Facilitators' Academy
Day 1
Welcome
Essentials (building layout, washrooms, agenda, and other comforts)
Getting to Know You:
- Meet each other and the instructors.
- Introduce yourself and answer the following question: "What are your burning questions to be answered during this academy?"
ACTIVITY - Facilitators' Feud - Scavenger Hunt
A game to review the online materials
Purpose of the Facilitators' Academy:
- To provide advanced training in engaged learning and best use of technology
- To provide knowledge, materials, and strategies to assist participants in implementing staff development
- To provide suggestions for building support and buy-in within your district for staff development training in engaged learning and best use of technology
Click here to view additional resources available to support engaged learning, best use of technology, and staff development.
Three-Day Plan:
Day 1: Revisit Engaged Learning and Best Use of Technology from a Facilitator's Point of View
- Goals and Objectives of Facilitators' Academy
- Strategy for Instructing and Clarifying Engaged Learning
- The Project
- Analyzing Proposal Elements
- Scenario Writing
- Assessment
- Sharing Your Expertise: Tips, Ideas, and Resources
Day 2: Class Management and Procedures
- Conducting Your Class in a Discussion
- What did you like and dislike about our weekly discussions?
- Monitoring a Discussion
- Analyzing Discussion Excerpts
- Discussion Simulation (for five)
- Planning and Organizing Your LInC Course - Do before Class Starts:
- Tips for Facilitating the Course
- Myths and Realities of Facilitating a LInC Course
- Writing Your Own LInC Course - The End Products for the Course - Required Tasks
- Setting Up Your Server
- Sharing Your Expertise: Tips, Ideas, and Resources
Day 3: Class Management and Procedures Continued and Staff Development
- Continue to Create Your Own LInC Course
- Sharing Course Pages Completed to Date
- Gaining Staff and District Support for Your Class
- Sharing Your Expertise: Tips, Ideas, and Resources
Enough said, let's get started:
The first question your staff will ask you is, Why Engaged Learning?
In fact, if they don't ask, you might wonder why they aren't asking. If they already know, they won't ask. Then, as an instructor you need to meet the needs of the participants by teaching at a higher level and adjusting the materials to meet their needs. If they don't ask because they don't know anything about it, then you can't assume any background knowledge and be prepared to offer extra support and office hours. Either way, it is a message to the instructor and should help you structure your class.
Strategies for Instructing and Clarifying Engaged Learning and Best Use of Technology
In the recent LInC courses we have developed a few new materials to assist you in helping people get a handle on what engaged learning and best use of technology is all about. We know that the engaged learning is the hardest piece for participants to understand and to use appropriately in their projects. Many participants have been very comfortable discussing and using the engaged learning lingo, but have a difficult time incorporating Engaged Learning in their projects. The new activities we have developed offer the participants an experience with engaged learning, a chance to observe other participants brainstorming a project, and we tap into their own previous experience with engaged learning. These activities also provide the participants practice in converting traditional curriculum into engaged learning projects with the best use of technology to support them.
We strongly recommend that you complete the activities in the order
listed below. It is not imperative that you complete all of the activities,
but the sequence is important as they are written in a developmental format.
- Ed. Tech Simulation - Experiencing Engaged Learning - Short simulation for participants to experience a technology-supported engaged learning activity from a student's perspective. This activity is a great way to introduce participants to project based engaged learning. Student Page for the Ed. Tech Simulation
- Constructing EL Indicators - An activity/discussion in which participants share their best learning experiences and create a list of indicators of engaged learning. (This activity must be done before the participants read Plugging In.)
- Analyzing a Project to Identify the Indicators of Engaged Learning and Best Use of Technology Using Good Project Examples- In this activity participants analyze projects in an effort ot recognize the indicators of engaged learning. Participants will see a complete project and gain a better understanding of the end product they will produce for the class. In addition, it will help them understand how the individual pieces we will explore next fit together.
- Fishbowl - Brainstorming a Project - A Script for Three--The script models the process of brainstorming a project.
- Bridging the Gap - This activity allows the participants to analyze the individual elements that make up the whole project.
- Sample Hooks - Here are examples to help you understand what a hook is and how it relates to the task.
- Before and After Project Revision - This activity lets participants practice changing traditional curriculum to engaged learning. It is a challenging activity that should be done only after participants have developed a deeper understanding of engaged learning. The activity also lets the participants experience the process they will be going through with their facilitator.
- Project Proposals - Participants present two proposals to the class and the class offers positive comments and suggestions for revisions. If the participants only produce one proposal and it does not appear to be a successful project, you will find it very difficult to guide them to a new project idea. This requirement may seem trivial, but it can be a major issue with the participant/facilitator relationship.
- Frequent discussions and showings of the project at different stages of development with colleagues and facilitators.
The Project
Analyzing Proposal Elements
Selecting a Topic
- Reflecting on your own experience of selecting a topic:
- Look into the crystal ball and look back to the day that you decided you wanted to begin your LInC project. The first thing that you did was to brainstorm topics that would make a good project. A successful project begins with a topic that is rich, dependent upon the Internet, and is a part of your existing curriculum. A topic is like a seed that will grow into a plant that bears a lot of fruit. Without the key elements, the seed grows into a plant but it does not bear the fruit that you want. With that in mind, answer this question.
Can you think of a topic that has no potential for project development?
Answer: Every topic has potential provided there is an authentic, challenging task which is tied to the curriculum, age-appropriate, student-directed, and dependent upon the Internet.
Remember: Some topics lend themselves to engaged learning project development more effectively because they have more choices of authentic, challenging tasks. Therefore, remind participants to do the following:
- Bring multiple topics to the first session. If they are too fond of one topic and it doesn't lend itself to an authentic task, it is difficult to get the participant to change.
- Ask them key questions about the development of the topic. Each question should focus on the indicators of engaged learning and best use of technology. Don't tell them what to do--guide them.
- The participants need to realize that their project design is more than just adding technology to a traditional unit of instruction.
Authentic Task/Hook
The task is what you want the students to do, but the hook is the piece that compels them to want to complete the task. The hook creates a desire to know more about the topic or to find a solution to the problem the task proposes. As teachers work to develop an authentic task and hook ,sometimes the activity is too directed or canned and doesn't allow the students to direct the learning.
Sample Hooks - Examples to help you understand what a hook is and how it relates to the task
Student-Directed Learning
The project needs to begin with an authentic task and a compelling hook that creates a high level of desire for participation. But how do you make sure the lesson is student-directed and not teacher led?
- Are the students creating the plan or are they following your outline?
- Are they generating questions to be researched or are they selecting questions from a menu?
- Will students conceive of final products or will they create the one the teacher told them to complete?
- Will students determine what needs to be learned to accomplish the task or solve the problem, or will they complete all the work that is completed in the traditional unit?
Do you realize that in engaged learning:
- Students will learn more than you planned, but it may not all be the same.
- Student will select a path to investigate that you might not have considered.
Best Use of Technology
Best use of technology is not just putting your unit online in Web-page design.
How does technology support the learning?
Is the technology a critical component of this project?
- Could the project be done as effectively without the use of the Internet?
- What is the type of Internet communication the students are using during this project?
- Are they sharing information with other classes or experts?
- Is the communication one-way or two-way? (Are they giving as well as sharing information?)
- Is collaboration taking place?
- Is there an opportunity to publish student work?
- Are students taking advantage of recent of frequently updated information on the Internet?
- Are students getting different perspectives from a variety of geographical locations?
- Are students using experts to help them with their authentic task?
Developing Proposals
We have found that it is very helpful to have participants analyze projects that aren't theirs, in which they have no ownership. There is no emotional attachment. That is why we wrote the before and after activity. This experience is essential before you ask them to generate topics or proposals of their own.
Knowing how important the task is to the project and how important it is to get the participant to focus on developing the task, let's look at a project proposal and observe the process the facilitator and the participant go through as they revise the first draft.
Early on in the course, keep these things in mind when helping participants develop topics and write proposals.
- At this stage of the course, the participants do not have a full understanding of engaged learning. As we talk to them about their topics, we are going to focus on three indicators of engaged learning and one indicator of best use of technology. Concentrate on the vision of learning, the task/hook, the learning context, and the engagability of technology.
- Participants may come with a preconceived notion of engaged learning. They may or may not have to refocus their thinking to work for the common ground you are establishing with the whole group. Participants often confuse an engaging (eye-catching and interesting) activity with engaged learning.
- Participants should begin to think of their project/unit, but do not let them get too wedded to their idea for fear it will not blend with the best use of technology. You must provide feedback on their topic ideas promptly in order to avoid this problem.
- Participants often want to rehash an old unit that will not depend on the Internet. This approach is harder than it sounds. It is best to start fresh with a new idea.
- Encourage participants to keep the proposal short. The more they write, the more they are wedded to the proposal and they may be less open-minded about incorporating more engaged learning and effective use of technology to their proposal.
Communicating with the participants:
It is important to provide positive feedback to the participants. Starting the conversation with encouraging comments builds a level of trust and comfort between the participant and facilitator. Next, ask questions that require the participant to focus on the missing elements of engaged learning. Your role is to direct the participants to analyze and revise without directly telling them what changes to make. One tip to make your communication positive is to make it frequent.
Give it a try:
ACTIVITY - Let's look at three proposals. You are a facilitator of the LInC course. How can you help one of these participants focus his proposal so that it includes an authentic task and best use of technology? Write down the positive feedback you will give as well as the questions you will ask. Be ready to share your work with the group.
Remember: The task is the catalyst that drives the project. If the task hooks the learner into wanting and needing the information for a specific purpose of his own, the project becomes student-driven. The task is like a fuse to a firecracker.
Questions you might ask the writer of the proposal:
- Vision of Learning: How is the student involved in choosing the tasks?
- Task: Was the task and hook structured so that the students felt compelled to complete the task or solve the problem?
- Engagability of the Technology: How does the technology enable learning by doing and provide access to communication and collaboration?
ACTIVITY - As you begin discussing these questions and sharing new questions, we will record your questions on a piece of chart paper. We will use these questions to create a page of questions for everyone to use when you actually teach your class.
Changing roles:
Now, assume you are a participant of the course and have sent the first draft of your proposal to your facilitator. (In this case, trade your work with someone else in the class. You do not have to be working on the same proposal. Any one of the three will be just fine.) How are you going to respond to your facilitator? Record what you say after hearing what your facilitator thinks about your proposal idea. Be ready to share your work with the group.
The next step is for the entire group to analyze what happened as you viewed the process from both perspectives.
- Which role is easier?
- What was the key to the success of the process?
- What would you have asked that you didn't ask?
Questioning:
The key to changing the focus or direction of a proposal lies in the questioning strategies you use. Having a list of questions for each of the indicators of engaged learning and best use of technology is very helpful when communicating with the participants.
SCENARIO WRITING
Why do we have to write a scenario?
What is the point?
It is a big waste of time.
How is this going to help me with my project?
As a facilitator you will hear these questions from the participants. It is hard to write a scenario. We know that we are asking the participants to complete a difficult task. We know that we are forcing the participants to analyze and reflect on their project, task, and students as they write their scenario. In fact, that is exactly what we want them to do.
Writing a scenario is not only a tool for the participant to "see" what their project might look like, it is a very important tool for the facilitator to use to know if the participant understands engaged learning and best use of technology. Being able to visualize what is happening in their classroom and seeing how the students are interacting and guiding the process gives both of us a picture of how engaging the project really is.
As instructors we have had many discussions as to the value of the scenario and even asked each other if we really needed to have participants write one. Every time we are tempted to exclude it, we find ourselves realizing how important it is to have as a component of the course. It is valuable to both the participant and the facilitator. It shows us what the participant does and does not have in his project and in his understanding of the concepts and allows us to ask the important questions to guide the participant to recognize the missing pieces.
Time to analyze:
ACTIVITY - Let's analyze a scenario taken from Learning through Technology: Study Group Framework and Profile Tool written by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory for the Illinois State Board of Education. On pages 35-39 read the project scenario titled "Living History." As you read, underline the indicators of engaged learning and best use of technology.
Questions to focus the discussion:
- What indicators did you notice in the scenario?
- What indicators were missing?
- What questions would you ask the participant to guide them through the process of scenario writing?
Analyze another scenario written by one of our participants. Use the scenario rubric to help you evaluate the piece.
Discuss the group's evaluation.
Remember: Revising is a process. The first draft is rarely the final draft. Usually three or four drafts of the scenario are needed. It is important to set the expectations of participants so they are not alarmed or offended by being asked to revise their work.
Moving on to the Project:
ACTIVITY - Now we are going to shift gears a bit and look at a completed project. In your small groups analyze the project and identify the indicators of engaged learning and best use of technology. Use the project rubric to guide your assessment.
- Does the task need to be altered?
- What changes need to be made in the scenario?
- What changes need to be made in the student pages?
- How would you improve assessment?
- Does the project depend upon the Internet?
ASSESSMENT
A variety of tools are provided for you to use while teaching this course. There are rubrics for the scenario, the presentation page, the completed project, page design, and staff development. These rubrics will allow for comprehensive evaluation of the participant's work in our LInC Course. If you are going to offer college credit for this course, be certain to check with the college to be sure that you are meeting their requirements for credit. If district credit is going to be awarded, check with your district administrators to see what their expectations will be.
Questions to think about regarding assessment:
- Are you going to give grades?
- Are you going to evaluate according to the growth in thinking and learning or the production of quality products?
- Which rubrics will you use?
- What percent of the grade is attendance and participation?
- Decide your expectations when you start teaching, but be prepared to be flexible and adjust.
Sharing Your Expertise: Tips, Ideas, and Resources
We realize that you are each leaders in your school/district. You have tips, ideas, and resources to share about helping others use tech-supported engaged learning. We look forward to learning from you, too.