My Access is now interoperable with Oracle’s OSL (Oracle Student Learning). This comes in large part because of the way Oracle designed OSL. OSL is pre-integrated with Oracle Enterprise Content Management System which allows third-party content to operate out of the box without custom integration. OSL also works in conjunction with a school’s existing LMS, CMS, and VLE. OSL manages the student, teacher, and parent engagement and not necessarily the content. Now OSL users can leverage the power of the industry’s most advanced writing instruction tool – My Access. -Written by: Jeff Thomas
DigitalSports® allows students instructional sports writing resources allowing users to create, publish, and manage their own authentic writing through DS Reporter and DS Mobile features. DS Reporter is a blog feature that lets students post articles, pictures, and videos about high school sporting events.
It is simple: students use the Vantage safe blog template to post their writing that is shared across the country!
Some of the benefits include:
1. It is a great way to get students excited about writing!
2. It is a great way to organize and assign multimedia projects.
3. All submissions can be compiled with MY Access! data via Vantage’s iSEEK Supercruncher data discovery tool! And even merged with data from MY Access!
4. Students can have one-on-one training with a former Washington Post Sports Journalist.
5. Student have full access to real life sports journalism tips and style guides. Story starters are provided to guide students through the writing process.
This example of a game story writing suggestion illustrates how students will be guided to write about their school team:
The goal of a game story is to not just report the final score, but to also tell the ready what the turning points were in getting to that end result.
Example of a task:
Attend an upcoming basketball game at your school and monitor the score as the game progresses to find the “run” that occurs when one team pulls away from the other. Describe the handful of plays that directly lead to the game’s outcome.
To get started, consider these questions:
What was the pivotal moment when the game changed and you, as a spectator, knew which team was going to win? Did it happen early in the game? Was there a noticeable momentum shift after half time or at some point in the middle of the contest? Or did it come down to the last play? Start by describing what was happening – the play, the atmosphere, the crowd, the reaction of the players, coaches and fans – that you think ultimately led to the final outcome. Be as specific as possible. Was it one big play that you c an describe in detail? Maybe it was a time out called at just the right time by a coach that re-energized his/her team. Start by describing the moment that captured your attention so much so that you could not stop thinking about when the game was over.
DS Reporter Signup
Have your students sign up today to officially join the exclusive team of DS Reporters and receive exclusive insider tips on how to “get inside the game.” They can sign up at: http://digitalsports.com/register
Grade levels: Middle-High School Key Concepts: Writing on Demand, SAT®, AP®, state assessments, academic writing, college readiness Submitted by: Kathryn S. Pabst, Lovejoy High School, Lucas,Texas Kathryn_Pabst@lovejoyisd.net“Research and experience show that writers need three things: ownership of the form and subject of their writing, feedback from other writers, and time to draft and revise. Yet the harsh and confusing reality of today’s college-entrance and state-mandated examinations—or any test with an essay component—is that students, trained in writing workshops, go on the clock to compose a paper on an assigned topic, in a prescribed form, for which they will receive no feedback. …And their future depends on it.”
Anne Ruggles Gere, University of Michigan (more…)
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Improving teacher effectiveness has been heavily emphasized as a key component in school improvement plans. Join our panel of experts, along with fellow educators around the country, in discussing what it means to be an effective teacher and best practices for achieving this goal.
Instructors who use Step Up to Writing (SUTW) strategies have an ally in Vantage Learning programs. Instructional tools such as color coding, word lists, outlines, and examples are embedded in both MY Access! and Step up to Writing. Overall, the Vantage Learning Literacy Solution contains many features and tools for process writing that can be used in conjunction with SUTW elements such as:
Pre-Writing Outlines. MY Access! interactive and printable graphic organizers help students develop and plan their ideas. Vantage Learning outlines let students work step-by-step to create interesting and organized essays, but they also are easily adapted to the color-coding or framing strategies that SUTW supports. These critical thinking tools can be saved or printed through MY Access! so teachers can evaluate not only the final draft, but all parts of the writing process. For an example of a useful Vantage Learning graphic organizer, see the Organizing Your Essay outline.
Color-coding: Both Step Up to Writing and MY Access! help students plan, organize and revise through the use of color-coding. This strategy, an essential component of MY Tutor feedback for each trait guides students to color-code words, sentences or whole paragraphs to make sense of their writing. Either MY Access! or SUTW color coding standards can be used in revision plans where students think about goals and strategies for revision.
Sentence and Paragraph Building: Exercises and feedback in MY Access! help students plan and clarify their ideas just as with Step Up To Writing. These tools highlight the importance of preparation as a way for students to become more confident, proficient writers. For example, the “Thesis Builder” Handout assists writers who are creating main ideas or thesis statements.
Consider how this MY Tutor feedback guides students to build more effective
paragraphs: • Highlight, in green,the details in your essay. Details are those words that answer the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. and sentences: • Underline the words or phrases you used too many times and replace them with synonyms (words that mean the same) or more precise words. Use the Word Bank or thesaurus to help you!
Word Lists - MY Access! provides multiple types of word lists, including options for vivid verbs, awesome adjectives and transient transitional devices as a way for writers to improve their sentence structure and overall clarity. These word banks apply to different patterns of development and pinpoint different sections of the essay. For example, transitional phrases for conclusion paragraphs are available in “Transient Transitions.” Furthermore, Vantage Learning’s multilingual visual thesaurus, Lexipedia presents words with their semantic relationships displayed in an animated visual word web to support all types of learners.
And with student models available for all Intellimetric prompts in all genres, students and teachers have access to a large variety of student writing that can be used for any writing lesson. For those using the Step up to Writing with MY Access!, we would love to hear your comments about how you have used Vantage Learning Literacy Solutions to support Step Up to Writing.
According to Short and Echevarria, “Teachers can use the regular core curriculum and modify their teaching to make the content understandable for ELLs” (2004). And the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) has provided guidelines for teachers to help non native speakers develop their knowledge and use of English using specific strategies.
These can be supported by Vantage Learning solutions. Review these strategies and add your own suggestions in the comment section below:
Strategy for teaching ELL: Provide a nurturing environment for writing
How Vantage Learning supports ELL instruction:
Revision goals and modeling help demystify what proficient writing is by explicitly stating advice with examples.
Instruction will include supplementary materials such as offline instructional tools such as The Writer’s Guide, and graphic organizers to help students develop ideas gradually.
Practice status is available for prompts so grades will not be recorded and students are free to practice writing.
Scores can be turned off for any prompt so students can practice writing.
Introduce cooperative, collaborative writing activities which promote discussion and promote peer interaction to support learning
Prepared peer review comments are available to guide students in focus, positive peer review.
Teacher comments are automated and can be general or embedded into a specific place in the essay.
Strategy for teaching ELL: Provide frequent meaningful opportunities for students to generate their own texts. Design writing assignments for a variety of audiences, purposes, and genres
How Vantage Learning supports ELL instruction:
Teachers have access to over 1100 prompts and can create their own prompts. There are five writing genres to choose from. Purposes include: telling a story, summarizing or convincing. Audiences include: parents, principals and friends
MY Access! prompts are aligned to state and textbook standards.
Strategy for teaching ELL: Scaffold the writing instruction
How Vantage Learning supports ELL instruction:
My Tutor’s immediate diagnostic feedback is scaffolded so students can review goals for revision that apply to their proficiency status for each submission.
My Editor identifies errors most commonly made and provides instructional feedback on Spelling and Grammar in their native language.
Spanish language My Tutor feedback is available so students can review feedback about their writing in their native language.
Data for ELL learners can be collected and “crunched” through extensive reporting features so teachers can target instruction.
Strategy for teaching ELL: Provide models of well-organized papers for the class.
How Vantage Learning supports ELL instruction:
For each Intellimetric prompt, writing models for each score point are available. Each essay is accompanied by comprehensive commentary that addresses the five traits of writing.
Instructional Units and lesson plans provide step by step instructions to teach teachers show students how to evaluate writing.
Strategy for teaching ELL: Teachers should consider glossing sample papers with comments that point to the specific aspects of the paper that make it well written; Offer comments on the strength of the paper, in order to indicate areas where the student is meeting expectations; Give more than one suggestion for change — so that students still maintain control of their writing.\
How Vantage Learning supports ELL instruction:
Embedded comments and My Tutor feedback encourage students as they point to areas of improvement.
Teachers should consider beginning feedback with global comments (content and ideas, organization, thesis) and then move on to more local concerns (or mechanical errors) when student writers are more confident with the content of their draft;
Teachers can select the traits to “turn on” in the Assignment Wizard to focus instruction. For early drafts, turning off or hiding My Tutor feedback for Language Use and Mechanics is encouraged. Teachers may also turn off My Editor as needed.
My Tutor feedback at each score point contains at least two revision goals Students create revision strategies and reflect on their changes in the Revision Plan
A list of comprehensive prepared embedded comments about all traits of writing is available.
Strategy for teaching ELL: Do not assume that every learner understands how to cite sources or what plagiarism is. Students should be provided with strategies for avoiding plagiarism.
How Vantage Learning supports ELL instruction:
Informational and Literary My Tutor feedback details the procedure and thought process behind citing texts.
Instructional handouts such as MLA and APA Style Guides and graphic organizers explain how students can help students build their own ideas and attribute the ideas of others.
Resources
NCTE Position Paper on the Role of English Teachers in Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) Prepared by the NCTE ELL Task Force Approved by the NCTE Executive Committee April 2006.
Short, D and Eschevarria, J. “Teacher Skills to Support English Language Learners.” Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
As schools and libraries celebrate classic novels that faced censorship, My Access! users may be interested in how MY Access! supports not only a full curriculum, but also special events like this.
Here are some ideas:
1. Consider using the middle school, Intellimetric prompt “Banning Books” as a journaling topic or essay assignment.
2. As with all Intellimetric prompts,”Banning Books”, is accompanied by writer’s models that provide examples of essays at all scorepoints, and student opinions in the essays that can be used in classroom debate.
The prompt “Banning Books” also comes with a complete lesson plan that provides ideas on teaching idea development, research, drafting, and revision. The lesson plan can be found in the MY Access! Resource and training Center as well as in the Vantage Learning Community.
3. For whole group instruction, consider projecting the Persuasive Wizard and fill it in as a class. You or a student volunteer can fill in the pros and cons about censorship as students generate ideas to debate this important topic.
4. Use a title search in MY Access! to find prompts about these books that have been or are currently banned:
• Animal Farm (HS Intellimetric)
• Catcher in the Rye (2 pilot prompts at the HS level)
• Frankenstein (2 pilot prompts at the HS level)
• And of course, Harry Potter! MY Access! has pilot prompts at all grade levels for this popular (yet censored) book!
Let us know your classroom ideas for Banned Books week!
Post them below.
According to Hall, Strongman, & Meyer (2003), differentiated instruction allows all students to access the same classroom (curriculum) by providing entry points, learning tasks, and outcomes that are tailored to students’ needs. Teachers and administrators find an assistant in MY Access!, the award-winning literacy solution from Vantage Learning that addresses issues particular to special education instruction.
1. MY Access! addresses various learning styles:
Visual Learners-Students who think in terms of pictures.
MY Access! provides picture and art prompts that encourage visual interpretation and analysis.
Scores can be displayed graphically at the student level.
All of our instructional materials can be printed by the student or teacher. There are many prewriting tools to help students develop and display their ideas visually.
MY Tutor feedback incorporates color coding to engage student thinking.
Auditory Learners — Students who learn and understand by hearing or reciting material.
A variety of multimedia resources from iSEEK can supplement instruction.
Kinesthetic learners — Students who learn by touch and experience.
MY Access! allows students to type their responses and activate feedback within the program with just one click.
MY Access! instructional handouts can be used for tactile lessons. For example, students can cut up the handout, fill it in, and build and deconstruct their ideas by moving the pieces until the ideas make sense.
2. MY Access! Supports differentiated instruction through instructional tools and features:
Immediate, scaffolded diagnostic MY Tutor and MY Editor feedback is available at several levels (proficient, developing, and auto-readability) at the assignment level.
Instructional tools like the spell-checker can be turned on to provide extra help.
Teachers or administrators can create subgroups to assign the most appropriate tasks in small group instruction.
iSEEK resources and MY Access! Writing Support Series assessments are available to help teachers provide remediation or enrichment activities.
Comprehensive peer review comment banks that apply to all genres of writing can be printed and used for small group work.
For each submission, teachers can make general or embedded comments that can be printed and saved. Comments on student work can be compiled for the whole year through the student portfolio.
Parents can access any student work at any time using their student’s account information. Letters to a parent can be generated for any student submission.
The program can be used for cross-curricular instruction in ELA, science, history, and math.
3. Extensive reporting capabilities of MY Access! support efforts to keep accurate and timely reports. To develop goals and strategies for each student, teachers and administrators can:
Monitor weaknesses and pinpoint strengths of each student from the teacher, school, and district levels.
Populate data for required forms such as IEPs (Individualized Education Programs).
Compile and analyze data external to MY Access!, such as scores on standardized assessments with the additional help of iSEEK Supercruncher.
Reference Hall, T., Strongman, N., & Meyer, A. (2003). Differentiated instruction and implications for UDL implementation. National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum.
Research papers allow students to examine a subject in detail as they investigate different facts and perspectives about their topic. Whether they choose the topic on their own or you assign it, the sense of discovery is exciting and limitless. What sometimes becomes challenging, though, is incorporating all those new ideas and interesting quotes into an essay of their own.
Rather than seeing the research paper as a simple “cut and paste” exercise, students and teachers using MA can work through the writing process from research to editing, so the focus is on the student’s understanding and presentation of their research via a well developed essay.Consider these tips for teaching a research paper using MY Access!
iSEEK search engine- This credible and safe search engine compiles millions of sources from all fields, mediums, and grade levels. iViews allow a student to easily narrow their search, but the iViews also will help students discover facts or topics they may not have already know about their subject.
The KWL chart- You can encourage students to think about their research before they start reading as they list what they already know and state what they want to know. The chart gives students a place to log their notes as they distinguish their ideas from those they find in research. This not only helps prevent plagiarism but also lets students see that their ideas may be just as valuable as those they will find in research.
A T chart may also help students stay organized as they takes notes, putting the source in one column and the summaries and quotations in another.
After the student has gathered their own ideas and those from the research, they should start to create an outline of their essay. This additional step can help students see that they, not the research can set the structure of the research essay. For example, they can use a Cluster Web to develop their main ideas and evidence.
With MY Access!, there are a few possibilities to consider for the prompt selection. You can create your own prompt or use a MY ACCESS! prompt and add the research requirements as Special instructions. Of course, the genre you choose for the research paper will determine the feedback students receive. You can set up a prompt that will provide specific text based feedback for the content. You could create a My Prompt for the research assignment and make it “Text Based/Informational.” This will provide My Tutor Feedback about research elements. For example, Content and Development feedback includes goals, strategies and examples for incorporating citations into the essay.
If you want to provide trait scores for an Intellimetric prompt, you can select a general Intellimetric prompt such as “A Person You Admire” that applies to your research topic and add Special Instructions for your assignment.
As students revise, they can refer to the Research handout found in Instructional Documentation in the Resource Center that guide them through research formatting. They can also use the Research tags list found in Instructional Tools and Activities for Informational Writing to improve their word choice and refine their understanding of the sources they have used. To format their research paper, students can review a simple handout on MLA format guidelines, and for the most current 2009 MLA updates, they can refer to the OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide.
Since they will have put so much time and effort into this vast undertaking, you may want to encourage them to “Publish” their essay from the student portfolio, so the presentation reflects all of their hard work!
We hope these ideas will be helpful. But we are also interested in hearing your suggestions!
What tips do you have for teaching research papers?
Teachers now have a new effective tool for the challenge of teaching grammar. Vantage Learning has joined its innovative assessment platform, SPMS® (Student Progress Monitoring System) with its award winning instructional and data management resources in MY Access! through the MY Editor Modules. (more…)