Iowa Department of Education

Update of team work:

Of the 3 strategies the RWCA team initially identified for accomplishing our overall purpose, recently we have worked the most on the third strategy:

"Provide opportunities for professional development that is grounded in research and based on the Iowa Professional Development Model for teams of higher education content 'methods' instructors and grade 5-12 teachers in strategies designed to enhance reading achievement through the content areas". Through two three-day Summer Professional Seminars followed by three academic year follow-up sessions, we hope to offer training in the Question Answer Relationships (QAR) reading comprehension strategy. QAR is a research-based strategy that engages students in the process of differentiating the types of questions that can be asked and answered about a text. It teaches students to develop metacognitive awareness of useful reading-for-meaning strategies and gives them a language for talking about the strategies they use to answer questions. It gives teachers a framework for organizing comprehension strategy instruction across all grade levels from elementary through high school in a variety of content areas.

We await approval of funds to offer QAR training to up to 150 grade 5-12 teachers and administrators organized by school building teams and higher education institution secondary content area "methods" instructors. Pending funding, we have reserved time with last summer's QAR Teacher Academy service provider, Dr. Nance Wilson, and are holding space at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake for June 13-15 and Upper Iowa University's Fayette campus for June 10-21, 2007.   Much of our team's time in our November 7, 2006 and January 2, 2007 meetings   (and RWCA co-chairs' time at separate co-chair meetings on   December 27, 2006 and January 24, 2007) was spent preparing a budget request, developing announcement notices for secondary schools and higher education institutions,   and revising the assurances individuals and teams of participants will have to agree to in order to receive funding to participate in one of these professional development opportunities--assurances that include data collection, implementation, and team meetings in accordance with the Iowa Professional Development   Model. Our hope is to receive funding approval at the TQE Leadership Team meeting in early February 2007.

**Note: Because of revisions in the grade level span of the middle school teaching endorsement, we recently broadened the grade span of focus for or team from Grade 7-12 to Grade 5-12.