What Stood Out? Learning at the 2014 COABE / PAACE Conference

Dear Colleagues,

Whether you attended the COABE / PAACE Conference this year, our Evidence-based Professional Development Group provides us a unique opportunity to reflect and learn from each other, beyond the brick and mortar walls of conference.

For those of you who attended, what stood out to you about this year's conference? What did you enjoy most? What did you learn or what were your key takeaways? What would you like to see happen differently next year? (Denver 2015)

If you did not attend but followed the energy and information sharing via the COABE App (http://bit.ly/COABEApp) or the #COABE14 Twitter hashtag, what did you glean from the sharing of information and resources?

If you attended in-person, it's especially important that we hear from you so that those of us who could not attend may benefit from your learning. Or at the very least, we can live vicariously! :)

Thanks and have a great weekend,

Jackie

Jackie Taylor

Evidence-based Professional Development

Subject Matter Expert

Comments

It was great to see so many folks at the conference this year.  We got to meet some new colleagues who dropped by our table to complete registration forms for the CEUs and university credits that we offered.  Those of you who completed the forms will be receiving documentation of your credits within the next 30 days.  We were pleased to offer this service to COABE conference attendees, and we plan to do it again next year.  We appreciate the partnership with COABE.

Regards,

Bob Hughes, Ed. D.
Associate Dean, College of Education
Director, Adult Education and Training Program
Seattle University
514 Loyola Hall
900 Broadway
Seattle, WA 98122

E-mail: rhughes@seattleu.edu
Phone:  206-296-2147

Thank YOU, Bob, to you and your team!

For the first time ever, Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and post-baccalaureate credits were offered at COABE -- through a partnership between COABE and Seattle University. Attendees could either complete an attendance form -- or check in through the new Conference App -- and earn credits. Attendees must complete 10 hours of conference participation and pay $15.00 per CEU or $40.00 per post-baccalaureate credit. While the App was a new roll-out at conference this year too, attendees next year will be able to seamlessly earn digital badges by "checking in" via the App and can then present these badges to Seattle University at the conference as documentation of credit. And participants can opt to use the paper form for verifying attendance instead, if they wish.

Offering CEUs and post-baccalaureate credits is a first-time ever benefit of attending a COABE conference. I look forward to hearing what others think and how we might make conference participation a stronger aspect of improving ourselves professionally.

PS --- Seattle University also hosted a preconference session titled "Leadership in a Changing Climate." I hope those who participated will tell us more about their experience!

Jackie

~~~~~

Jackie Taylor

Evidence-based Professional Development

SME

One of the inspiring presentations I attended was:

Integrating Technology within Writing Instruction

Whether “one room schoolhouse” or computer-based classroom, ELL or ABE, your students need digital literacy
skills to accomplish the various forms of writing expected in school, life, and work. Three perspectives on effectively
integrating technology into your students’ writing instruction.
Presented by: Heather Indelicato, Andrea Wilson Vasquez, and Pam Ampferer

These three-top-notch Minnesota adult educators had a well-organized, sometimes brilliant, presentation that integrated the creative use of technology in teaching writing skills. They used technology at the session well, too, as the middle presenter, Andrea Wilson Vasquez, was seamlessly with us from Minnesota via Skype (or a similar two-way video software program). My favorite insight, among many from all three presenters, was Pam Ampferer's suggesting the use of a digitized (1930's?) mystery book called Crime and Puzzlement by Lawrence Treat, where the learners' task was to solve a mystery using evidence from carefully crafted (and digitized) illustrations that had solid visual evidence and also some misleading visual clues. Pam suggested this approach to help learners to understand the concept of using evidence in an argument. Of course, the idea is to introduce text-based evidence, too, so learners understand that when they take their high school equivalency writing test they will be able to select the pertinent evidence from the argument they read and use it in their own extended response. Another fabulous use of a digitized image for eliciting important parts of an argument (facts, warrants and claim) was from a cleverly designed Heinz ketchup ad. (Pam pointed out that Pittsburgh, of course, was the home of Heinz.)

There are other images the Pam shared, as well as slides from Andrea and Heather, in their presentation slides uploaded to the COABE web site resource repository. You'll find the slides at http://www.coabe.org/html/pdf/Integrating%20Technology%20within%20Writing%20Instruction.pptx and a pdf at http://www.coabe.org/html/pdf/Integrating%20Technology%20within%20Writing%20Instruction.pdf

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

Many thanks to all of you who took the time at the conference to participate in the kick off for COABE's new strategic plan. Face to face focus group opportunities were provided to conference attendees and we gathered valuable information on your thoughts for the future of COABE. Using a survey on COABE's conference APP, we learned about the composition and priorities of conference attendees. PLEASE KEEP WATCH for an electronic strategic plan survey which will be made available to all COABE members. As we move forward with the development of COABE's strategic plan, we want to hear from all of our stakeholders so we can take your needs, opinions, suggestions and challenges into account. For more information about COABE's strategic planning process please contact Marilyn Schmidt or Kim Rossman at strategicplanning@coabe.org.