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Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) Seminar Print E-mail
This is a professional development opportunity for secondary teacher education faculty members and district middle and high school teams who wish to engage in reading strategy instruction. It focuses on the Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) strategy intended to improve students' reading comprehension in the content areas. This opportunity is funded by the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant awarded to the Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners and the Iowa Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, part of which is devoted to investigating and improving secondary teacher candidates' and secondary content area teachers' knowledge and practices in teaching reading in the content areas.

Seminar leader will be Dr. Nance Wilson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning Principles at University of Central Florida, Daytona Beach. A former reading teacher and school reading specialist, Dr. Wilson holds a Ph.D. in Reading, Writing and Literacy from University of Illinois at Chicago, where she studied with Dr. Taffy Raphael, the researcher who developed and tested the efficacy of QAR in improving students' text understanding. Dr. Wilson has consulted in QAR with the Chicago Public Schools since 2003 and with the Iowa Department of Education since 2005.

All participants will need to attend one of two Summer Professional Seminars in QAR offered in Storm Lake on June 13-15 and Fayette on June 19-21, 2007, as well as three follow-up sessions during the following school year. Grant funds will cover expenses for higher education members and middle/high school teams to attend one summer seminar and the follow-up workshops as well as a stipend of $600 for full attendance and participation.

To apply for grant support, please complete a proposal and fax it to Linda Choate at 515-281-7700 by Monday, April 30, 2007, 4:30 P.M.  

Secondary Teacher Education Faculty Members

Please print off the IHE Application IHE Application, fill in, and fax to Linda Choate, 515-281-7700.

To qualify for funding from the grant, one or more secondary education content area "methods" instructors, other education professors, and/or college personnel outside of teacher education who work with struggling readers at the college level will need to complete the attached application and agree to the conditions described. The grant will fund one proposal per higher education institution.

Middle School and High School Teams

Please print the MS/HS Application MS/HS Application, fill in, and fax to Linda Choate, 515-281-7700.

Participating MS/HS teams MUST include a minimum of two content area teachers (perhaps those who teach a core subject in which the majority of students are enrolled) Ideally, team members from the same building will include:

  • A principal or a central office administrator (e.g., curriculum director) or both.   At least one person who has the authority to make decisions about student scheduling, resources, teacher planning time, etc. must be on the team.
  • Additional content area teachers beyond the required two
  • One or more special education teachers
  • A reading coach/strategist/instructional coach

If you have questions : Please contact Linda Fielding at Linda-fielding@uiowa.edu or 319-335-5336.

 

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 08 January 2008 )