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last.updated 8.6.07
English 555 Pedagogical Workshop
Purpose
At many schools
experienced
writing teachers will be asked to mentor or conduct workshops for younger
teachers. Some writing teachers will even be asked to teach their colleagues
across the disciplines how to incorporate writing into their math or science
pedagogy. To prepare for these leadership roles, the masters level students
in this class will work collaboratively to design and conduct an in-service
workshop.
The English 555 students are...
- Linda Robinson-Dill
- Heather Floyd
- Rebekah Germano
- Felicia Hamilton
- Erika Richardson
Introduce yourselves to each other early in the semester and begin to talk about what you want to do for this workshop. You will be submitting pieces of the workshop throughout the course of the semester.
You will begin the process by submitting a 500 word proposal about what you plan to do.
This proposal should entail...
- what subject you plan to cover (this could be a topic not being covered in the course or an extension of a topic being covered)
- why you plan to cover this subject–a brief justification about why this subject matter is important
- a brief outline of your timeline; use the calendar to set the instructor's deadlines. However, as a group set deadlines among yourselves, as well as meeting dates. It will also be useful for you to articulate a division of labor.
- what you may need from the instructor to successfully complete the workshop
As a group, submit a single hard copy of your proposal to the instructor at the beginning of class on October 10, 2007.
To develop your knowledge about the subject that you will be presenting, you will collectively research the subject that you have chosen or the subject matter of conducting in-service workshops.
Each group member will be responsible for submitting three annotated entries. Use the annotation instructions for the Progressive Annotated Bibliography to compose your entries.
Collect and organize the bibliography into a single document with a 250-350 word introduction that synthesizes how all of the texts will be useful to your workshop. Submit a single hard copy of your annotated bibliography to the instructor at the beginning of class on November 24, 2007.
Your last step before conducting the workshop is to submit a plan.
In this plan you will...
- develop a 250-350 word abstract directed toward your student audience that includes what will be covered during the workshop, why this subject needs to be addressed, and what outcomes the participants can expect.
- compose an outline of the workshop's content with a timeline and assigned roles (rarely does anybody precisely adhere to these timelines, but it is useful to give yourself this structure)
As a group, submit a single hard copy of your proposal to the instructor at the beginning of class on November 7, 2007.
Instructions–Workshop & Portfolio
On December 5, 2007, you will be given the first 50 minutes of class to conduct your workshop. Remember that the English 455 students and your instructor are serving as your workshop attendees.
For the end of the workshop, you will want to develop an evaluation form that your attendees can fill out and provide you with immediate feedback. You will want to respond to this feedback in your individual statements.
Collect all of the documents that you produced for the workshop, including those that you have already submitted (which do not have to be revised), anything that you handed out during the workshop, and any other documents you find relevant to the process. Place these in a manila folder and submit them to the instructor at the end of class.
Instructions–Individual Statement
In a 500-750 word statement...
- briefly summarize what you did
- explain how it fit into the course's framework by drawing on language arts scholarship. Use the collective annotated bibliography and the course readings to support this discussion
- describe what you think went well, what could have gone better, and what you would do next time. You should use the feedback from your peers to inform some of this discussion
- evaluate your group members
By writing an individual statement, it gives me a sense of how each member understood the project. For the most part you will receive a group grade; however if there is strong evidence that there was a disparity in the contribution and understanding of the workshop, then individual grades will be given accordingly.
Using Blackboard, submit the individual statement to the instructor in the body of an email by the end of the day on Friday, December 7th.
Criteria
Each of the process documents (Proposal, Research, & Plan) will receive a collaborative process grade; the Individual Statement will receive an individual process grade.
The portfolio & presentation will be assigned a collaborative grade out of 100 points.
In addition to the general evaluation criteria, the instructor will be looking for evidence of...
- a sense of audience–are the documents written so that the instructor can clearly assess the group's progress? was the presentation designed for pre-service or new writing instructors? were you able to respond to your actual audience's needs?
- a process–was progress satisfactorily made throughout the project?
- a strong sense of collaboration
- clarity on what the attendees are to do and learn during this workshop
- clear, manageable instructions that are easy to follow–if applicable
- an informed understanding of language arts curriculum and composition studies
- appropriate use of conventions, especially a readable format that complies to document design principles
- a professional persona
- attention to the time limit