Facilitation Innovation

Getting Started with RHD PL Course

This course will focus on teaching foundational literacy skills using a specific curriculum. The instruction is intended for educators, coaches and administrators who will be implementing the Reading Horizons Discovery (RHD) curriculum at their school/district. This course will progress from basic instruction in the program background, method, skills, resources and instructional design to more targeted and deeper understanding of implementation and differentiation to meet the needs of all learners.

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BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal)

To develop educators who embrace the role of learner and continually strive to reflect and adjust their foundational literacy teaching practices to ensure optimal student outcomes. 

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Key documents

• Course Overview
• Materials & Resources
• 3 Column Table

Course Overview Video

This course is using outcome-based education (OBE). The course is learner-centered and assessed by the authentic results of student learning in the classroom. My role begins as a learning facilitator, then shifts to a coaching role as educators take more ownership over their implementation. This is a PL course, so there are no formal assessments of educators, the results are demonstrated during job-embedded lesson observations and by student scores in foundational literacy concepts on school/district assessments.

I have chosen to use Fink’s Taxonomy and 3-Column Table for my design approach. I like this approach because it looks at learning in a holistic manner. It is simple to use and allows for simple alignment among outcomes, activities and assessments. I appreciate that Fink’s taxonomy takes into account not only foundational knowledge, integration, and application, but also learning how to learn, caring, and the human dimension to create significant learning opportunities and environments (Fink, 2003).

In this course, educators are learning the specifics of how to implement a new foundational literacy program. There are no formal assessments of learning. However, there are multiple activities that provide assessment for and as learning. For example, think-pair-share and retrieval practice activities are assessment as learning, while reflection activities are assessment for learning. I believe that these types of assessment will be the most effective for supporting educators to continue to improve their knowledge and practices.

Throughout the five sessions of this course, I will be moving my learners into deeper learning. The initial session is a high-level foundational understanding of the research and frameworks behind the program, the instructional design, teacher resources, and early skills taught. In the second session, we are able to dive deeper into the instructional practices, later skills taught and how to utilize program resources. From there, we take the learning out of the realm of peer-to-peer practice and move it into the classroom with students. Session three allows educators to observe a model lesson delivered to their grade level students by a certified program facilitator. This session also includes a lesson debrief with Q&A. The final sessions are classroom observations with feedback and support. Once educators have started implementing the program in their classroom, they are applying their learning and are motivated to make deeper connections to most effectively serve their students. 

In this course, the learner controls the learning. The course employs a gradual release of responsibility design. In the early sessions, the PL facilitator controls the majority of the content, but the learner is in control of their participation. As the course progresses, the learner is encouraged to take more and more responsibility for the learning while the facilitator moves to a coaching/mentoring role. The learner applies their knowledge in an authentic setting and is empowered to deepen their own learning.

References

Fink, L. D. (2003). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning.