Developmental English Archived Online Training Seminars
Ann Wolf: Using Graphic Organizers and Concept Maps to Support Text Comprehension
Facilitated by: Ann Wolf, TeamUP Faculty Consultant, President of the College of Reading & Learning Association
Date Recorded: 10/13/2011
Students need to be engaged when they are reading text in a college classroom.
This means that they are active learners and make connections with the text in
order to comprehend and remember the information. Research supports the use of
graphic organizers and concept maps as a way to scaffold learning from text. They
are a visual and graphic display that shows the relationships between facts, terms
and/or ideas. Using graphic organizers and concepts maps supports the students
who struggle with reading assignments in college courses and can increase their
comprehension.
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Barbara Goldstein: Sentence Diagramming for Prep Students? Are You Kidding?
Facilitated by: Barbara Goldstein, Hillsborough Community College
Date Recorded: 03/02/2011
Reed and Kellogg diagramming of basic sentence patterns, a staple of teaching English grammar for three-quarters of a century, is seeing a resurgence in the new millennium. Diagramming lets students visualize the relationship among sentence parts as it breaks down sentences into simple, easy-to-see segments. This learning by doing, hands-on examination of how sentences work is especially beneficial for visual and tactile learners.
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Bob Connelly and Julie Robitaille - Teaching Students to Generate Strong Supporting Sentences in Argument Paragraphs
Facilitated by: Bob Connelly and Julie Robitaille, Santa Fe College
Date Recorded: 02/08/2012
Often the paragraphs that developmental students write lack strong supporting
sentences. We will present the form of the argument paragraph we teach and show
how we encourage students to generate strong supporting sentences. Students are
required to generate specific details for their supporting ideas and relate those
details to the topic sentence. Because we require each supporting sentence to
include both specific details and an explanation of how the details develop the
topic sentence, students must combine their ideas by using coordination and subordination.
The paragraphs they learn to write have lots of relevant detail, strong logic,
and varied sentence patterns.
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Bridgett McGowen-Hawkins: "I Don't Wanna Write. I Wanna Run!:" Strategies to Encourage Students to Stop and Reconsider
Facilitated by: Bridgett McGowen-Hawkins, Cengage Learning, TeamUP Faculty Programs Consultant
Date Recorded: 02/24/2011
Your heart's racing as you walk to class in great anticipation. And with each
stride comes another ounce of excitement. All of this is happening because you
believe you hold in your precious little hands an amazing lesson plan --
or so you think. You facilitate the lesson, distribute a new writing assignment,
and then it happens -- what every instructor dreads. The look. And not just the
look but also the words to accompany the look, which students may or not may verbalize;
it just depends on how feisty they're feeling that day. "I don't wanna write
about THIS?!" are the words they're thinking as they make a mad dash for
the door. Join this interactive webinar to explore and discuss options for developmental
writing assignments that will make students stop in their tracks and reconsider.
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Bridgett McGowen-Hawkins: Do I Teach Process or Punctuation?: Writing Lessons That Provide the Greatest Impact
Facilitated by: Bridgett McGowen-Hawkins, Cengage Learning, TeamUP Faculty Programs Consultant
Date Recorded: 10/06/2010
Two things immediately jump out at you if you teach a developmental writing course.
One, every student appears to have been absent from high school the day English
teachers presented grammar and punctuation lessons. And two, many of them do not
approach writing with any kind of a process; rather they opt to embrace Nike’s mantra and just do it – and, most importantly, get it over with! As a developmental writing instructor, you’re forced to ask yourself “Do I focus on grammar and punctuation, or are my students best serviced if I devote most of my energies to helping them understand and employ a process when they write?” This interactive webinar examines the impact of concentrating on either strategy and offers insights and strategies for instructing developmental writers.
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Bridgett McGowen-Hawkins: You Talk SO Much, But You Write SO Well!: Conversations That Make Developmental English Students' Writings Something to Talk About
Facilitated by: Bridgett McGowen-Hawkins, Cengage Learning
Date Recorded: 11/12/2009
Students rarely take joy in writing when enrolled in a developmental English (DE) course. Even after all the writing they performed in secondary school – or as a result – they do not necessarily dive head-first into writing assignments in the DE classroom. While peer reviews, comprehensive feedback on written assignments, and the like are commonly used practices that reveal students’ writing deficiencies and lead to encouraging them to improve their writings, if instructors can get students talking about their writing, then these discussions can serve as catalysts for breaking down the barriers that come between the DE student and a final – and comprehendible – written product. This webinar will discuss the connections among speaking, reading, and writing and how extended opportunities to discuss their writings in various settings will result in students better understanding how they write and how to write more effectively.
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Christine Carter: Working with the brain to learn best
Facilitated by: Christine Carter, St. Louis Community College at Meramec
Date Recorded: 03/02/2010
Today’s reading instructors in higher education settings face more challenges
than ever before. They must expose their students to strategies and skills in
an attempt to remediate a lifetime of reading issues in one or two semesters.
Because many students are not lifelong readers—either from habit, time constraints,
or a combination thereof—they have little background knowledge and poorly
developed metacognitive strategies. For these reasons, it is imperative that instructors
show students how to work with their brains to learn best. Based on learning research,
often called brain-based learning, let’s consider what reading skills and strategies yield the best results for today’s challenged and challenging
students.
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Dave Kemper: Using the Traits to Guide Developmental Writers
Facilitated by: Dave Kemper, The Write Source
Date Recorded: 11/10/2010
Developmental learners need core knowledge, a frame of reference, if you will,
in order to engage in college-level writing and reading. The traits of writing
provide them with this frame. The traits as identified by a group of instructors
in Beaverton, Oregon, consist of ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. As students learn about the traits, they begin to appreciate the working parts of effective prose—it should be focused, detailed, logical, etc.—and they gain a foundation for crafting strong writing of their own.
The purpose of this eSeminar is to provide instructors with background information and strategies to incorporate the traits into their instruction.
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Dave Kemper: Writing Instruction that Works
Facilitated by: Dave Kemper
Date Recorded: 11/08/2011
As countless reports and surveys tell us, many new and returning students lack
the necessary writing skills to succeed in higher education and in the workplace.
This presentation will provide writing instructors, as well
as basic education and literacy instructors, with research-based strategies and
approaches that will help struggling writers become
more confident and proficient. During the course of presentation, the presenter
will share the findings of researchers such as James L. Collins (Strategies for
Struggling Writers) and Constance Weaver (The Grammar Plan Book).
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Gayle Feng-Checkett and Lawrence Checkett: Helping Students Overcome Barriers to Learning in the Developmental Writing Classroom
Facilitated by: Gayle Feng-Checkett and Lawrence Checkett, St. Charles Community College
Date Recorded: 03/10/2010
Today's community colleges are being asked to cope with student populations exhibiting diverse barriers to learning. Too often, these students are not assessed into discrete classrooms grouped by learning-levels, which can be negatively affected by a variety of problems, including low reading level, low writing skill level, and cultural differences that require special learning tools. However, there are effective techniques to assist writing instructors who find themselves in these types of classroom settings. You can provide tangible help to writing students with divergent barriers to learning through the use of the structured thesis sentence, excerpted writing samples and reading levels, paired tutoring, and ESL teaching tools. The purpose of this webinar is to offer you concrete tools to help you maintain your successful teaching experience while helping students become better communicators.
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Kina Lara and Tina Willhoite - Developmental English and Course Redesign: Blending Reading and Writing with Aplia
Facilitated by: Kina Lara and Tina Willhoite, San Jacinto College South
Date Recorded: 11/27/2012
In this 60-minute webinar, you'll gain insight into two new technology tools: Aplia and CourseReader. Both are from Cengage, a trusted education partner, and are easy for both students and teachers to use. Aplia is an online lab that reinforces skills taught in the classroom. Instructors can align labs with their lectures or allow students to work at their own pace. CourseReader, an online collection of high-interest articles, allows instructors to customize content to suit their students' needs. Both tools enhance student engagement, improve learning outcomes, and promote critical analysis as students integrate reading and writing skills.
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Laraine Flemming - Just How Important is the Topic Sentence?
Facilitated by: Author Laraine Flemming
Date Recorded: 04/10/2012
While it might seem an unlikely source of controversy, the concept of the topic
sentence can generate heated discussions in both reading and writing circles.
There are those who feel that no decent paragraph would appear in public, either
in print or on line, without one. While others argue that topic sentences are
artificial constructs, which rarely show up in real world texts of any kind.
The object of this webinar is not to resolve the controversy in favor of one
side or the other but to suggest that what we teach students about topic sentences
can vary with the context. If we are talking about management texts, topic sentences
just might be the main event. But if we are reading descriptions of historical
events, particularly on line, they might play second fiddle more often than
one might think. The emphasis of this webinar will be on providing examples
of concrete practice materials along with text excerpts that illustrate how
topic sentences can be flexible shape shifters, whose form and presence depend
heavily on the context in which they appear.
Reading a textbook and reading a poem probably sound like two very different
tasks, and in key ways they are. Poetry encourages day dreams. Textbooks do
not. If imagery is the essence But if you look carefully at what reading research
says about how the mind makes meaning, it becomes clear there are some definite
similarities between how we read both poetry and prose. The goal of this webinar
in to offer some concrete technique for using poems as a vehicle for teaching
reading comprehension.
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Laraine Flemming: Meeting the Common Core Challenge
Facilitated by: Laraine Flemming
Date Recorded: 10/26/2011
The mission statement for the Common Core State Standards is inspiring. The standards
have been “designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting
the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and
careers. “ Implementation, however, has been left up to instructors. This
is a huge task and a major challenge. To help instructors meet that challenge,
this workshop offers a sequenced series of practical exercises and concrete explanations,
all designed to fulfill the Common Core standards for reading.
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Laraine Flemming: When All Else Fails
Facilitated by: Laraine Flemming
Date Recorded: 11/03/2010
This Web workshop offers concrete suggestions for teaching students how to think about the academic texts they both read and write. The goal is to provide participants with classroom-tested techniques for teaching hard-to-grasp concepts such as forming generalizations, making (or from the writer's perspective, encouraging) accurate predictions, following the thread of an argument, and recognizing more subtle forms of bias.
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Larry and Gayle Checkett: Critical Thinking in the Developmental/ESL Writing Classroom
Facilitated by: Larry and Gayle Checkett, St. Charles Community College
Date Recorded: 11/16/2011
The session will demonstrate techniques we use in the classroom to embed critical thinking into lessons, including writing, editing, and exercises.
The critical thinking techniques we use help to engage students in a more intimate way with the material they are being asked to learn and work with.
They help students understand more than just how to do exercises.
The techniques actually facilitate learning in a deeper more substantive way because
they help the students understand why they are doing exercises, editing, and writing.
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Linda Wong: Developmental English Course + Study Skills = Positive Results
Facilitated by: Linda Wong
Date Recorded: 10/19/2011
How would your students benefit from learning study skills that apply to their
developmental English courses? Would they feel less anxious, confused, or frustrated?
Would they see improvements in understanding, performance, motivation, and quality
of work? In this eSeminar, we'll explore a variety of study skills strategies
that you can integrate into your courses and that students can then use independently
outside of class. We'll discuss common study strategies (notetaking, memory work,
time management, and test-taking skills) as well as strategies related more specifically
to development writing, reading, and vocabulary development courses. Time will
be allotted for Q & A and sharing of some of your successful strategies.
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Maggi Miller: First They Read the Book, Then They Wrote the Song
Facilitated by: Maggi Miller, TeamUP Faculty Programs Consultant
Date Recorded: 04/13/2010
David Bowie wrote “1984”: Joni Mitchell wrote “Both Sides Now.”
Both were inspired by books. Reading has long been an inspiration for writing.
You may be surprised by the history of this often challenging relationship. Explore
past and current research into the split and the connections between the two disciplines.
Learn about “teaching in between” with songs, poetry, and more.
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Margaret Richek: Vocabulary Strategies That Increase Comprehension
Facilitated by: Margaret Richek, Author World of Words; Professor Emerita, Northeastern Illinois University; Coauthor World of Essential Words, I, II & Susanne Picchi, Associate Professor and Joint Coordinator of Dev
Date Recorded: 04/13/2011
Vocabulary is often the missing ingredient in reading comprehension. How can we teach the word meanings that research shows are critical to understanding? This webinar shares engaging, time efficient strategies to help students to master words. The activities are linked to reading comprehension. Targeted demonstrations give specific methods for engaging students in motivating, time-efficient, and effective learning.
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Mark Connelly: Teaching Grammar Problems
Facilitated by: Mark Connelly, Milwaukee Area Technical College
Date Recorded: 11/02/2006
Developmental writing instructors often create novel and effective ways of teaching students how to identify and repair common errors in grammar and mechanics:
- Fragments and Run-ons
- Subject, Verb and Pronoun Agreement
- Faulty Parallelism
- Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers
- Commonly Confused Words
Mark Connelly will discuss his own teaching strategies, as well as open the conversation up to the group to discuss and share specific and practical tips with each other.
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Mark Connelly: Using Visuals
Facilitated by: Mark Connelly, Milwaukee Area Technical College
Date Recorded: 10/19/2006
This session will focus on the utilization of visuals in the Developmental English class. Visuals, such as photographs, cartoons, and advertisements, can be used to prompt a variety of writing exercises and assignments. For example, directing students to supply captions to photographs can demonstrate the role of word choice and connotation. Furthermore, asking students to examine or respond to paired photographs can prompt critical thinking skills. Mark Connelly will discuss how to apply visuals in the classroom in order to help students become stronger and more confident writers.
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Mitchel Burchfield - Designing and Teaching an Integrated Reading and Writing Course
Facilitated by: Mitchel Burchfield, Southwest Texas Junior College
Date Recorded: 02/23/2012
Institutions across the country are beginning to offer a combined reading and
writing developmental education course. This webinar will show developmental educators
how to construct an effective course that combines these two essential (and closely
related) subjects. Participants will examine the rationale for offering this course
and show how to combine the student learning outcomes from separate reading and
writing courses into one course. The importance of addressing the affective domain
in the construction and teaching of the course will be emphasized through the
choice of reading selections and writing assignments. Handouts and sample syllabi
will be sent to participants.
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Mitchel Burchfield: The Power of Positive Personal Values: Helping Students Improve Their Performance in Writing Courses
Facilitated by: Mitchel Burchfield, Southwest Texas Junior College and David Sabrio, Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Date Recorded: 10/19/2009
This presentation shows how a brief “affective domain” writing activity,
done early in the semester, can positively influence students’ performance
in a college writing course. The “affective domain” relates more
to emotional reactions, attitudes, values, and motivation. The beginning
of a semester for first-time college students, especially linguistically and culturally
diverse (LCD) students, can be very stressful. A writing activity that asks
students to affirm within themselves some aspects of their self-integrity and
self-confidence may help lower levels of stress and anxiety sufficiently to allow
students to perform better in a writing course than they would if stress and anxiety
levels remained high. Dr. Sabrio and Dr. Burchfield will share results from
their research and conduct an interactive discussion on this topic during the
eSeminar. They will also provide several suggested writing activities which
can be used immediately in the classroom by participants.
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Peggy Richek and Susanne Picchi - We Love Words: Engaging Students with Vocabulary
Facilitated by: Peggy Richek, Ameritech and Susanne Picchi, Joliet Junior College
Date Recorded: 03/06/2012
Engaging students in their own vocabulary learning is extremely empowering. These
vocabulary strategies can be used in any and all classrooms to help students master
and become comfortable with higher-level language. Five time-efficient strategies
include "million dollar words" to guide self selection and writing,
word associations for deepening knowledge, word grouping for awareness of alternative
forms, word alive for building class participation and spirit, mystery word for
context clues, and build-a-word for practicing classical word elements. Each one
will be described and illustrated.
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Renee Swensen & Jason Chu - Coming Together Around the Common Core: The Impact of CCSS Standards on Your Writing Classroom
Facilitated by: Renee Swensen, Saddleback College and Jason Chu, Turnitin
Date Recorded: 03/05/2013
Standards have long been associated with K-12 education. The recent shift to Common
Core State Standards (CCSS) hews students to a more rigorous set of learning standards,
promising better preparation for college-level work. The standards have already
been adopted in 45 states, with state-level assessments beginning in 2014-15.
During this session, we will cover the new standards, the shift in attention to the distribution of texts, and how this will affect the developmental English classroom, in particular.
Please join us to learn more about how the CCSS will impact your writing classroom.
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Rita Smilkstein: Increasing Student Engagement and Success with Brain-Compatible Teaching
Facilitated by: Rita Smilkstein, Seattle Community College
Date Recorded: 02/02/2011
The brain has a natural, self-motivating learning process. Current neuroscience
research shows us how the brain naturally learns. Classroom research and successful
practice show us how to apply the brain's natural learning process in any classroom.
When educators know how the brain learns and how to translate this knowledge into
curriculum, lessons, and pedagogy, they are able to help their students become
engaged, motivated, and successful learners—regardless of gender, age, or
culture. This session will present classroom and neuroscience research and will
also demonstrate several classroom-proven, brain-compatible curricula and lessons
in different disciplines and show participants how they might create such curricula
and lessons for their own students.
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Roberta Alexander and Jan Jarrell: Increasing Student Engagement through Reading Circles
Facilitated by: Roberta Alexander and Jan Jarrell, San Diego City College
Date Recorded: 10/26/2010
“How can I motivate my students to read?” This question is central for
teachers of reading as it is for most college instructors. In this workshop, the
presenters will demonstrate how reading circles can promote active student engagement
with reading and increase their ability to analyze and discuss texts in a meaningful
manner. Reading circles provide a structure for students to participate in a collaborative
group process in which they share and compare their insights and questions. The
presenters will show how to adapt literature circles for different purposes as
well as how to manage and evaluate them.
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Technology Online Training Seminars
APLIA: Getting Started
Facilitated by: Travis Felshaw, Senior Implementation & Training Specialist with Cengage Learning
Date Recorded: 02/20/2013
This approximately one hour long seminar is designed for individuals who are new users of Aplia in their classroom. During the session you will have the opportunity to learn the basic functions of Aplia including student registration, organizing and setting up assignments, and viewing assignment results. The session will be conducted via conference call and an online meeting program called WebEx. In order to participate in these events, you must have an Internet connection and a separate phone line.
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Aplia: Best Practices
Facilitated by: David Mullin
Date Recorded: 11/19/2012
This seminar, hosted by Technology Power User, David Mullin, provides helpful tips and techniques from an instructor perspective of key APLIA features. David is currently associate professor of economics at the United States Air Force Academy and lecturer at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. David was one of the original adopters of Aplia, and has been associated with Aplia since 2002, when he worked closeley with Aplia's founder Paul Romer. The session will be conducted via conference call and an online meeting program called WebEx. In order to participate in these events, you must have simultaneous access to an Internet connection and a separate phone line.
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Cengage Hosting
Facilitated by: Leigh A. S. Rasheed
Date Recorded: 05/01/2012
If you do not have your own campus Learning Management System (LMS), Cengage Learning can host your product, such as Course360 or WebTutor. The LMS we use is Moodlerooms, and it is accessible via your Single Sign-On account.
Moodlerooms includes:
Course360 on Blackboard -Mastering the Basics - March Training Dates
Facilitated by: Leigh A. S. Rasheed, Technology Service & Training Consultant
Date Recorded: 06/01/2012
This hour-long session will cover the basics of getting started with Course360 on Blackboard. Topics to be presented are as follows:
- Loading your cartridge into Blackboard.
- An overview of Course360 content.
- Utilizing Blackboard controls to facilitate your course.
- The gradebook.
- Reporting options.
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Current Users: Creating Assignments in CengageNOW
Facilitated by: Elizabeth Yoke, Technology Service & Training Consultant
Date Recorded: 11/07/2011
This training session is designed for current users who wish to learn more about creating assignments in CengageNOW. This training session will walk you through the process of creating homework & test assignments, study tool assignments and external assignments. This training session will also provide a detailed overview of the assignment and grading options.
