FIN Commons

SUMMARY

The proposed project will focus on enhancing the contextualized basic skills curriculum in Fresno City College’s Career Advancement Academy. The faculty team, comprising English, Math, and Automotive instructors, will examine current contextualized Math and English courses in the Automotive strand of the Career Advancement Academy. The team will evaluate the effectiveness of the current model through pre- and post-course assessments, student interviews, faculty consultation, and data analysis, and will revise course content and structures as appropriate to enhance student success in the Career Advancement Academy and beyond.

Team Leader:
Tamara Glover / Career Advancement Academy Coordinator
559-442-4600 x 2113 Fax: 559-498-8350
tamara.glover@fresnocitycollege.edu
Team Members:
Debbie Ockey / English
Rebecca Benas / English
Rosemarie Bezerra-Nadar / Math
Michael Chicconi / Automotive Technology
Michael Haney / Automotive Technology

PLANS FOR DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

A. Zoom-Lens Inquiry: Focusing on Students
1) What data will you gather and analyze on individual students? (e.g. student work, self-reflections, interviews, videotaped think-alouds or problem-solving) Using a Lesson Study we plan to evaluate the opportunities for the Basic Arithmetic course. Video taping student work, self-reflections, interviews, think-alouds and problem-solving will be the way in which we capture the students perspective in regards to this Basic Arithmetic Class

2) How do you imagine this data will help you understand the problem/issue you’re investigating? In other words, how does the data connect to and inform the overall focus of your inquiry? We have an immediate problem of low success rates in the math class. We think that by watching students solve problems at the board and interviewing them, we can identify where the students are getting stuck. Once we identify the sticking points, we plan to evaluate the current process and identify where we need to make changes.

3) When and how will you collect this data? (e.g. Which classes will you target? Where will you conduct interviews or think-alouds?) We will begin our analysis in the beginning of March. Our FIN Team will be part of the observation process. We intend to be able to make adjustments for the next course. We will then repeat the process with the next 9-week course.

4) When will you analyze this data? (e.g. mid-semester team retreat, after lesson-study session, at the end of the semester; ) We will have an immediate debriefing after the lesson study. We will then have 3 afternoon sessions to continue our evaluation. During these afternoon sessions we will review the student video and work towards identifying the issues and possible solutions.

5.) How will you analyze the data? (e.g. analyzing student work with a rubric or analytic frame like Polya’s method for problem-solving or Perry’s scheme for student development; analyzing themes in student self-reflections according to their performance in the class – how did the responses of students who did not pass compare/contrast with students who performed well?) To evaluate effectiveness on a student level, we will analyze test scores, assignment success, speak aloud responses, video interviews, and attitudes toward success, using a rubric as a general guideline to analyze growth and success. (See Rubric on Desktop.)

6) What questions/concerns do you have about this element of your Inquiry? How can your Inquiry Coach support you in this phase of your Inquiry? None

B. Mid-Range Shots: Focusing on the Classroom

1) Please name ONE specific lesson in a particular course that will give you a good vantage point for observing student learning relevant to your Inquiry. Within the Math 250 Basic Arithmetic course we will be evaluating the application of unit fractions.

2) How do you imagine the Lesson Study will help you understand the problem/issue you’re investigating about students and their learning? In other words, how does it connect to and inform the overall focus of your inquiry? We have taken an 18-week Basic Arithmetic course and converted it to 9 weeks. We have a variety of social and academic weaknesses with our student population. The students “don’t like math.” We have many areas that could be barriers. As we evaluate the Lesson Study, we will be able to more clearly identify what the sticking points are rather then hypothesizing on the changes that have been made or the difficulties our students face. Once these determinations are made we will then be able to use the knowledge as a platform for evaluating our contextualized math course.

3) When and how will your team conduct this Lesson Study? Please detail the timeframes and participants for the three parts of the Lesson Study process (collaboratively planning the lesson, teaching/observing the lesson, and debriefing/analyzing videotapes & student work from the lesson).
Our Team (Rebecca-English, RoseMarie-Math, Michael-auto, Tamara) will be meeting Thursday, March 5th to begin the planning process. The Observation of the lesson will take place by March 13th. Our follow up meetings will take place; March 13th, March 20th, and March 27th.

4) What kinds of things will the observers be looking/listening for during the lesson? What artifacts of student learning and student experience will the team collect during the lesson? Will you videotape any portion of this process (pre-planning, lesson, debrief)? We will be meeting this Thursday in order to plan for the Lesson Study. We will be videotaping the students work, their work on the board, and conducting student interviews. We will be reviewing all of this data together as a team.

5) What questions/concerns do you have about this element of your Inquiry? How can your Inquiry Coach support you in this phase of your Inquiry? We will probably have questions once we are in the middle of evaluating the Lesson Study.

C. Wide-Angle Lens: Focusing on Larger Trends in Institutional Data

1) What data from your Institutional Research Office will you integrate into your Inquiry? For example, will you look at patterns of student success, defined as grades of CR, A,B, C? Retention rates (completion of semester without withdrawl)? Persistence from one semester to the next, or from one course to the next in a sequence? Comparisons of student outcomes disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, age? Data from surveys on student engagement? For a sample Inquiry using this kind of data, go to http://facultyinquiry.net and look for the category “Using Institutional Research,” then see the Learning Community Impact study posted there.) We will be comparing CAA student success rate in Math 250 to that of non CAA student success in Math 250. At this point, we are not looking at going much past that level. At the next stage, we will be using a lot more institutional research.

2) How do you imagine this data will help you understand the problem/issue you’re investigating? In other words, how does the data connect to and inform the overall focus of your inquiry? It will allow us to evaluate if our CAA approach to the Basic Arithmetic class is improving success rates.

3) What questions/concerns do you have about this element of your Inquiry? How can your Inquiry Coach support you in this phase of your Inquiry? Do we need to have much more institutional research at this level?

D. Video Footage
We are asking each team to collect at least 10 hours of video footage in the Spring semester.

1) Beyond plans detailed above, please describe any additional footage you intend to gather. We have already collected 3 hours of video footage. The Lesson Study should generate numerous hours of footage. We will be videotaping student responses to other activities that we are having the students participate in.

2) How will this footage inform the central questions of your Inquiry? With the pre and post student interviews and “aha” moments along the way, our video footage will demonstrate the effectiveness of the CAA approach.

3) What questions/concerns do you have about this element of your Inquiry? Is there any support you’d like from the FIN Leadership Team in this area? None

E. Inclusion of Student Voices

As noted during the Kick-Off Convening, an additional $1,000 will be made available to each team to support making student voices a central part of each Inquiry. We encourage you to be creative and draw upon students as co-inquirers who can provide expertise in helping you understand the problem/issue you are investigating. Please describe how you plan to include student voices in your Inquiry (e.g. hiring students to capture video footage, interview other students, review data from your inquiry and tell you what they see). We have designated funds to compensate two student assistants. These student assistants’ primary responsibility will be to participate in our collaboration meetings and capture video.

TIMELINE/CALENDAR
So that we can visualize how the work will proceed over the next several months, please give a timeline for when the above components will occur. It can be in either calendar or outline format.

March 5th – FIN Lesson Study Planning Session
March 3rd – Tamara to meet with Student Assistance to determine Video Direction
March 4th – Students begin videoing in classrooms and Student Interviews
March 10th – FIN Lesson Study in room T-109 at 1pm
March 10th – FIN Lesson Study Debriefing
March 13th – FIN Lesson Study – Review Video and collaboration
March 16th – Beginning of 2nd 9 week Math 250 Class
March 20th – FIN Lesson Study – Review Video and collaboration
March 27th – FIN Lesson Study – Review Video and collaboration