National Family Literacy Convention

Last April 10-14th, I attended the National Family Literacy Conference in San Antonio, Texas. Thank you! I came back with more enthusiasm, commitment and realized what a good job we are doing here at CMC. I will highlight information from several speakers, share some new books, and teaching strategies.


Sir Ken Robinson, who wrote The Element was not only hilarious, but most importantly, thought provoking. He pointed out that No Child Left Behind left millions of students behind and warned that if we are not careful, current policies may also. We must help students find their brilliance and passions. Sometimes the well intentioned goal of raising standards uses incorrect methods. Robinson reminds us that we can't run education as if it was a manufacturing process. While autos are indifferent to process, humans are not for we have feelings and emotions. According to Robinson, human life can not be standardized. We must reach each child, one at a time, to find out his story. A child does not jump out of bed and run to school to raise a standard score. Every child, every adult, has a personal, compelling story. He encouraged educators to use our imaginations to create new models and processes. An example of a innovative approach was a partnership in Tulsa, Oklahoma where children attended school in the same building as Grace Living Retirement Home. Several positive interactions resulted. One was the Reading Buddies Program where seniors learned about ipods and technology while students improved their reading skills. Both seniors and the children found a new energy as their lives expanded beyond themselves. Robinson said it was almost a spiritual process for both groups. I find Robinson's message important. In the Glenwood Learning Lab and in our classroom teaching, we first try to identify goals and passions and teach our classes mindful of each student's story.


Byron Pitts, 60 Minutes Correspondent, and author of Step Out On Nothing was also an inspiring speaker. In his book and speech, Pitts traces the angels in his life who helped him grow from an functionally illiterate, inner city kid to the nationally known correspondent he is today. Pitt the youngest of three children overcame many obstacles on his journey. His parents separated, he could not speak without stuttering, and he could not read in elementary school. Byron was so embarrassed by his lack of reading ability that he would spend endless hours with his older brother completing homework. No one knew he could not read because he was smart enough to hide his disability. At night his brother would read and re read sections of his textbook, and Bryon would memorize word for word passages so he could volunteer the practiced pieces the next day. In third grade, Bryon was tested in math and failed so dramatically that the psychologist told his mother that he was either retarded or mentally ill. His mother, a lady of incredible faith and personal strength, finally discovered Bryon could not read and she, with tutors and caring teachers, helped Bryon unlock the mysteries of the written word starting with the alphabet. Other angels helped along the way-- his coach who was like a father , his college roommate who practiced vocabulary with him daily,and a college professor, Dr.Ulle Lewis, who dedicated four extra hours a week to Bryon's studies.

Bryon Pitts' message to the audience was that we must believe in something greater than self and that aggressive literacy training was necessary in many places he has visited. In Afghanistan, many of the soldiers can not read a manual and are taught by show and tell. In Haiti, only 1 in 4 can read. In a Baltimore charter school where Bryon volunteers, 67% are from no parent households and are raised by grandparents, friends or foster parents. He mentioned a little girl who is 11 but looks 7 who asked him, "Where did you hide when the world hurts too much." In closing, Pitts asked us all to recognize the stuggles students face and step out to become the safety net that is necessary.

8th Annual National Career Clusters Institute Conference

I recently attended the Career Clusters Institute annual conference in Denver. Part of my duties as Instructional Chair of the West Garfield Campus are to implement certain career and technical education programs. Although I have heard the terms career clusters, pathways and other terms, I did not have a good understanding of what they meant. I thought this conference would provide me with a good framework.

I was not disappointed. I signed up for a pre-conference workshop to receive a Career Pathways Leadership Certification. This workshop began with emphasizing the economic consequences for the US if our students do not acquire the 21st century skills needed. India and China, as we’ve heard so often, are not only leading in population but students are eagerly seeking the skills needed to fill these jobs. The US is the only industrialized country today where young people are less likely than their parents to earn a diploma. Using career pathways, we can engage students at an early age helping them with the direction they need to stay in school and realize their dreams.

My first “ah ha” moment came when we started talking in more detail about the Career Pathways System. It is a philosophy of connecting and coordinating all education systems – K-12, postsecondary and adult systems while embedding economic development and labor market demand considerations. It is about a student’s entire educational experience from pre-school on through whatever level of attainment they choose, e.g. certificate, associate degree, 4-year degree, masters, doctorate, etc. Before coming to this conference, I thought it was about post secondary education.

A Career Pathway Program of Study is a roadmap that is jointly developed by educators and employers. It shows the connections between education and training programs and jobs in a given sector at different levels, e.g. Health Science could be anything from a CNA to a surgeon. It is for all students and provides multiple entry and exit points throughout one’s lifetime. The Career Clusters are the curriculum foundation for the Program of Study.
The US Department of Education has defined 16 Career Clusters . These have been grouped under broader categories by Colorado and other States, as noted below. Under each of these 16 Career Clusters there are currently 79 pathways. The categories have been broadly framed so that as new occupations emerge, they can be embedded into the 16 Career Cluster framework.

Business, Marketing & Public Administration:

• Management and Administration
• Finance
• Marketing
• Government and Public Administration

Hospitality, Human Services & Education

• Hospitality and Tourism
• Human Services
• Education and Training

Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy

• Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
• Energy

STEM, Arts, Design & Information Technology

• STEM
• Arts, A/V Technology and Communication
• Information Technology

Skilled Trades and Technical Sciences

• Architecture and Construction
• Manufacturing
• Transportation, Distribution and Logistics

Health Science, Criminal Justice and Public Safety

• Health Science
• Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security

These clusters are a grouping of career and broad industries based on common knowledge skills – both academic and technical. The core of this model embeds essential knowledge and skills including academic content knowledge, civic responsibility, collaboration, communication, creativity and innovation, critical thinking/problem solving, finding and using information technology, global and cultural awareness, personal responsibility and work ethics. The Career Clusters model serves as an organizing tool for educators and provides a framework for seamless transition throughout the student’s educational path. It is an instructional and guidance model and connects education to economic development. Each State is developing its own “Plan of Study” templates for these sectors. Here is a quote from the Colorado Community College System regarding Career Cluster and Plans of Study implementation:

“Colorado Career & Technical Education (CTE) believes that every student should be on a path that leads to career success, through seamless plans of study fostering academic and technical achievement, to develop a globally competitive workforce for Colorado. Use of this model will enhance Colorado’s ability to grow a globally competitive workforce.”

See http://www.coloradostateplan.com/default_cluster.htm for more information.

My second “ah ha” moment came when I realized that Career Technical Education (CTE) is not “vocational education” with a new label. The National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) notes that “CTE programs at the secondary, postsecondary and adult levels prepare individuals for a wide range of careers such as health care/bio-medical, renewable energy, hospitality … CTE reflects the modern workplace. And since the majority of careers require a postsecondary credential, high-waulity CTE programs incorporate rigorous academic and technical standards, as well as critical workplace skills such as problem solving, communication and teamwork, to ensure career and college success for its students.” Their vision for CTE are formed from five principles:

1. CTE is critical to ensuring that the United States lead in global competitiveness.
2. CTE prepares student to success in further education and careers.
3. CTE is a results-driven system that demonstrates a positive return on investment.
4. CTE is delivered through comprehensive programs of study aligned to The National Career Clusters framework.
5. CTE actively partners with employers to design and provide high-quality, dynamic programs.

Throughout the conference and the workshops I attended, there was a consistent theme that to be effective programs of study must be developed through collaboration among all levels of education and industry. In addition, curriculum must include activities that allow students to see the applicability to their chosen pathway. Cross educational opportunities, e.g. the building geometry courses, insure that students not only grasp the material but learn how it is applied in the workplace. Using portfolios and demonstration projects for grading rather than the routine testing practices is again a great ways to validate that the students not only know the material but are able to apply it.

Association of Writers & Writing Programs, 2010 Annual Conference -- Denver

With professional development funds from the Roaring Fork Campus, I was able to attend the 2010 Annual AWP Conference. Thank you! This conference is always packed full with educational and inspiring sessions. Below are just a few of the highlights of my experience:

The Joy of Assessment: Romancing Narratives of Student Success from Outcomes and Rubrics. This session was presented by Kendall Dunkelberg, Anna Leahy, Stephanie Vanderslice, Mary Cantrell, Aileen Murphy, and Judith Baumel. The focus here was on assessment of creative writing programs; however, as a teacher of primarily composition courses, I found most of their comments relevant for any course that involves writing. Key points addressed in the session included: (A) There is value in creating curriculum maps. (B) More faculty need to be present at the HLC Annual Conference to keep our voices part of the mix. (C) "Closing the loop" doesn't often happen (e.g., that assessment data can change programs) because immediate needs usually trump data (e.g., class size). (D) The real purpose of assessment is making ourselves accountable to our stakeholders, and while this may have some faculty frustrated, meeting the demands of accountability will not go away. Faculty need to take a role in assessment processes in order to continue to have a say in what it is that we do. (E) As writers, we know our central task is to create a narrative out of our data, and while we must remain transparent in how we are "doing" assessment, our ability as writers affords us the opportunity to tell the grand tale of what we do. (F) E-portfolios are a great way to track student performance and skill beyond the scope of one's individual classroom. With this type of assessment tool, we can begin to see if students are meeting the general education goals. (G) Assessment isn't a science; it is about paying attention, giving us the power to see what needs to be done. At Virginia Tech, faculty within the discipline choose one outcome to assess each year, and they pay faculty readers to examine outcomes from students' e-portfolios. [Examples of English ePortfolios can be found in their gallery at http://eportfolio.vt.edu/englishgallery.html.] The panelists created a wiki on the "Joy of Assessment" for further discussion post-conference. It is available at http://joyofassessment.wikidot.com/. Other assessment resources highlighted in this session include:

• http://www.aacu.org/
• http://openedpractices.org/
• http://www.teaglefoundation.org/learning/resources.aspx#assessment
• www.msche.org/publications/SLA_Book_0808080728085320.pdf

The Western Landscape in Contemporary American Poetry. This session was presented by Haines Eason, Oliver de la Paz, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, C. Dale Young, and Paisley Rekdal. Poets read from their work and discussed the nature of the western landscape as it relates to their poetry as well as the people of "the west." Other aspects highlighted in the discussion included the military use of the land, geological time, landscape as image, landscape as character, and the disembodied speakers in lyric poetry.

The Contemporary American Indian Prose Poem: When Form Invents Function. This session was presented by Dean Rader, LeAnne Howe, Janet McAdams, Janice Gould, Eric Gansworth, and Allison Hedge Coke. All of these poets were featured in a recent issue of Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, and all read from their work as well as participated in a discussion on the semiotics of prose poetry.

CMC Faculty Professional Development Fund for 2010-2011 for 4 Campuses

Faculty Professional Development Fund Overview

View more presentations from Coloradomtn

Faculty from Alpine, Summit, West Garfield, and Virtual Campuses:

Greetings! Are you thinking about attending conferences or workshops scheduled for 2010 - 2011? You may qualify to apply for the Faculty Professional Development Fund. Proposals next due September 15th.

Remember the place to begin is with your campus representative in August :).

Submission Checklist:
Submission Checklist

Application:
Current Application

Committee Members' Rubric for Application Review:
FPDCevaluation%20rubric0809.doc

fb 4 n @ CMC

I went to Roy Brandt's three-hour workshop "Facebook for Businesses and Non-Profits" at the Aspen CMC campus recently--it was standing room only--we had to keep getting more chairs and in the end a several people had to sit on the floor! I found the seminar very useful for two reasons:

1. I may start using a Facebook page for each of my CMC classes in the fall--Composition I and II, Humanities, and Intro to Lit. I'll try to be good and post some course materials on Blackboard, but honestly, BB is a pain. I change my courses so much from term to term that revising a BB shell is a black hole in terms of time. So fb will be better for updates for students and stuff like that. PLUS, students actually USE fb daily, which cannot generally be said for BB. You can be sure that most students will get a message posted there.

2. I have started a fb page for the Aspen Choral Society, of which I am a new Board member. Roy's class helped with that, too, and got me up to speed to add video and YouTube links, streams of the concert CDs and DVDs, and also frequent updates. It turns out that frequent updates are key to getting return hits to a Web site.

Christie Smith, RF Campus

Learning Never Ends

She has 5 cigarettes in the ashtray at one time and then in the evening can't remember how to use her lighter.

That's an email I received this morning from a CMC faculty friend describing his visit with his mother who has Alzheimer's. She is a sundowner, he explains. In the morning she can accomplish routine tasks, but by late afternoon her memory fails her.

I am imagining him now, re-teaching his mother patiently every evening how to use the cigarette lighter.

Learning may be difficult for us in the end,

but it never ends.

And learning is often uncomfortable for us as adults.

In CMC's Beginning Kayaking course in May, there were three young couples, all in their fit 20s, and me, 43 years old and out of shape.

I thought if I never learned how to roll (being upside down underwater in your kayak and having to right yourself), that would confirm that I could never learn anything again.

At the end of Tuesday night's class in the Hot Springs Pool after some of my classmates had gotten a roll and the rest of us had only frustration, our instructors Charlie and Conner made us end on a good note. We had to finish the evening doing any maneuver we could do well.

And when we were leaving, Conner said to me,

Good job, Suzanne--you're almost there. You're going to get a roll on Thursday.

There I was, a moderately well-adjusted adult, clutching onto those words of encouragement like they were a life vest.

I continued to visualize the roll night and day and watched YouTube videos over and over of kayakers explaining rolling.

At that Thursday night's class in the Hot Springs Pool with Conner and Charlie and their patience and encouragement, I finally got my roll.

All the awkwardness of being an adult student and the flashbacks of being a dork in school were worth it.

I was a learner. I had learned.

When the Office of Innovations in Teaching and Learning offers technology workshops at CMC, the faculty and staff who attend appear confident and secure in their identities.

But now I wonder if any of them feel as insecure about technology in our workshops as I felt in the kayak.

(And how many of our traditional students, with their advantages of youth or hipness or athleticism, may be hiding pangs of insecurity and may be starving for any words of encouragement we can toss their way.)

Yesterday at an administrative meeting of the E-Learning Consortium of Colorado (ELCC), we were discussing the importance of offering training opportunities for faculty. Cheryl Comstock of CCC-Online summed it up:

Our faculty are also our students.

As our students, please let us know how our office can improve your learning opportunities at CMC.

You can visit our faculty/staff technology workshop schedule at any time here:

http://coloradomtn.edu/training 

My friend who is visiting his mother with Alzheimer's just emailed me back about her daily struggle with knowing, forgetting, and re-learning how to use the cigarette lighter:

When mom can figure out the lighter, she chain-smokes.

May we all be chain smokers today.

Reading in Many Languages Conference

Hi everyone,

I was fortunate to attend the Reading in Many Languages conference in Chicago on April 26-28, 2010. There were over 12,000 attendees and an abundance of specialized literacy seminars and workshops available. The days started off with the keynote speakers, Al Gore and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordon, who are both sensational speakers and strong advocates for global education. Every presenter emphasized the importance of developing a “staircase” curriculum, which enables students to develop academically throughout their education. By creating “I can” learning targets, students are able to clearly identify their goals for each class. This International Reading Association hosted conference was filled with many “ah-ha” moments for me; however, I wanted to share some strategies to teach reading and summarizing non-fiction and fictional text.

Teaching comprehension is one of the most difficult to teach because the reading process is such a private process between the reader and the text. As teachers, we help guide the student to make the reading process more visible. By taking notes and annotating text, the student is able to capture his/her thinking and understanding. Attached is a document used to monitor students’ comprehension. The document identifies various targets for different ways of thinking while reading, such as: predicting, connecting, creating opinions, asking questions, summarizing, identifying author’s craft, and reflecting/evaluating text. Also, attached is an annotating text document that can help students while reading fictional text. Once the teacher models how to take notes in the margins and throughout the text, the student will be able to use this document throughout their classes.

There are many definitions written to describe a summary. Gerald Duffy stated, “The creation of a brief retelling of a text. While it may include the main idea or theme, the focus is on describing in brief form the text’s major points.” Some students struggle with summarizing text, making the summary too long or too vague. The basic summarizing formula states, “topic + what is said about the topic+ purpose = main idea” (Zwiers, 2004). Before reading a non-fiction text, readers can use the THIEVERY approach to preview the text. Please see the THIEVERY attachment.

Overall, the conference was inspiring and educational. Many presenters affirmed what I was doing as a reading teacher, and then other educators shared effective strategies that would be useful in the classroom. Hopefully you will be able to take something from this summary of the conference and make it your own. If you are interested in learning more about these topics, I will be presenting to a small group of educators at the end of June. Please let me know if you would like to attend, and I will let you know the exact meeting time and place.

Thank you,

Audrey Valiton

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/avaliton/Desktop/reading/Annotation/annotating%20sheet.pdf

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/avaliton/Desktop/Reading%20In%20Many%20Languages2.ppt

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/avaliton/Desktop/reading/Nonfiction/thieves.pdf