Questions for reflection:
What do you look for when seeking Adult Education friendly resources to use with your Literacy students?
Are you looking for resources that align with the Adult Education CCBE Literacy program?
note: This article highlights a website made by Literacy teachers in Adult Education specifically to use with students in Quebec Adult Education CCBE Literacy courses.
Why the Common Core Basic Education Literacy resources website?
Lindsay Harrar and Farideh Raygani, two English Language of Instruction teachers at the Riverside School Board, were frustrated with the lack of appropriate materials to use with their Adult students. So, what do good teachers do in these kinds of cases? They developed their own, with the help of a RECIT project coordinated by Avi Spector and Emilie Bowles.
They decided to focus on SMART notebook files that could be used by the students. They wanted to be able to take better advantage of the SMART boards in their classrooms. Both teachers prefer activities that are student-centred so that their learners become autonomous in their learning of the English language.
The Website
The website is available here: CCBE Literacy Resources . It is a work-in-progress and new materials will be added to it as they are developed.
How can the materials be used?
The materials are organized by Themes as well as by Grammar points and each one is linked to specific learning intentions and course codes. Because of this, they can be used in a variety of settings, depending on the teaching and learning needs in the classroom. Since they are SMART notebook activities, they do require a SMART brand interactive white board in the room.
Using the materials in Stations.
One way to structure their use is to divide your students into small groups and have them rotate through a few different activities that are tied to one lesson. The interactive white board activities can be at one of the stations so that small groups of students can collaborate on the learning targets as they interact with the SMART board together.
Here is a video in which Lindsay describes how she structures such a lesson. Please note: this video was filmed when she first used the SMART board at a station, so well before she and Farideh created the materials now found on the website.
If you are interested in finding out more about teaching in stations, please consult this collection of resources: Teaching in Stations
If you would like more information about the material in this article, please contact Avi Spector.
All materials are expected to be reused and shared according to this Creative Commons license, unless otherwise noted: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0