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Please join us at http://designersforlearning.org/live for our next Designers for Learners free webcast on Wednesday, December 4th at 1:00 p.m. CST. Here is the start time in your area: http://bitly.com/1aN32cy. The webcast will focus on opportunities to develop service-learning and Open Educational Resource (OER) projects to support General Educational Development (GED) test preparation. Our guests for the webcast have extensive experience in OER development, including Ronda Neugebauer and David Wiley of Lumen Learning (http://lumenlearning.com), and Quill West, OER Director at Tacoma Community College (http://open.tacomacc.edu).


In the past few months, we have received inquiries from nonprofits in need of instructional design help to support GED test preparation, including resources for learners, as well as for staff and volunteers who work as tutors. In 2014, the requirements for the GED test will change significantly from the existing 2002 version of the test. In addition to changes in the content and test items, all students will be required to take the test via computer vs. pencil and paper. Instructional materials are needed to support a range of subject-matter, including math, science, social studies, language arts, and computer use. Please join us to contemplate the adaptation, development, and use of OER as an alternative to existing commercial offerings, such as those in the GED marketplace (http://www.gedmarketplace.com).

We look forward to seeing you on December 4th! If you can't make the live session, the recording will be available at
http://designersforlearning.org/category/webcast or http://www.edtechtalk.com.

Connect with us on twitter at:
Quill: http://twitter.com/quill_west
Ronda: http://twitter.com/RondaNeugebauer
Jennifer: http://twitter.com/JenM
David: http://twitter.com/opencontent

Designers for Learning updates are posted at:
Our website: http://designersforlearning.org/category/news
Facebook: http://facebook.com/designersforlearning
Google+: http://plus.google.com/+DesignersforlearningOrg
Twitter: http://twitter.com/design4learn

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I'm trying to create a visualization that any youth serving organization might be willing to use to visually communicate what time of day they reach youth, what age range they serve and what types of learning and mentoring activities are offered.

This is what I've done so far.  This could be downloaded and colored in by hand, then scanned and uploaded as a jpg. Perhaps it could be imported into photo shop or a paint program and colored in.  Or perhaps someone could create a graphics program that enables people to fill in this information via their computer, then produce a jpg that could be posted on their web site.

If we found a way to make this easy to create, and to motivate a larger number of organizations to put this on their web sites it might have two benefits. Programs might see activities that are included in work of other programs and try to duplicate that in their own programs. Donors might begin to differentiate between school based, non school, volunteer based, etc. and use this information to support fund raising or volunteer involvement decisions.

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The collection of information about programs, based on what they do, needs to also be part of a matrix showing who they serve, and where they are located.  Programs operating in big cities have a different costs of operating framework than programs in smaller communities.

I don't know of anyone collecting and analyzing this information.

In the next class of interns I'll offer this as a project.  If anyone viewing this would want to create their own version and share it, please do.

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Prep To Succeed Volunteer ACT Tutoring Program

                                                      Prep To Succeed

 

     Along with grades and academic class load, a high school student’s ACT test score plays a major factor in determining college admission.  Many qualified students could improve their chances of getting into a better college with a higher ACT test score, but they do not always have the resources that can help them succeed. Many students from more affluent areas have access to individualized tutoring and find their scores improve greatly with this addition. Prep to Succeed will provide individualized ACT tutoring to students in the Chicagoland area who would not have access to this level of tutoring otherwise. The program will begin in January, 2014, to prepare students for the April ACT exam.

     To qualify for tutoring, which will be provided free of charge, students must be in the top level of their class, as these are the students who are most likely to benefit from additional help. Improved ACT scores will provide them with access to better colleges and increased financial aid opportunities. Prep to Succeed will work with individual high schools and mentoring programs to identify which students to assist. Tutoring will focus on the subject matter of the test as well as more general test taking skills.

     Prep to Succeed is planning to tutor 10-20 students this year. Hopefully, in the future we will be able to assist many more students.

     The tutors will be volunteers Our ideal tutors will be college education students or students who scored well on the exam, but other interested individuals will be considered. Tutors will undergo a training process prior to working with the students.

   

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Free Webcast on Monday, November 18th

Daniel invited me to shamelessly self-promote a free webcast I am hosting on Monday as part of a webcast series I have held on the design of service-learning projects for college students ... so here it goes :)

Please join us at http://designersforlearning.org/live for our next Designers for Learners webcast on Monday, November 18th at noon CST. Here is the start time in your area: http://bitly.com/1cM1tTG.

 
Dr. Monica Tracey, Associate Professor of Instructional Technology in the College of Education at Wayne State University, is joining the webcast to discuss her experiences designing and facilitating service-learning projects in her classes. In addition, she will share her perspectives on the practice of instructional design and designer decision-making based on her research and current design projects, as well as from her prior experience as the owner of a performance consulting and instructional design firm. See Monica's bio at http://bitly.com/monicatracey
 
We'll see you on November 18th! If you can't make the live session, the recording will be available at http://designersforlearning.org/category/webcast and http://edtechtalk.com/
 
Jennifer Maddrell
 
Find out more about Designers for Learning and connect with us at:

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12637700452?profile=originalOn Monday I hosted another Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago. This was the 40th in the past 20 years. I'm still going through attendance information, evaluations, etc. but it looks like about 105 attended.
One participant, Changyue An,  is a graduate student from IIT in Chicago. Here's some information he shared from a workshop titled "Mentoring Urban Youth"

1.  Two important principles we must remember

  • Young people do not see what you see.
  • If they are gangs, you must see them as individuals.

 2.  The Approach to be a good tutor/mentor

  • What you see might not be what others see.
  • What you experience plays an important factor on how you react and handle situations.
  • Gained knowledge allows you to make certain judgments about situations and/or people.

 3.  Build Methodology-Relationship Building

  • Diversity
  • Respect
  • Open & Honest Communication
  • Trust
  • Teamwork

 4.  M&M’s-another way to be a good tutor/mentor

  • Meet youth where they are at
  • Make a connection
  • Master their needs and interests
  • Maintain positive relationship
  • Manage their trust
  • Motivate them to positive programs

If any of you attended the same workshop, please add your own thoughts. If you would like to post a review of other workshops you attended, or of the overall conference, I encourage you to do that, too.

In the Groups section of the forum one sub group shows interns from universities working with me every six months to create strategy visualizations.  In this album, and this album, you can see photos from previous conferences, which were taken by interns who attended those. 

These illustrate roles  young people can take as intermediaries, and communicators, using their own skills to draw attention to events, activities and ideas.  Youth from many schools could be doing this and the result would be greater attention for social issues like tutoring/mentoring of youth, and a greater flow of resources from those who could help tutor/mentor programs operate in different cities.

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