A.P.P.L.E.

Lietuviškai

Program Descriptions
Summer 2005 - July 8-22, 2005

Vilnius

Vilnius seminars Administrators:

Administration

1.     Title: Strategic Planning for School Administrators

2.     Target Audience: 25 school administrators

3.     Brief Description: Strategic planning is the process by which leaders of a school system envision its future and develop the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future. The leaders’ vision for the school system provides both the direction and the energy to begin movement toward the realization of the vision. We will attempt to develop a process to define sustainability with respect to the local context. We will develop a process that calls for public participation of all stakeholders in a community that carefully examines what they want their children to know, do, and value when they leave the formal educational system. We will explore how education should respond to the demands of a rapidly changing world.

4.     Presenters:

• Vida R. Gavin, EdD Superintendent of Schools, Chatham, Massachusetts, USA
• Richard Majors, PhD, Educational Consultant, Glasgow, Scotland

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Computer Science I: Online Teaching & Learning

1.     Title: Online Teaching & Learning

2.     Audience: 12 computer-literate educators who want to create distance learning modules in their subject areas. Participants need to be able to use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer. They need to know some HTML.

3.     Description: There are fundamental differences between being an effective “traditional” classroom teacher and an effective “online” teacher. In this program, participants will learn how to transfer traditional teaching skills and methods into the online environment. They will learn methods to develop positive online relationships that will ensure success as an online teacher. Participants will learn to use the Blackboard program for creating and conducting on-line lessons. Equally important, they will establish a network of support from peers in the virtual learning community. Lesson will include didactic materials; activities that emphasize social aspects of learning, such as collaboration; an online discussion topic; and a list of resources.

4.     Primary Lecturers:

• Amanda Muliolis, Technology Coordinator and Teacher (Retired), St. Augustine Academy, Lakewood, Ohio, USA
• Lithuanian Consultants from the 2004-5 program: Rūta Petraitienė, Ramutė Liucvaikienė

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Computer Science II: Online Teaching & Learning

1.     Title: Online Teaching & Learning

2.     Audience: 12 computer-literate educators who want to create distance learning modules in their subject areas. Participants need to be able to use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer. They need to know some HTML.

3.     Description: There are fundamental differences between being an effective “traditional” classroom teacher and an effective “online” teacher. In this program, participants will learn how to transfer traditional teaching skills and methods into the online environment. They will learn methods to develop positive online relationships that will ensure success as an online teacher. Participants will learn to use the Blackboard program for creating and conducting on-line lessons. Equally important, they will establish a network of support from peers in the virtual learning community. Lesson will include didactic materials; activities that emphasize social aspects of learning, such as collaboration; an online discussion topic; and a list of resources.

4.     Primary Lecturers:

• Andrius Kirkyla, MS in Computer Science, Columbia University; PhD candidate, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA
• Lithuanian Consultants from the 2004-5 program: Daiva Raugalytė, Rita Diominienė, and Alė Vilutienė

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Elementary Education: Reading, Science, and Language Arts

1.     Title: Reading, Science, and Language Arts for Special Children

2.     Target Audience: This is a basic, introductory course for 25 elementary school teachers, special education teachers, supervisors, and tutors.

3.     Description: The reading program will enable reflective teachers to meet the needs of students with mild learning disabilities by presenting a framework that includes integrated knowledge of student characteristics, evaluation methods, and research-based multi-sensory instructional strategies. Topics include designing and managing environments and materials, critical teaching behaviors, individualized curriculum-based assessment, and skill and strategy instruction specifically for students who do not respond to traditionally effective methods of reading instruction. Activities will include creating multi-sensory materials for use in the classroom. Additionally, the course will cover multi-sensory math, and a science curriculum that integrates hands-on activities with language arts. This program will provide teachers with the necessary skills to introduce conflict mediation techniques in their schools and classrooms. Teachers will also use fairy tales to increase language skills through cooperative education.

4.     Primary Lecturers:

• Pledger Fedora, Teacher, The Hill School, Durham, North Carolina, USA; Doctoral Candidate, Educational Psychology, Measurement & Evaluation Department, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
• Irene Gedris, Educational Consultant, Lithuanian Saturday Schools in the USA; Instructor, Holden Arboretum, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
   

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Library and Information Science

1.     Title: Enhancing Students’ Reading Skills

2.     Audience: 25 school librarians

3.     Description: The library science program will support the 2005 A.P.P.L.E. theme, Education for Sustainable Development. Students will learn about the research on reading habits of students. They will create reading programs, discuss reading initiatives, and review incentives to keep students reading despite the many they encounter distractions. Participants will share their experiences in encouraging students to read. They will work with public librarians to form networks for sharing information about student needs. Participants will design web sites for their schools or a web site for their library which can be linked to their school’s website.

4.     Presenters:

• Blanche Woolls, MA, PhD, Director and Professor, School of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA
• Snaige Raguckiene, Librarian

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Music Education

1.     Title: The Music Classroom: A Place of Cultural and Social Context

2.     Target Audience: This is a course for 25 general music teachers of upper-level students (grades 8-12). 

3.     Description: Teachers will be introduced to recent thinking in social and cultural theory that pertains to learning and motivation. They will examine the notion of “culturally responsive teaching”—using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and performance styles of diverse students to make learning more appropriate and effective for them. Teachers will explore how they can recognize students as persons with emerging identities, including the formation of musical identity. Additionally, teachers will be introduced to materials and methods that will broaden their curricular options so that they can confidently introduce world and popular music in the classroom.

4.     Primary Lecturers: 

• Regina Carlow, PhD, Assistant Professor of Music Education, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
• Marie McCarthy, PhD, Chair of Music Education, University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland, USA
• Emilija Sakadolskis, PhD, The Contemporary School Center, Vilnius, Lithuania.

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Preschool and Kindergarten Education

1.     Title: The Young Learner: Ready or Not, Here I Come!

2.     Target Audience: This two-week seminar is designed for 25 early childhood educators, pre-school and kindergarten teachers.

3.  Brief Description: Theories of child development will provide background knowledge in order to explore their impact on current practices in early childhood education. Included, will be the elements that influence growth and the important benchmarks and timelines of a child’s development. School readiness is an area that will be addressed by demonstrating a variety of formal and informal assessments and screening tools that help teachers and parents evaluate a child’s readiness for school. These tools will target the areas of receptive and expressive language, listening vocabulary, behavior, and maturity. We will discuss the difficulties of effective home/school communication and provide models of building collaboration among and between all stakeholders, family, school, and community. Finally, participants will develop a plan that supports efforts in building home/school communication. Thematic planning will be highlighted as a tool for integrating curriculum in science, math, humanities, and language arts. Through lecture and group activities, we will look critically at the importance of theme and topic units that help to increase oral language development and character development in our young children.

• Nancy Hansen, MS, Resource Teacher, Poway Unified School District; Adjunct Professor, School of Teaching and Learning, University of San Diego, San Diego, California, USA

• Walter Serbent, Retired teacher and principal, Wallingford, Connecticut, USA    
   

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Secondary Education: Language and History

1.     Title: The Play's the Thing!

2.     Target Audience: This course is designed for 25 secondary teachers in language arts, history, and theater.

3.     Brief Description: The Language Arts portion will provide a variety of public speaking and theatre exercises which can be used in the classroom. Activities will include Role Playing, Round Table, Theatre Games, Improvisation, Monologue, and Scene Study with particular emphasis on Shakespeare. These exercises will be integrated into the History Strand and will examine such topics as Teutonic Knights and Medieval Lithuanian History, and The Comparison of Modern Lithuanian and American Cultures. Participants will study basic understanding of poetry therapy and methods of creative writing, analyze literature as a source of existential knowledge and explore therapeutic potential of poems and other forms of literature. The History portion will develop a Document-Based Question using primary source documents that include political cartoons, graphs, pictures, and literary sources. Participants are encouraged to bring materials from their own subject areas.

• Sandra Dollinger, English Adjunct Professor, College of St. Rose, Albany, New York, USA
• Jurate Mohen, Upper School History Teacher, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich, Connecticut USA; Associate Lecturer, Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, New York, USA
• Jurate Sucylaite, MD, psychiatrist, Kaunas Psychiatric Hospital, Kaunas, Lithuania, member of Lithuanian Writers’ Union, a Board member of USA National Association for Poetry Therapy, and a candidate for certification as a poetry therapist