Meaningful Connection to Practice—The purpose of the activity is to get the group focused on the writing activities that their students need to do. This part gives meaning to the tools (software & hardware) and strategies that are presented in the workshop. If participants are aware of the SETT framework, this focus on the writing task connects to what they already should be doing. If time structure allows, it is beneficial for the group to follow up on this activity by generating their own case study in which they identify one student, their specific writing activities and possible tools to explore. Below are the lists* that were generated by a group of 47 participants in this presentation at the Rocky Mountain Conference, June 8, 2006. By role, the group was approximately 75% occupational therapists.
For more information on this training: www.kellyfonner.com Example #2Type of Workshop—5 Full Day Institute/Focused Seminar Title of Workshop—Literacy in AAC Institute by Karen Erickson & David Koppehaver Activity in Workshop—Participants are given the opportunity to present a case study. The case study is related to the literacy instruction for an individual student or for planning the literacy instruction of a classroom. In the case studies, institute participants present background information and state the problem that they'd like help in addressing. Generating interest in each case study from the rest of the group, the other participants are responsible for generating potential suggestions. The responsibility for instructors is to facilitate, mediate and keep the discussion on track. Meaningful Connection to Practice—There are several meaningful connections in this activity. The group has an indirect instruction time focusing on connecting the information presented in the institute to real life situations; a taste of what they will be doing once they return to their location. The group learns strategies on how to tackle literacy problems, clarify the issue(s), and generate solutions. The case study presenter has ideas generated by a focused group of peers to take back to their situation and sort through in their environment. For more information on this training: www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds Example #3Type of Workshop—Workshop Series: Repeated trainings with the same staff (can be delivered as multiple full days or multiple after-school sessions) Title of Workshop—LIT: Literacy Integration thru Technology; Series of four workshops delivered throughout the school year by Kelly Fonner
Activity in Workshop—Ideally participants are attending the series as classroom based teams. Each team has six literacy projects that they develop, produce and use in their own setting. Projects are created after each of the workshops throughout the school year. Each activity has a different focus in supporting literacy learning. One of these projects is a video portfolio of an individual student, or of a particular type of literacy lesson delivered to a class of students. The project is self-selected and can be any reading or writing activity that occurs on a regular basis in the classroom. It should not be an activity that is solely done for the purpose of the workshop. Meaningful Connection to Practice—The purpose of the activity is to get the teams focused on connecting the workshop information connected to the activities that their students need to do, making meaningful selection of strategies and assistive technology tools, monitoring the implementation of those tools and strategies, and making change to these interventions based upon observations of the video. Teams also conclude the workshop series with usable products and video based example of student response to the literacy intervention. For more information on this training: www.kellyfonner.com Example #4Type of Workshop—1 Full Day In-service/Conference Workshop Title of Workshop—Technology Toolkit for Reading by Scott Marfilius Activity in Workshop—Participants are grouped randomly and each group has a portable word processor. The groups are asked to brainstorm and discuss other technology solutions they are aware of which fits into each of the instructional areas that were covered. The files from the portable word processors are collected and that file is emailed to the participants. The responsibility for the instructor is to monitor the groups and keep them on track in their group discussions. At the end of the workshop each participant develops an action plan for their setting. Meaningful Connection to Practice—The purpose of the activity is to get the group focused on tools that they already have immediate access to. There's nothing more frustrating than attending a workshop and not having access to any possible solutions when you leave. The participants use this list to add the ideas to their toolkit and incorporate them into their action plan at the end of the day. The action plan is a brief one page sheet to help them focus on what their next steps may be. For more information on this training, email marfilius@wi.rr.com. Time has always been an issue in the education field. We know with our students, if learning is made purposeful, great gains are made. In the area of professional development, we need to make sure that we are making the learning experiences meaningful for the participants. This can be achieved through a variety of methods that link the learning back to their individual setting. Rocky Mountain Conference for Assistive TechnologyParticipant Group Lists of Writing Tasks Participants attending a full day session on Supporting the Writing Process with Assistive Technology, self-selected which group that they would participate in based upon the chronological age of the students they encounter most. Each group contained 5-7 people and was charged with the purpose of developing a list of writing tasks. The following lists are the non-edited lists of writing tasks developed by these participants and is intended as a starting place, not a comprehensive list. As you review these lists, you will read that some groups moved beyond the topic of writing tasks and listed writing tools both no-tech and lo-tech. Some abbreviations were not delineated by the group and have not been assumed to mean one thing or another.
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