Week 4 Podcast and Interview (due March 1)

Assignment#1 Online Activity:

1. Go to IRA Podcasts website:http://www.reading.org/General/Publications/Podcasts.aspx
2. Choose a podcast (topic) to your interest
3. Listen to the podcast and post your reflection on the blog
4. Read and comment on each of your peer’s podcast reflection

Assignment#2 Interview Transcript:

1. Interview with teachers, reading teachers or resource room teachers to find out what types of assessment schools use, especially on what is necessary to achieve each assessment purpose (i.e., screening, diagnostic, progress monitoring, outcome). In addition, interview with the cooperating teacher using the guiding questions provided here.
2. Transcribe your interview on your blog

Week 3 Reader Response to RTI and Assessing Thoughtful Literacy

1. Read the above two articles: one on Response to Intervention and the other on Assessing Thoughtful Literacy.

2. Write a page summary report for each article (focusing on your reflection upon the topics)and post it to your blog.
3. Come up with one question to generate discussion and make sure you also comment on all your peers' questions.

Week 2 Online Assignment (due Feb. 15)

Online Activity:

1. Watch session#7 Using Assessment To Guide Instruction (http://www.learner.org/workshops/readingk2/session7/wtv1.html)
2. Write one-page response with following formats:

·         Summarize the session

·         Share what you learned from the session

·         Relate to what you observed in classroom

3. Submit to Blog (due Feb. 15)

Week 2 ELL Survey

What is your experience in terms of working or friends with people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds?

Do you have experience in working with ELLs?

Do you have experience in teaching ELLs?

What is your perception on ELLs in terms of their learning motivation and performance in general and in reading and writing specially?

What learning difficulties do ELLs usually encounter in schools?

In your observation, how do classroom teachers resolve ELLs’ learning difficulties and improve their learning motivation? What strategies do they often adopt? Are these strategies effective? Are you familiar with these strategies? Are family and community involved?

What intervention strategies would you adopt if you have ELLs in your class? How do you go about teaching the child? How do you go about reaching out to the family and the community?

Week 1 Project Preparation and Timeline

Project timeline

Week 1:

• Project overview

Week 2:

• Discuss with cooperating teachers to identify target ELL student
• Discuss how to proceed with or obtain student assessment information
• Discuss how timeline for your project
• Obtain cooperating teacher's consent form (the teacher keeps one copy).
• Obtain parental consent form (the parents keep one copy).
• Create your own blog and answer questions on the blog

Week 3 to 4:

• Interview with the cooperating teacher (using the guiding questionsprovided)
• Work closely with the cooperating teacher to align the writing activity with the curriculum.
• Work closely with the cooperating teacher to conduct evaluation using the rubrics (writing rubric, and SOLOM Matrix), and identify intervention strategies
• Document challenges you have encountered this week (e.g. from cooperating teacher, parent, student, or school administration...)

Week 5:

• Transcribe interview summary and post it unto your blog
• Start the observation and the writing activity
• Observe and document the target student's learning performance, learning motivation, and how they develop ideas in writing
• Document your observation and reflection on your blog
• Document challenges you have encountered this week (e.g. from cooperating teacher, parent, student, or school administration...)

Week 6-10

• Work with cooperating teacher to mentor ELL