Why the Strengthening Student Success Conference Leads from Inquiry to Action
Posted by Monique Williams on September 24, 2010 in Basic Skills in Context with No Comments
How can inquiry lead to action? This year’s Strengthening Student Success conference looks explicitly at how assessment and dialog are yielding change throughout the California community college system. The event offers a focused opportunity to find out about curricular innovations, explore cross-disciplinary approaches, and learn how collaborative inquiry can be supported and sustained.
In addition to a three hour pre-conference workshop on the key ideas and innovations emerging from the Faculty Inquiry Network, you can participate in a problem solving community and investigate case studies on building cultures of inquiry or changing instructional practices and structures. The conference also features 55 interactive breakouts and briefing presentations highlighting issues ranging from instructional practices to equity to accreditation & institutional effectiveness, such as:
- Assessing with Academic Freedom: Enhancing the Collaboration of Faculty, Service Providers, and Students throughout the Teaching and Learning Cycle
- Got Counseling? Inquiry into Integrative Approaches that Support Career Pathways and Academy Students
- Developing Students’ Critical Thinking: A Conversation Across Disciplines
- Engaging High School Students with Community College Instruction: Rigor that Works
- Establishing the New Faculty Institute: Lessons Learned from a Professional Development Coordinator
- Strengthening the Learning Center/Classroom Connection through Directed Learning Activities
The conference will be held October 6-8 at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa. Registration is just $375. There is a free shuttle from the John Wayne Airport and steep discounts have been negotiated on parking and room rates. A complete list of sessions, their descriptions, registration information, and tips on securing funding for registration fees are all available at http://www.rpgroup.org/events/SSS10.
Space is still available – but be sure to sign up before the event sells out!
The Case for Acceleration in Developmental English and Math
Posted by Katie Hern on July 13, 2010 in Acceleration, Basic Skills in Context, Literacy, Making Visible, Math, Multimedia, Reading, Using Institutional Research, Video Evidence, Writing with No Comments
Exponential Attrition and the Promise of Acceleration
Katie Hern and Myra Snell recently collaborated to create an article for the RP Group’s statewide newsletter Perspectives. The article argues that high rates of student attrition are structurally guaranteed in long developmental sequences and presents evidence from Chabot and Los Medanos colleges that one-semester, open-access courses are a promising way to increase student completion rates in college-level English and Math. The full article is linked above.
The Space In Between– What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Posted by Jamie Chandler on June 30, 2010 in Basic Skills in Context, Equity, Fear, Identity, Literacy, Metacognition, Student Confidence with No Comments
On April 15, 2010, the De Anza College Office of Instruction, Office of Diversity and ICCE, and Office of Staff and Organizational Development presented their annual conference devoted to student success. The event, “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” brought together both students and faculty and was a huge success. To facilitate an extension of the ideas generated that day, Tom deWit was invited to present on June 10, 2010, at a followup event he called “The Space In Between.” Tom arrived with his team of collaborators from the Faculty Inquiry Network who staged the space by placing numerous soccer flags all around the front of the room–a visual metaphor for the “labyrinth of attitudes.”
Labyrinth of Attitudes Activity
The opening activity invited student and faculty attendees to read and consider the following quote from James Baldwin:
“The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality—for this touchstone can be only oneself. Such a person interposes between himself and reality nothing less than a labyrinth of attitudes. And these attitudes, furthermore, though the person is usually unaware of it (is unaware of so much!), are historical and public attitudes. They do not relate to the present any more than they relate to the person.” (The Fire Next Time p. 44).
After analyzing and discussing the quote in its own right, attendees were then asked to apply the quote to the arena of Education. To enrich that discussion, a short text-film meditation was also shown. On colored handout stickies, attendees then wrote down their responses to the question: What attitudes can fill up the space in between teacher and student or student and institution? The responses broke into two general categories: negative and positive attitudes. (The responses can be found here.)
The dialogue then deepened around a series of questions:
♥ What do you do as a learner or as a teacher to inspire a labyrinth of attitudes?
♥ How do we defy the inertia we work inside of?
♥ How do we engage and honor the labyrinth so that learning is a creative, effective and positive experience?
First Kiss with Your Discipline/ Learning:
These questions lead into a discussion of the role of Love in Education. Attendees wrote responses to a prompt that asked them about their “First Kiss”–that is, the first time they recall really loving learning. (The insightful and moving responses can be linked to here.) The ensuing discussion served as an effective springboard into the second half of the day.
♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥
Bringing Love into The Classroom/ Learning Assignment
For the second half of the day, attendees first were shown an excerpt from Door Number One, a film made by students from Chabot College. The excerpt delves into the emotional and affective dimension that students bring with them when they first arrive at college and enter the “labyrinth.”
Tom then lead the attendees through a Live-Learning exercise that explored the following questions. Attendees worked in groups, sharing ideas and experiences; they then collaborated to create written responses. The responses are linked here.
Prompts for Live Learning Assignment
♥ What do you need to do to bring your discipline, learning into the classroom so that it can be fallen in love with?
♥ How will you constructively leverage the labyrinth, with some lovin’?
♥ What are the conditions for love to flourish?
♥ This is about claiming your own learning; everything we will discuss is already in you and we are going to honor you by creating a space to bring it out…
Prompt Supplements
“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread. It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous foam rubber that we have substituted for it. (43).♥
“All of us know, whether or not we are able to admit it, that mirrors can only lie, that death by drowning is all that awaits one there. It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so cunningly avoided. Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth” (95).♥
♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥
CTE EVENT–May 7, 2010
Posted by Monique Williams on March 25, 2010 in Basic Skills in Context, Career Technical Education, Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIG), Uncategorized with No Comments
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.
Archives
- January 2011
(1 Post)
- November 2010
(1 Post)
- October 2010
(3 Posts)
- September 2010
(2 Posts)
- August 2010
(1 Post)
- July 2010
(1 Post)
- June 2010
(1 Post)
- May 2010
(3 Posts)
- April 2010
(2 Posts)
- March 2010
(4 Posts)
- February 2010
(4 Posts)
- January 2010
(5 Posts)
- December 2009
(1 Post)
- November 2009
(9 Posts)
- October 2009
(15 Posts)
- September 2009
(3 Posts)
- August 2009
(1 Post)
- July 2009
(3 Posts)
- June 2009
(9 Posts)
- May 2009
(10 Posts)
- April 2009
(8 Posts)
- March 2009
(59 Posts)
- February 2009
(33 Posts)
Recent Post
-
FIN Conference Celebration March 4-5, 2011
by Monique Williams with No Comments
Registration for the conference is open, please register asap http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CQ2NQTQ. Conference registration cost is $50.00 for no... -
Student Run Conference Supported by FIN
by Monique Williams with No Comments
I hope that all of you can attend the Umoja VI student run conference that is being assisted by FIN. The students have come up with many creative appr... -
Parachutes and Ladders X: Celebrating Student Engagement Save the Date for Spring 2011
by Jamie Chandler with No Comments

-
FIN goes to Student Success 2010
by Jamie Chandler with No Comments
Click here to view:
FIN Leadership's Pre Conference Session, Exploring Inquiry: Ideas and Innovations from the Faculty Inquiry Network
Click here ... -
Exploring Routines for Instruction
by Jan Connal with No Comments
Exploring Routines for Instruction
-
Train-the-trainer: Industry2Classroom Teacher Preperation Pipeline
by Jamie Chandler with No Comments
One thing great teachers have in common, no matter what they teach, is skill. They make accommodating 30 or more different learning styles and mul...
Categories
- Acceleration
(5 Posts)
- Basic Skills in Context
(19 Posts)
- Carnegie Perspectives
(1 Post)
- Developing Questions
(9 Posts)
- Equity
(12 Posts)
- Facilitating FIGs
(2 Posts)
- Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIG Posts)
(25 Posts)
- FIN Grant Logistics
(7 Posts)
- Integrative Learning
(6 Posts)
- Learning Communities
(10 Posts)
- Learning to Learn
(29 Posts)
- Literacy
(20 Posts)
- Making Visible
(46 Posts)
- Math
(12 Posts)
- Performance Assessment
(1 Post)
- Pre/Post
(4 Posts)
- Proposals
(23 Posts)
- Revised Inquiry Plans
(20 Posts)
- Student Teams
(6 Posts)
- Student Voice
(34 Posts)
- Surveys
(8 Posts)
- Teaching Problem Solving
(3 Posts)
- Technology
(19 Posts)
- Think Alouds
(4 Posts)
- Uncategorized
(87 Posts)
- Using Institutional Research
(7 Posts)
Tags
Tag Cloud
Achievement Gap
Add new tag
African American students
Budget
Cerritos
cerritos college
Chabot
Co-Inquirers
Cognitive development
ece program
Empowerment
Engagement
English
Filming
Habits of Mind
Home Page
hunch
Identity
inquirers
inquiry team
Institutional Data
lesson study
Making Visible
Math
Metacognition
Metacognition Self-Efficacy Inquiry
network budget
Persistence
pre algebra
Progress to Transfer
Puente program
Reading
retreats
Revised Inquiry Plan
san diego mesa
Santa Ana
stipends
Student Interviews
Student Teams
Student Voice
Student Voices
Success
Tutorial
Video
WordPress Acceleration (5)
Basic Skills in Context (16)
Career Technical Education (10)
Carnegie Perspectives (1)
Developing Questions (9)
Equity (12)
Facilitating FIGs (2)
Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIG) (25)
Fear (11)
FIN Grant Logistics (7)
Identity (17)
Integrative Learning (6)
Learning Communities (10)
Learning to Learn (17)
Literacy (16)
Making Visible (29)
Math (12)
Metacognition (18)
Multimedia (21)
Performance Assessment (1)
Pre/Post (4)
Proposals (23)
Reading (13)
Revised Inquiry Plans (20)
Student Confidence (17)
Student Interviews (21)
Student Teams (6)
Student Voice (31)
Surveys (8)
Teaching Problem Solving (3)
Technology (19)
Think Alouds (4)
Uncategorized (87)
Using Institutional Research (7)
Video Evidence (26)
Writing (10)
Tagnetic Poetry by Roy Tanck and Merel Zwart requires Flash Player 9 or better.
lesson study
Links
- "How Was The Ride"–Comprehensive view of Accelerated Classrooms
- "Releasing the Trap"–Making the Case for Acceleration in California
- Academic Sustainability Gap
- Acceleration in Context
- Carnegie Conversation about Lesson Study
- Carnegie Foundation
- Faculty Inquiry Network
- The Umoja Community
- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- WP Documentation
- WP Support Forum





