The 40th annual PA Developmental Educators Conference (PADE) was held on April 1-2 at the Radisson Hotel in Camp Hill, PA.
PADE’s members are “committed to the principle of equal educational opportunity for all persons who have the potential and the desire to achieve in post-secondary education. We seek to promote continuing dialog and collaboration among all persons working in developmental education programs in an effort to affect the development and improvement of support services to the increasingly diverse students enrolled in these institutions.”
The conference’s keynote speaker was Dr. Michelle Asha Cooper, President of the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) who spoke to the gathering about removing barriers to success for under-represented groups.
Penn State had three presenters at the conference:
- Bob Bartell (Penn State York lecturer in IST) and Carla Seward (Media Commons) presented an array of innovative technology including 360 video and the Oculus Go. Their goal was to demonstrate how technology can engage and connect students in meaningful ways, especially for general education courses with first-year students. The title of their presentation was: 360 Video Encourages First-Year Student Engagement.
- Suzanne Shaffer (TLT and Penn State York instructional designer) presented Integrating Reading Skills using the Decoding the Disciplines Framework, to college reading and writing instructors. Using Middendorf and Pace’s (2004) Decoding the Disciplines (DtD) framework, strategies were presented to help students integrate complex reading strategies into a coherent holistic process.
This is a practical local conference that is well-attended and directed at student success. It would be suitable for faculty and staff working with students on success initiatives of any kind.
