Professional Development Experience Template



Professional Development Experience

1. Title of Professional Development Experience

The ABCS of Reading: Focus on Group Summarizing

2. Presenter’s Name

3. Description:

The teachers who I will present to teach at schools where students are divided for Intervention and Enrichment time, or IE Time. Each teacher is assigned a group of students who are performing at similar levels in reading and are needing either intervention or enrichment. Therefore, each teacher needs a different level of curriculum. The school districts do not provide curriculum for the teachers to use, and this has been a challenge. I have selected the Group Summarizing strategy to present to these teachers because I think it could be used during the IE Time. The teachers could use this strategy with all of the levels of students. Teachers who are teaching students needing intervention could use texts at a lower level and teachers who are teaching students needing enrichment could find higher leveled texts. All students, no matter their reading level, need work on summarizing. We know that plagiarism is a problem at high schools and colleges (Mitchell, 2007). By increasing our teaching of summarizing at elementary schools, I hope the students will become more equipped and less likely to cheat as they advance in school. In order for students to learn how to summarize, teachers need to know how to teach summarizing strategies. I chose to present the Group Summarizing strategy and adapted it for use with young children (Billmeyer 2006).

4. Objectives:

While this presentation focuses on teaching students to summarize, I did decide to briefly overview basic categories that teachers should include in lessons before summarizing. After all, if students cannot read the text, they will not be able to summarize it. Through this presentation, the participants will be able to recite the ABCS of reading. A stands for Accessing Prior Knowledge. B is for Building Vocabulary. C is for Constructing Meaning. S is for Summarizing and Starting New Ideas. The participants will also be able to answer questions about the strategy entitled Group Summarizing. Finally, the participants will be able to share how they could incorporate this strategy into their IE time. Additionally, an objective for myself as the presenter is to provide the participants with resources for further assistance with teaching summarizing skills.

5. Provide a link to the professional development experience

Use this address to access my Prezi presentation.



6. Describe what the participant will do

This presentation is designed to teach other educators ways to teach the skill of summarizing. However, I deemed it necessary to mention other aspects of reading that precede summarizing. I like structure when I am planning lessons, so I decided to create an easy way for teachers to remember key elements of reading to include in their lessons. I created the ABCS of Reading. A stands for Accessing Prior Knowledge. B is for Building Vocabulary. C is for Constructing Meaning. S is for Summarizing and Starting New Ideas. As a note, I made sure that the teachers understood that Constructing Meaning was to represent both constructing meaning from the literal meaning of the words in the text and constructing meaning from what is implied (in other word, making inferences).

The presentation starts with a brief overview of the ABCS of Reading. After sharing information on why summarizing is important, the presentation will then focus on the strategy called Group Summarizing (Billmeyer 2006). I found this strategy to be very useful during a field test, and revised the strategy to make it friendly for younger students based on my experience using it. During the presentation I will explicitly teach the steps for using the Group Summarizing strategy. Next, I will give the participants an example of how I have used this with students during a field test. I will highlight areas where students struggled and show the teachers what a good example of summarizing looks like compared to a poor example. There will be a pause in the presentation here to allow for a few comprehension questions to make sure the participants are following the presentation. Next, I will give teachers practical idea of how this strategy could be used in their IE Time. I will mention how to use but not overuse the strategy and also share ideas for using the strategy during a unit to teach content area material. Then I will give the participants an opportunity to share how they think this strategy could be used in their classroom. Finally, the presentation will end with handouts and additional resources for the participants on the topic of summarizing. The participants can take the handouts which include student graphic organizers for summarizing as well as web addresses on how to teach summarizing.

7. If appropriate, list tools

The Group Summarizing strategy requires students to write summaries after working as a large group to take notes. I shared a few graphic organizers with the participants that can be used during the note-taking and summarizing process. One of my favorites is the handout where students are asked to keep their summary to 20 words or less. There are individual lines for each word and they are numbered 1-20. This helps students visualize what twenty words looks like. The graphic organizers were taken from the Florida Center for Reading Research website.

8. Cite the research base and professional resources

The presentation will end with a list of resources of websites for teachers. One webpage includes scaffolding and adaptations to use with students who are struggling. These resources will be given to the participants in a handout so that they can use them at a later date.

9. Anything else you think will be helpful.

Please see the final page of this document for a copy of the handout given to participants. Included in the handout packet were also student graphic organizers that I had printed from the websites listed on the handout. Participants were informed that the organizers I had printed were just a small portion of what could be found on the website, and they should access the websites for further resources if interested.

10. Summarize the results of the participants’ Professional Development Experience Evaluation

Both participants agreed or strongly agreed with each statement on the evaluation form. One participant wrote that the presentation was very helpful. While not written on the form, one participant verbalized how this presentation was good timing as she was getting ready for the start of a new school year. Photos of both evaluation forms can be viewed at the end of this document.

11. Reflection:

This professional development activity was a very good experience for me as I have never presented to colleagues in this way. I am very comfortable teaching a group of students, and I even feel comfortable teaching students when other colleagues are present. However, to exclusively teach other colleagues is something very different for me. The participants in the activity were engaged and commented on how they could apply what I was teaching in their classrooms so I know it was beneficial for them. However, I still felt a little insecure because I know that the professionals whom I presented to are very talented and are experts in their positions. I need to remind myself that even though they are experts, they are welcome to learning new ideas. I know that my confidence will only grow as I learn more and gather more experiences. This was a good start for me.

There are two things I would change about the presentation if I were to present it again. First, I would start the presentation with dialogue to access the participants' prior knowledge. It would have been helpful for me to know how much the participants knew about summarizing during the presentation as I was not sure what was new to them and what was something they had heard before. I think this would have also helped my confidence level as I felt most insecure about whether or not I was teaching them something which they already knew. The other item I would change in the presentation is that I would give participants the handouts prior to beginning the presentation. This would allow participants to take notes on the handouts. It would also give me a chance to explain the student graphic organizers in more detail.

During the presentation all of the objectives were met and the participants were attentive and also reflective. Overall, the presentation was a successful both in building my confidence in professional development presentations as well as giving the participants more information on reading and summarizing.

References

Billmeyer, R. (2006). Strategies to engage the mind of the learner: Building strategic learners (2nd ed.). Omaha, NE: Rachel & Associates, Inc.

Florida Center for Reading Research. (2007). Student center activities: Comprehension. Retrieved from

Mitchell, S. (2007). Penguins and plagiarism: Stemming the tide of plagiarism in elementary school. Library Media Connection, 25(7), 47.

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. (2011). Common core state standards for English language arts. Retrieved from app-a-revision.pdf

Handout for participants

A scripted lesson plan for teaching summarizing

(includes ideas for scaffolding and adaptations)



More lessons and student sheets for summarizing



This website is full of reading resources



A Quick Guide for Teaching Reading

A - Accessing prior knowledge

B- Building Vocabulary

C- Constructing Meaning (both from the literal text and by making inferences)

S- Summarizing and Starting new ideas

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