ISTE SIGIVC 2007: Professional Development: Reading Recovery

Organizational Overview
Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES is a New York state organization. We serve nine school districts (pre-K-12) in the Monroe and Orleans Counties in the Rochester, NY area. We also cross contract services to other BOCES. Some of our districts are up to an hour away from our location.

Challenge
We offer a professional development course to our districts and districts outside our area on Reading Recovery. As part of the course the teachers in the class must be observed several times teaching their students a reading recovery lesson. In order to bring the students to our location, the student must be taken out of the school. This involves parent participation, transportation and an administrator from the student’s school. In addition, if the schools are an hour away it involves a 2 hour round trip.

Solution
We have offered the teachers to teach their reading recovery lesson via videoconference. This leaves the student in their own classroom and saves everyone a lot of scheduling and traveling time.

Results
In addition to the time savings we have found that allowing the teacher and student to be observed in their classroom has allowed for a more authentic learning environment. It has been a more accurate observation than when the student is transported to BOCES and observed “Behind the Glass.”
It also allows the teacher to remain in the class after the student is finished. Instead of driving the student back to school, the teacher can stay and discuss the lesson with their reading recovery peers via videoconferencing.

Best Practices/Innovations
When we first started videoconferencing we weren’t sure of how best to set up the room. We had to find ways to locate the camera and microphone for best results. Now we have it down to a science – we even turn off the video at the school so the student isn’t distracted by having 20 adults looking at them through the TV! In schools which have 2 videoconferencing units we even set up a unit so that other people at the school can observe the lesson!

Contact Information
Donna Farren, Distance Learning Specialist
Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES
3625 Buffalo Road, Rochester NY 14624
585-352-2700