Info about ECCTYC Conference, Oct. 22-24
As I said yesterday, the conference for the English Council of California Two-Year Colleges would be a great place to share some of the amazing work we are doing. For those of you who have never been, ECCTYC’s conference is a very low-key, community building and idea-sharing affair. At the same time, all the ECCTYC board members from the various regions will be there, and so the conference is a good place to make friends and influence people, as it were. (ECCTYC interfaces with the CSU’s English Council, UC, TYCA, the NCTE, and of course the Community College Systems Office.) And, the conference is being held in Pasadena this year!
I would like to propose a FIN panel with anyone who has an English component to their inquiry. Please email me at ceagan@laspositascollege.edu if you are interested–the deadline for proposals is July 22. You are also welcome to propose your own panel or paper–I have provided all the information you need below. For more information about ECCTYC, visit www.ecctyc.org.
Conference Flyer: ECCTYC+2009+Conference+Flyer
Featured Speakers Flyer: ECCTYC+2009+Speaker+Flyer
Proposal Form: ECCTYC_2009_Propsosal_Form
Registration Form: ECCTYC+2009+Conferen#A9E689
Models of Acceleration/Learning Communities
For those of you interested in various models of basic skills acceleration, I just posted several PowerPoints, PDFs, and docs to the media library. Most of these programs were ones I learned about at the CCCC in SF this past March. Front Range Community College in CO has had great luck pairing basic skills courses with content courses (and reading with writing courses) in learning communities [front range 1; front range 2); Baltimore Community College has an Accelerated Learning Program that pairs a basic skills discussion section with transfer-level English [ALP Conference Website]. Arizona State and Fresno Pacific have “stretch” models of transfer-level English, giving students two semesters to complete their transfer-level course instead of one and getting it counted for college credit in the process. [narizunivstretch_2009; fresno-pac-stretch] My FIN teammate Michelle Gonzales shared a report on the success of the Digital Bridge Academy at Cabrillo, which LPC’s College Foundation Semester is based on. Digital Bridge Academy Summary
The upshot? More and more colleges are interested in acceleration, however it looks–they are interested in improving student success by reducing the number of levels of English they have to take.
LPC–Talking to Our Students
April has seen our video team (Mass. Comm. students, aided by team member Michelle Gonzales and Mass. Comm. instructor Jin Tsubota) jumping into student interviews and filming. May has added on our English basic skills student co-inquirers, who are recording oral interviews with students currently in the basic skills program. I have uploaded our questions to the media library so that you all can poach them–it has been *so* valuable to hear what our students have to say to student interviewers! Finally, our counselor team member, Nancy Wright, has been calling students who have dropped and asking them a series of questions. A few of the students she called walked right over to her office and got some very valuable help! She wishes she could make a personal connection with every student. I have uploaded Nancy’s questions to the media library as well. All questions were drafted with the help of our student co-inquirers and the two student filmmakers.
Inquiry Rocks!
I think the best thing about the FIN experience so far is sharing our work with others, whether it be a coach, a student, a dean, or a college president. Not that we’ve ever been unwilling to share what we do–in fact, we’ve been working to publicize our successful program and staff development efforts. But the supportive environment of inquiry and the focus on making students’ learning visible, combined with the experience of sharing our inquiry process with others, reveals amazing things! Watching our lesson study video with Katie, our dean, our student co-inquirer Enrique, and our counselor team member Nancy helped us realize/vocalize hunches about how the way our program teaches grammar works for our 104 students, but might account for the lower success rate of our 100A students. More on this in a separate post.
About FIN
The Faculty Inquiry Network’s (FIN) purpose is to support professional development which includes: conducting faculty inquiry; revisiting basic skills assumptions; interpreting and integrating data; accessing student voices; developing students as co-inquirers; making visible; using technology for teaching and learning; creating and supporting new initiatives, curriculum and program development; constructing educational tools using digital media; and hosting dialogue around student and faculty learning.
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