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MAACCE MATTERS
Board of Directors
Heather Ritchie President
Gusman Edouard Vice-President
Joseph Jameson Treasurer
Jim Younger Secretary
Todd Elliott Past President
Directors
Shelly Alter Ellen Beattie
Cynthia Campbell Barbara Edwards Michael Elonge Cindy Fischer LeAnn Lorenz Diana Siemer
Jacqui Walpole Doug Weimer Jay Willetts
Melissa Zervos
Sonia Socha Advocacy Chair
MAACCE Coordinator
Laurie Askins
Summer 2015
Volume 15, Issue II
Notes from the President Summer 2015
Dear MAACCE Members,
This newsletter is a wonderful celebration of the 2015 MAACCE annual conference.
This year, we had another exceptional group of presenters, speakers and attendees.
Presenters came from local programs all the way to national groups. Craig Boykin, the
keynote, shared his insight and helped us reflect on what our students might be
experiencing. Representatives from state and national levels took the time to share their
insights and plans for the future. We had more attendees than last year, almost 400,
with people coming from all counties in Maryland and out-of-state. Peruse the photos
and see if you or a colleague were captured on camera. We look forward to seeing you
again next year!
Looking forward, the 2014-2015 MAACCE board will meet one more time this year,
and we will be finalizing the strategic plan at that meeting with feedback from the
members. We look forward to implementing the plan in the coming years and
welcoming any ideas or volunteer time from the members – for those who signed up
for committees at the conference, we will be calling on you soon. With much gratitude
and a little sadness, we will also be saying goodbye to our outgoing board members
and wishing them well in their future endeavors: Melinda Brown, Barbara Denman,
and Emma Ostendorp.
MAACCE is also pleased to welcome our new board members for the upcoming 2015-
2016 year. Please say congratulations when you see these people around – Shelley
Alter, Ellen Beattie, Barbara Edwards, Jacqui Walpole, and Doug Weimer. During our
summer retreat, MAACCE board members will be working on planning the 2016
conference, building up committees and generating new ideas for how to celebrate
National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week, which will happen in September.
It is not too early to start planning – what will you do to celebrate your learners and our
work? Please email us at [email protected] with questions, thoughts or comments.
Wishing you a wonderful summer,
Heather Ritchie
MAACCE 2015 Conference
“Climbing the Ladder of Learning”
Keynote: Craig J. Boykin
Student Awards
Professional Awards
Workshop
Presenters
Attendees
Special Guests
Familiar Faces
HCLS Project Literacy Graduation and Awards Ceremony 2015
Emma Ostendorp - Howard County Library System
More than two hundred people were present to witness the graduation of Howard
County Library System (HCLS) Project Literacy Class of 2015, to celebrate the
exceptional accomplishments by many students, and to give recognition to their
dedicated tutors and instructors. It was a moving ceremony full of heartwarming stories
and cherished memories to last a lifetime. It was also a perfect way to end a very busy
and productive year at HCLS Project Literacy
The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the Class of 2015. Each graduate
was gracious and the stories inspirational. Depending on their individual situations,
they studied with HCLS Project Literacy anywhere from eighteen months to nine years
before reaching their goals. They spent an average of four hours a week with their
tutors to prepare for the rigors of the diploma program while balancing the demands
from family and work at the same time. It is understandable that their arduous paths
were made more complicated because of life’s frequent interruptions. Still they
persevered. We want to congratulate these students and others like them for never
giving up on themselves and their education. “This (the graduation) is only the
beginning,” said graduate Nelser Avelar Fuentes. Indeed, since completing the NEDP
just a few weeks ago, Nelser has already registered for more classes at the community
college. Everyone at HCLS Project Literacy wants to wish all the graduates continued
success as they move on to the next chapter of their studies.
Additional photos of the event can be seen at:
https://goo.gl/1M3SQg
The New Boy is Lost! An ESL Book Review by Susanne Gardner, ESL Instructor, MCI-J
The New Boy is Lost! by Elizabeth Claire (Eardley Publications, 2004) is a wonderful addition
to our classroom library at the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup (MCI-J). It is an ESL
picture-novel written mostly in the past tense, with colorful images and cartoon-style photos. It is the
story of an immigrant Japanese student who gets lost in New York City on his way home from school.
The story uses humor and common immigrant experiences as it documents Taro’s new life in a strange
city. I used this book in both of my classes: ESL Beginning Literacy and ESL Low Intermediate. The
students enjoyed the story immensely.
In the ESL Low Intermediate class, where students had been introduced to the English past
tense, the book served as a wonderful review of common verbs they had already learned (was, made,
said, took, came, and thought). Students were able to read it in class during “reading time,” and
because I had ordered 15 copies, each student had their own book to read independently at their own
pace. There are 15 short chapters in the book with common ESL themes such as giving personal
information, asking directions, introductions, school subjects, giving descriptions, safety, and time.
The book is a nice size for adults, 8 ½ x 11, with four to five brightly-colored pictures in sequence per
page. Each picture has a one-sentence caption, and both sentences and sketches kept students
interested and motivated to continue reading to the end. For any new vocabulary, students were
instructed to look in their dictionaries, and keep a list of not more than ten vocabulary words. It took
most students between an hour and an hour and a half to finish the book, reading at a leisurely pace.
When finished, they were instructed to make a list of past tense verbs they recognized. Later, we
talked about the story, reviewed new words for pronunciation and meaning, and surveyed the lists of
verbs noted.
In my ESL Beginning Literacy class, we read the book out loud in small groups, with inmate
tutors facilitating. Students read more slowly, and needed to discuss some of the word meanings, but
with the pictures, they were able to figure out a lot of the content themselves. Students thoroughly
enjoyed the process as they read their first book in English, all the while reviewing high-frequency
words such as colors, numbers, family members, and weather vocabulary. We had one student who
was a new arrival at school, with no English reading history, and he too, was able to follow the story
very well with minimal Spanish translations. This group read the book over a period of two days.
One unexpected outcome of using this text was the spontaneous conversation it provoked after
reading the story. As I discovered, many ESL students have wonderfully-funny accounts of how they
were lost for hours in the U.S. Their stories provided oral practice with the past tense amidst varied
vocabulary, and students were able to laugh about their own misadventures; they really identified with
the main character, Taro. These student adventures could also be used for writing practice, comparing
and contrasting their own events with Taro’s story, sequence and order, and cause and effect. I
thoroughly recommend this text as an asset to any classroom library as it is fun, easy to follow, and
contains relevant content material for the multicultural classroom.
Few subjects are more popular right now than that of ‘Technology in the Classroom.’ If you’ve
been around the field of education block enough times to have heard buzzwords like NCLB, Common
Core, Learning Styles and a bazillion others, then you might be wondering what there is to recommend
this newcomer. It may seem like just another hurdle you’re expected to jump over, even though your
shoelaces feel like they’re tied together. The reality of the situation is better than that, hopefully, but,
even if it isn’t, you’ve got to figure out how to live with it. The fact of the matter is: technology is part
of our daily lives and it will, barring catastrophic change, continue to change and grow and become
even more prevalent. As teachers, it is our duty to prepare our students for the world as it is and as it
will become even more so. We must help our students learn the integral role that technology plays in
our world by growing our technological knowledge, integrating that knowledge into our lessons, and
fostering a thirst for that knowledge in our students.
Thankfully, of all the technological advances our world makes, the ones we use in the
classroom are (mostly) the least scary. Educational apps, games, videos, blogs, vlogs, etc. saturate the
marketplace, making accessing this content fairly easy, across all platforms. Hardware advances make
devices like tablets, smart phones, toys and games, printers, projectors, smart boards and computers
easier and easier to use all the time. Teachers are expected to learn about new technologies and learn
how to use them so that they can teach students about them. But, who teaches the teachers? The
biggest gap in this cycle is that between these advances and the teachers; there is a paucity of
instruction for us, and this needs to change. We need to support each other, and to teach each other.
Let’s all make the pledge to share, and if we do, we’ll be richer for it. At the end of this article you will
find a list of resources. Share these with other teachers and help start a technology revolution. Another
great source for learning about technology is your students. Talk to your students about technology and
take the initiative to learn from the ones who have such an interest and knowledge. When you learn
from your students, it helps them gain confidence and understanding—interactive, participatory
teaching/learning is a win-win for teachers and students.
Whether you teach in a group or in a one-on-one setting, you can integrate technology into your
lessons with just a few adjustments. Instead of using a black or white board to write information for
your classes, use a smart board or a projector and visual presenter combination. Using these tools gives
you so much flexibility to present information quickly and easily without having to erase and you are
able to keep more information readily available. Instead of reading material from a printed book or
sheets of paper, use a tablet or e-reader to bolster interest in the information and take up less space.
Add notes and references to texts as you read and save them without having to worry about poor
penmanship or losing/destroying (accidentally of course) paper notes; integrated dictionary and web
access functions can look up words/phrases and research interesting topics that come up while reading.
You can integrate videos or blogs into your lessons, giving students reinforcement by giving them
another viewpoint on a subject and tasking them to apply what they learn from videos through
comparing and contrasting, writing words/sentences/essays or even creating their own video responses
to the information presented. Try ‘flipping’ your classroom by having students learn content at home,
where they can view/interact with information as much as they need to, and have them complete
‘homework’ in class, where you can supervise, help and correct them as they work. Having students
work together in an online forum and posting to message boards or creating multimedia presentations
is a great way to get them to investigate/use technology on their own. The greatest thing about
integrating technology into your lessons is that it builds on itself; you start with one small change,
gradually adding more technology, until you’re more than comfortable with it, and you’ve become
technologically savvy, and so have your students.
Technology in the Classroom – Dora Bingman
Fostering a thirst for knowledge in our students is what teachers live for (or, at the very least, it
is one reason that we teach). You can argue that technology is something that students already have
knowledge of, as well as the thirst to learn more. That may be true of students under the age of 30 and
it is probably true of (most) American students already, but, the majority of the students that we teach,
i.e. adults, immigrants, ex-offenders, and other non-traditional students, have a lot less pre-existing
technological interest and knowledge. In fact, technology might scare them, even as it (sometimes)
scares us. We must overcome defeatist attitudes and lack of background knowledge to help our
students. How? Well, we must make it fun, interesting and applicable to their lives. If your students
can learn to access their bank account from a phone/tablet/computer, instead of going to the bank every
time they want to deposit a check, pay bills, check their balance or transfer money between accounts,
think about all the time and money that will save them. If your students can watch a movie in their own
language with English subtitles (or vice versa), won’t that make technology a valuable tool for them?
Teach your students how to find the answer to (nearly) any question that they can conceive of, and
they’ll be ready to learn how to make that technology work for them. Show them that they can use
technology to make their lives and the lives of their families easier and more fulfilling, and they will
thirst for everything you can teach them about technology and all that they can learn on their own as
well.
“I’ve heard/read this all before,” you say. While that may be true, have you really
listened/thought about it? Have you integrated technological resources into your lessons? Do your
students use technology in their assignments/homework? Even teachers on the forefront of the
‘Technology in the Classroom’ movement can do more. Help other teachers, investigate new
technology resources and try new things! Lifelong learning (another of those ubiquitous buzzwords) is
something we can all benefit from. Make technology one avenue for your own lifelong learning and it
becomes natural for you and your students.
Some additional resources for your “Technology Education”:
www.meganga.com
https://www.youtube.com/edu
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computers
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line.htm
http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic76.htm
http://www.techtutorials.net/
http://www.atomiclearning.com/
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/archives/techtorials.shtml
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/p/google-tools-tutorials.html
Maryland Literacy Hotline
410-752-3595 (Baltimore Reads old number) [email protected]
https://www.facebook.com/MDLiteracy The Maryland Literacy Hotline is available to help Maryland residents find nearby Literacy, Adult Basic Education classes, GED® Exam preparation classes, National External Diploma Programs, and English as a Second Language classes. This project was originally a collaboration of Baltimore Reads and the Family Literacy Coalition in Baltimore. Now the hotline is being run by Cynthia Campbell of Gold Apple Services for the Family Literacy Coalition. If you are a Maryland adult education provider and would like to be on the referral list, please send an email to Dr. Cynthia Campbell at:
[email protected] Be sure to include the following:
Name of organization
Contact information including address, phone number, web address, e-mail
address.
County or city the organization serves
Name of director
Name and email of person for prospective students to call
Types of classes offered
Indication of costs (if any) for to the student for classes, materials, or other
fees.
Please note: While MAACCE is supportive of the work of the Maryland Literacy Hotline, Maryland Literacy Hotline is not a program of MAACCE.
Time for some MAACCE member participation:
Rules: Take a look at the following conference photos and using the image number, provide a caption for that
photograph. Three of the best captions for each picture will be published in an upcoming special email.
Grand prize = your satisfaction that you showed your sense of humor and creativity!
Send your entries to Jay @ [email protected] and don’t forget to provide your name and photo number
to which you are referring. No limit to the number of entries you send, just do them in 1 email please. Multiple
emails will be deleted. Board members are eligible to participate. Come on, send in your captions asap.
Deadline for submissions will be July 27, 2015.
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MAACCE
C/O Laurie Askins PO Box 709
Leonardtown, MD 20650
E-MAIL: [email protected]
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See us at: www.maaccemd.org
MAACCE Matters is published quarterly coordinating with the seasons. If you would like to furnish an article or supply information for MAACCE members, contact Jay Willetts at
About Our Organization…
The Maryland Association for Adult, Community and
Continuing Education is a non-profit organization
providing leadership in Maryland for those interested in
advancing education as a lifelong process. MAACCE
provides a central forum for a wide variety of adult,
community and continuing education groups and
encourages organizations and agencies in Maryland to
cooperate in a broad spectrum of educational programs
and activities in support of the lifelong learning concept.
MAACCE Board of Directors 2015-2016