Basic Skills in Complex Contexts

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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.

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♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

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).♥

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Intersecting Literacies: What Happened At the Working Conference

Posted by Jamie Chandler on April 20, 2010 in Equity, Integrative Learning, Literacy, Making Visible, Metacognition, Multimedia, Reading, Student Confidence, Student Voice, Technology, Video Evidence, Writing with No Comments


Hello and welcome to the home of Intersecting Literacies, a working conference held at San Diego Mesa College April 16th 2010. Here you will find materials passed out to participants as well as the responses and “queens” we collected. Stay tuned!

Click here for the Intersecting Literacies  Multi-Modal Packet

Click above to see the Post its we compiled at Mesa, April 16th

Click the fun colored paper to read the “Queens” produced by the participants of Intersecting Literacies.

Click to go back to the Flyer and Intersecting Literacies’ Homepage

FIN goes to Achieving the Dream!

Posted by Jamie Chandler on February 25, 2010 in Acceleration, Basic Skills in Context, Equity, Student Voice, Uncategorized with No Comments


The Faculty Inquiry Network was well represented at the recent Achieving The Dream Conference held  February 2nd through the 4th in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tom deWit, Katie Hern, and Sean McFarland presented at 4 breakout sessions:

  • Engaging Faculty and Staff in Student‐Centered Inquiry about Teaching,
  • Learning and Student Success, Accelerating Students’ Progress to College‐Level English and Math,
  • Listening to the Room: The Promise of Integrating Student Voices into Basic Skills Initiatives,
  • Equity as the Practice of Love and Liberation.

deWit and Hern also served as panel members in two Strategy Institute’s Focus Area Networking Sessions: Developmental English and Success Initiatives for Men of Color.

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FIN Co-Directors hold all the secrets to successful Inquiry in the Red Suitcase.

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Below are documents passed out in Charlotte, North Carolina:

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Engaging Faculty and Staff in Student‐Centered Inquiry about Teaching,Learning and Student Success:

Inquiry Process Graphic

FIN’S Guide to Faculty Inquiry


FIN’s Fall 2009 Newsletter

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Accelerating Students’ Progress to College‐Level English and Math:


Accelerating Student’s Progress Through College-Level English and Math PDF

Chabot College’s acceleration data



Paulo Freire excerpt from Ways of Reading: an Anthology for Writers

Stat Path Handout from Los Medanos College

Link to LMC Puente Math’s StatPath Video

Instructor Myra Snell’s Observations about this Video

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Listening to the Room: The Promise of Integrating Student Voices into Basic Skills Initiatives:

Summaries of all 778 Films Movies


Link to the movie “Listening to the Room”

Student Voices Across California Brochure

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Equity as the Practice of Love and Liberation:


Equity as the Practice of Love and Liberation PDF



Umoja’s Live Learning Handout


The Umoja Community’s Brochure

Link to the Umoja Community’s Website

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Laney FIN team discussion

Posted by Sonja Franeta on November 19, 2009 in Basic Skills in Context, Equity, Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIG), Fear, Identity, Integrative Learning, Learning Communities, Learning to Learn, Literacy, Making Visible, Metacognition, Student Confidence with 3 Comments


Discussion about student expectations of college and difficulties Latino students have with the idea of going to community college. Also, the benefits of doing the interviews by Esdras.

Generation 1.5 Survey (Santa Ana College)

Posted by Sandra Wood on March 12, 2009 in Equity, Identity, Literacy, Surveys with 2 Comments


 

 

 

Language Use Survey                                                                      (CATESOL Journal 14.1 2002)

 

Name: ________________________________

 

Note:  If you speak only English, and you don’t speak any other languages, please answer questions 1, and 4—7 only.

 

I.   My Background

                1.  I was born in the United States.       Yes _______     No _______

 

                2.  I was not born in the United States.  I was born in _______________________

                                                                                                                        (name of country)

                3.  I was not born in the U.S., but I came here when I was:

                                Under 5 years old

                                6—12 years old

                                13—18 years old

                                Over 18 years old

 

                4.  English was the first language I learned to speak.     Yes ______   No ______

                                If not English, I first learned to speak: _____________________ (language)

 

                5.  English was the first language I learned to write.      Yes ______   No ______

                                If not English, I first learned to write: _____________________ (language)

 

                6.  English was the first language I learned to read.       Yes ______   No ______

                                If not English, I first learned to read: _____________________ (language)

               

7.        I am a native speaker of English. ( I grew up speaking only English at home. )

Yes __________    No __________

 

8.   I am a non-native speaker of English.

           (I grew up speaking a different language at home.)       Yes _______    No _______

 

9.   I speak English as a second language.                Yes _______    No _______

 

10.  I am an ESL student.                                        Yes _______    No _______

 

11.  I am bilingual.                                                   Yes _______    No _______

 

12.  I am neither an ESL student nor bilingual.

   I am _____________________. (This best describes my language background.)

 

13.  What language do you speak most of the time with your friends?

 

 

14.  When you talk with others, do you switch from one language to another? 

                                                Yes _________      No __________

 

                If you switch from one language to another, what situation(s) are you in and who

                  are you when you do this?  ___________________________________________

                _________________________________________________________________

 

                Do you ever speak Spanglish (or a combination of two other languages?)  For

                  instance,  do you ever mix in Spanish words (or Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic…

                   words) while speaking English?         

Yes ________       No ___________

     Read the rest of this entry »

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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