Presentation Title: Tapping Into AmeriCorps Programming
Tuesday, November 8th -- 9:00-9:50 a.m. EST
Presenters: Alicia Hartsfield & Megan Grimsley-Smith
This presentation will provide an overview of National Service programming in North Carolina. This will include a brief timeline of national service, as well as brief descriptions of AmeriCorps VISTA, NCCC, and AmeriCorps State Formula programming. Participants will be provided with steps for preparing and submitting an AmeriCorps application for funding consideration, as well as match requirements. Participants will be informed of resources for funding National Service programs in North Carolina.
Presentation Title: SMART PATH Service Learning for Social Justice
Tuesday, November 8th -- 10:00-10:50 a.m. EST
Presenters: Liz Barber with Tom Smith & Sharon Jacobs
University student leaders and faculty, and a public school principal from SMART PATH Service Learning for Social Justice, share features of a high-functioning learning community that has emerged from five years of service to schoolchildren in East Greensboro, North Carolina. The SMART PATH service learning tutoring program supports the learning of 3 rd -5 th graders who sometimes struggle with school literacy or math, and has demonstrated 1.5 years of growth in reading per year of child participation. The presentation explores the role of service learning in cognition, tutoring strategies and training, program management and assessment, volunteer recruitment, leadership development, and strategies for sustaining a program over time despite fluctuations in location, funding, and other aspects of context.
Presentation Title: Family Literacy Programs: Promoting Literacy Development for Both Parents and Children
Tuesday, November 8th -- 3:00-3:50 p.m. EST
Presenter: Barbara Wasik
A creative turn in early childhood education and parenting education took place in the 1980s, integrating early childhood education, parenting education, parent and child literacy interactions, and adult education within the same service framework. This combination of four components, commonly referred to as a family literacy program, is based on the belief that providing support for both parents and children within the same program would provide synergy within the family, leading to further support for the child while the parent advanced in his or her own literacy skills and education. Family literacy programs seem to have the ingredients for successfully addressing low child literacy while promoting parent literacy, but many programs have lacked a strong conceptualization of how to integrate program components in ways that could enhance both parent and child outcomes.
In this presentation, interventions strategies that can be used successfully in these programs will be discussed, with information on strategies that can be meaningful and effective across all the program components, including early childhood, parenting, and parent/adult education, as a way of helping to integrate the program components and strength the intervention efforts. I refer to these as nested strategies in that they are appropriate across the organizational levels of a family literacy program, from the program director to the service providers to the family.
In this presentation, I will focus on several selected strategies, in particular the role of extended teaching/enriched caregiving which is defined as ways of teaching throughout all the informal events in a day. Teachers, for example, can use extended teaching to turn outdoor play time, transition times, and snack times into learning occasions. Parents can use mealtime, dressing, or running errands as times for helping children develop literacy skills. A second strategy to be discussed is the role of positive relationships, including the director/teacher, the teacher/ parent, and the parent/child. Other strategies include language priority, scaffolding, and conversational reading (including the 3S strategy for interactive book reading).
Participants will have opportunities to think of how these strategies might be applied within their own setting and will take away strategies that they can use in their own work.
Presentation Title: I Am the Voice...Global Expressions of Literacy
Tuesday, November 8th -- 4:00-4:50 p.m. EST
Presenter: Yvette Brideau
I Am the Voice Global Expressions of Literacy will take an intimate look at how worldwide social issues are an excellent basis for literacy and advocacy when intertwined with the cultural arts.
Presentation Title: Targeting Content Area Reading Strategies for ESL/ELL/EAL Learners
Wednesday, November 9th -- 10:00-10:50 a.m. EST
Presenters: Abha Gupta & Dr. Smita Sinha
The primary focus of this presentation is on identifying and teaching strategies that can be quickly made by a teacher / tutor based on the content of the lesson in a classroom. While there are hundreds of strategies in the literature on content area, some of them are too complex or cannot be implemented effectively with an ESL/ ELL group. The session will focus on selective strategies that have worked successfully in classrooms. The strategies presented could be used in every content area, such as, social studies, math, science, English, etc. Presentation of strategies will be organized as follows:
- Introduction and brief review of the research related to the specific strategy
- Step-by-step implementation guidelines
- Classroom practice and examples of strategies for teaching / tutoring
- Discussion
Presentation Title: How I Had a Successful Read-A-Thon
Wednesday, November 9th -- 11:00-11:50 a.m. EST
Presenter: Joseph Walker
This presentation will highlight the processes employed in facilitating a successful READ-A-THON. The objective of the event was based on that of the National Literacy Action Week (NLAW) which was to draw attention to the need for more literacy amongst members of our schools and community. This presentation will also discuss how to recruit readers for and facilitate an all-day reading event. Other subjects of discussion will be methods of publicity employed, the diversity of participants in the program, inclusion of the non-campus groups as well as the simultaneous book collection event as an additional event in support of elementary schools in the community.
Presentation Title: Find It with National Service Resources & Training
Wednesday, November 9th -- 2:00-2:50 p.m. EST
Presenter: Erin Lee
Learn how to find free tools and resources to support your service program through the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (NSLC) and the Resource Center (RC). NSLC supports the service-learning community with a comprehensive collection of both online and print publications, email discussion lists, toolkits, lesson plans, syllabi, and more. The RC connects service programs with online training tools and publications, and serves as an information exchange where individual programs can share innovations and effective practices. Session participants will take a tour of both websites, and learn strategies for finding targeted and timely information and resources.
Presentation Title: Literature Circles as a part of the Post-Secondary Developmental Reading Curriculum
Wednesday, November 9th -- 3:00-3:50 p.m. EST
Presenter: Davonna Thomas
This presentation will explore the impact of literature circles on post-secondary developmental reading classrooms. It examines the hypothesis that the addition of literature circles to a traditional “skill and drill” post-secondary developmental reading course will positively impact student motivation, standardized comprehension test scores, and overall satisfaction with the class. This presentation considers the fact that students who speak African American Vernacular English have a unique language ideology-- one which emphasizes oral language and collaborative meaning-making-- which works particularly well with the literature circle format. Literature circle facilitator talk is examined as well.
Presentation Title: Providing Computer Literacy to Older Adults via an Intergenerational Service-Learning Program
Wednesday, November 9th -- 4:00-4:50 p.m. EST
Presenters: Jean Coppola, Barbara Thomas, Lin Drury & Sharon Wexler
This virtual presentation will discuss an award-winning model intergenerational service-learning program. Topics will include best practices for successfully teaching the rapidly expanding baby boomer population, curriculum, lessons learned, and sources for donations. This program is based on growing partnerships with community organizations best utilizing each institution’s assets.
Research studies have shown that older adults who use technology have a more positive outlooks on life; a high sense of emotional well being and self worth; increased cognitive functioning; decreased levels of depression; and reduced isolation by offering means of social interaction and mental stimulation. Since 2005, this program has improved the lives of older adults, as well as college students with civic engagement projects, shared interactions, intergenerational relationships, and computer instruction. Each semester participants, both young and old, complete pre and post assessments for research analysis. The program has wide reaching implications for replication and the positive changing of attitudes towards the elderly.
Seniors felt that they had continued in lifelong learning, built new relationships, and increased brain stimulation. Not only did this project benefit senior residents, but also addressed the problem of workforce shortages in aging services, especially now when the expanded baby boomer population is reaching their senior years. Students became aware of potential career opportunities in aging, providing them direct experiences with seniors in a non-threatening learning atmosphere. College students reflected on what would stimulate them to become more involved in aging issues.
Presentation Title: Youth Civic Engagement in the US: Diversity in Participation
Thursday, November 10th -- 1:00-1:50 p.m. EST
Presenter: Abby Kisa
CIRCLE staff will present new analysis of civic and political participation by youth in 2008 and 2010. This analysis will show how youth participate in different ways and what types of participation are more likely to be done together. We will discuss implications for such different participation for the future of democracy.
Presentation Title: LINCS: Free Online Resources for Adult Education
Thursday, November 10th -- 2:00-2:50 p.m. EST
Presenter: Beth Ponder
Join us for this presentation which gives participants an overview of LINCS (Literacy Information and Communication System) sponsored by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) and highlights resources for educators related to research-based content areas such as reading, writing, math/numeracy and much more. Online resources will be demonstrated.
