In this presentation, Annie Agard presents a whole range of evidence gathered from her ESL classes. In this PowerPoint presentation, Agard shares many different findings from her classroom research on her ESL. class. The evidence is not only useful for ESL teachers but as a model of going public with classroom research.

The evidence covers many different kinds of methods for gathering student performance data, such as through pre/post data.

Some of her evidence is based on student attitudes and perspectives.

One of the consequences of her classroom research is the ways that she discovers “complicating evidence” from her students. One example of this is her analysis of perforamance and atittudes related to group work, where she discovered in part that some students who performed better through group work actually prefered working alone.

From David Reynolds (West Hills): “Helping Students Read Difficult Text”

ASSESSMENT of READING – Before helping my students read difficult text, I first had to know what, how and when they read. There are many Reading Inventories available and I chose to give my students the WestEd Reading Apprenticeship Student Reading Survey.

I needed to know…

What my students physically and mentally do when they actually read

Preconceived ideas as to what they believe makes a successful reader

What are the kinds and frequency of books they read

Do they socially share their reading experiences, and

What interests them in their reading.

Examining answers on a Reading Inventory helps me spot troublesome or unusual responses about their reading habits and thinking. Erroneous beliefs about their own reading skills need to be thought through, talked about, corrected and revised in their own minds if positive feelings about success in reading are going to be achieved.

From Lydia Alvarez, Cerritos College: “The Power of the Pursuit”

The Before and After is a reflective tool I have designed based on a handout I have been creating for my students since the beginning of my teaching career. I have always created handouts called “Celebrating Revision” where I have copied short excerpts from student papers before and after they were revised. Students respond enthusiastically to these dramatic “makeovers.” Even when I haven’t had the time to use examples from a class I am currently working with and have used a handout previously created with another class, there is very little detectable difference in the students’ enthusiastic response. Just like any “makeover” the value of this tool is in the “wow” factor.

Now, in my writer centered classroom, the Before and After tool has evolved into a two part activity requiring students to produce the before and after examples themselves. Any time student writers have more than one draft, they evaluate one of their own earlier drafts, looking for a moment that has dramatically changed in a later draft. They “take a picture” of both the before and after; meaning, they copy both excerpts exactly as they appear. The second part of this reflective tool asks students to describe the changes, explain why they made them and what effect they were hoping the change will have on their audience.

Choosing the revised moment and reflecting on its improvement encourages students with varying levels of confidence. This reflection also sets students up to be more actively involved in their writer’s groups. Writers are now better prepared to participate in response groups and to interact with their audience, to see whether or not the changes they made will have the effect they wanted.

See Lydia’s Tools Page here.

A unique example of inquiry emerged at Chabot College, where they aimed to capture student voices in a way that would catalyze improvement for both learners and teachers. Determined to frame basic skills as a challenge cutting across the curriculum-beyond English and mathematics (though they were the central focus of SPECC) and beyond courses designated as basic skills-Chabot set about to make reading an issue of broader concern and awareness across the campus:

We at Chabot College have been reflecting on basic skills ‘issues’ over the past two years, and we have begun to wonder whether our thinking about reading as a basic skill, as something our students should have learned in high school or in developmental English classes, might be working against us-and our students. The discussion of reading as a basic skill needs to come out of the hallways of English/ESL departments and be taken up by all disciplines. (Flyer for Chabot College regional conference on reading, 2007.)

Toward this end, the campus brought together a group of students who collaborated on a one-hour video that makes reading issues dramatically visible. The many students featured in the video talk about their (sometimes impoverished) history as readers, their reactions (frustration, withdrawal, excitement, urgency) when faced with unfamiliar and difficult texts, and the help that teachers do and (mostly) do not give when handing out reading assignments. The result, Reading Between the Lives, has been used in faculty development settings, and also in classrooms, where it has sparked conversations with and among students about their routines as readers, where they encounter roadblocks, and what strategies they find helpful.

Projects like these extend the meaning of inquiry by giving a central place to the student voice and underlining the need to find or create many more occasions when that voice can be captured and heard (Bueschel, Listening to Students about Learning, 2008).

Adapted from Basic Skills for Complex Lives: Designing for Learning in the Community College. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 2008. Strengthening Pre-Collegiate Education in the Community Colleges.

If you would like information about Reading Between Lives, contact Sean McFarland, The Making Visible Project. smcfarland@chabotcollege.edu; 510-723-7427.