Please let me hear from you!

Submitted by David Rosen on Sat, 02/25/2017 - 18:40
  • 2195 Views
  • 7 Comments

Program Management colleague,

I rarely see your contributions in the Program Management group. "You don't write, you don't call, you don't email, you don't text message, you don't tweet sad".

Seriously, I don't know what _you_ as a member of the Program Management CoP would like to see this group be and do for you. Please let me know. You can just reply to this message, email me privately, or if you would like to talk by phone or have a Today'sMeet instant private chat, email me and we can set up a convenient time to talk or chat .  Depending on what I learn from you, I am considering making some changes in this group.

Please let me hear from you soon.

David

David J. Rosen, Moderator

Program Management CoP

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

Comments

I'm not sure if this is the correct community to post this. I am presently volunteering at a local Literacy Volinteer program. The program matches individual tutors with one or two students. 

One of the problems  the tutors have found is the disassociation with other tutors after being placed with their student. Most tutors meet by themselves in libraries or public areas with their student. Some tutors have complained that they have no support when left on  their own. The program offers materials and there is a coordinator but we thought it might be helpful I f there were some type of online blog that we could use to allow tutors to communicate with each other. This would be helpful if a tutor had a teaching question about a student that another tutor might have come upon in their tutoring situation. It might even be used to keep track of student progress so if a tutor couldn't be with their student another tutor could access the progress of that student.

My question is, are there blog formats that other Literacy programs are using that we could use in our program?  Has anyone had this same problem and what did they do?

Thank you for your help.

Carol Rachfalski

 

Hi Carol and others,

The problem you have raised is common in volunteer literacy programs. Usually the programs are able to provide an initial face-to-face training of 16-18 hours. However, when the volunteer and learner are matched, and the volunteer begins to understand what the learner needs, is when ongoing professional development (PD), training, and technical assistance are especially important. Although I hope we hear from volunteer literacy programs on their solutions, here are a few that I am aware of:

  • The Literacy Mid-South adult volunteer tutoring program in Tennessee has developed a free app for volunteer tutors (available on the Apple store as "Literacy Mid-South", possibly also in the Google Play store for android phones.) When I last looked at it, it provided links to professional development resources for tutors and also easy-to-use record keeping tools, for example, for tracking tutoring sessions and volunteer hours that programs also use as match. The app may have a chat feature, too, but I am not sure. Perhaps you could use the same software to develop a similar app for your program.
  • Today's Meet is a free app that can be used for asynchronous and/or real-time chats. A literacy volunteer staff member or volunteer tutor could set up a private Today's Meet for the volunteers at a program to chat about questions and needs  that they -- and their learners -- have. Ideally the program's volunteer coordinator would set this up, monitor it, and refer the volunteer tutors to other resources to answer their questions. Today's Meet is very easy to use and requires no downloading of software or log-in. For a nominal cost per month the chats can be archived, but you can also set up a free chat to last for several weeks
  • Adult literacy tutors who need ongoing professional development in basic literacy tutoring could benefit from the free LINCS Learner Web website Tutor Ready, which I have described here earlier at https://community.lincs.ed.gov/discussion/coabe-2016-take-aways Note: Tutor Ready has a new web address, that I have included in the link above.

I, too, would like to hear from adult literacy and adult ESL/ESOL tutors, volunteer coordinators or others who can tell us how their volunteer tutoring addresses this issue.

Thanks for raising the question, Carol and, yes, this is one of the LINCS communities that it makes sense to post it. You might also post it in Technology and Learning, and Evidence-based Professional Development.


David J. Rosen, Moderator

Program Management CoP

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

Carol and others,

Here's some more information from Paul Heavenridge at Literacyworks, the host site of Tutor Ready, on how to register for this easy-to-use, just-in-time, free online professional development program for adult literacy tutors:

1. Go to the Literacyworks Learner Web Portal at http://literacyworks.learnerweb.org

2. In the upper right corner, select Create an Account

3. Create a screen name, enter and confirm a password, check the "Terms of Service" box. You're in!

Tutor Ready's resources for tutoring adults in reading includes these reading components:

  • Phonemic awareness
  • Decoding
  • Fluency
  • Vocabulary, and
  • Comprehension.

The resources include:

  • A question and answer format that focuses on specific reading skills in each of the above components of reading
  • Practical, research-based explanations, suggestions and strategies for assessing and tutoring adult learners
  • Examples of how to use recommended tutoring strategies
  • Videos and audio demonstrations of tutoring techniques, and
  • Tutoring logs to keep track of reading lessons and progress.

David J. Rosen, Moderator

Program Management CoP

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

 

Hi David,

I enjoy learning and reading from the group posts.  I had some trouble logging in to be able to reply within the group which was the big reason for not contributing. You have prompted me to out some energy into removing this barrier.  Thank you. 

Hi Ann and friends, 

The Illinois Secretary of State placed an online version of their Volunteer Tutor Training. While their first unit is specific to Illinois, I do recommend the rest of the content - I think it provides a great understanding of tutor training. https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/library/literacy/oltt/home.html

I hope this adds to your collection of useful resources. 

Kathy 

Thanks to Carol, Ann, and the person who emailed me privately.

Now I would like to hear from a few more of the 1075 people who are members of the Program Management CoP. It's a mystery to see how many are members of this group and how few appear to read the posts or post their own messages here. Folks, this is not an email list; it's a community. If you have benefited from being here, now is the time to take the next step. What I want to know is this: what do _you_ want this community to be and do for you? I can't guess that. I have tried for two years, unsuccessfully. Now is the time to let me/us know. You can do that by replying to this message, emailing your answer(s), or by emailing me to set up a phone meeting or Todays Meet chat with me.

Thanks to those of you who are about to take the leap, to post to this community. You -- and I -- and I hope many others here will be glad you did.

David J. Rosen, Moderator

Program Management CoP

djrosen123@gmail.com