Classroom Research (“Some Complicating Evidence”)

January 11, 2009

adapted from, “Asking Their Own Questions: Some ESL Students Take Chare of Their Reading,” Annie Agard (Laney College) 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 […]

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Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs), Faculty Portfolios, Performance Assessment, Pre/post Testing, Reading, Surveys, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Two Versions of a Self-Assessment Survey (writing)

January 11, 2009

from The Power of the Pursuit, Suzanne Crawford, Lydia Alvarez, and Lynn Serwin (Cerritos College) ———- Two Versions of a Student Self-Assessment Survey, Suzanne Crawford Surveys mapping student progress in using more effective and detailed language in writing: 2006 survey: Hello English 20 Students! As you all know, we have been working this semester to, […]

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Pre/post Testing, Student Confidence, Surveys, Uncategorized, Writing | Comments Off

Moments of Difficulty: Two Teachers’ Insights

November 14, 2008

Adapted from Beverly DiSalvo and Shirley Kahlert (Merced College), “An Integrated Model: A Cluster of Pedagogies.” We gain understanding by asking students what they are thinking It is impossible to predict what a student might be thinking or how someone might be working to understand a concept. We have learned to watch for “moments of […]

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The Power of Collaboration: Three Faculty, Common Process

November 14, 2008

From Lydia Alvarez, Suzanne Crawford, and Lynn Serwin, “The Solution: The Power of the Pursuit” Most instructors want to make changes to their classses in order to see their students improve, but many do not know what to do to guarantee that they succeed. We too had this dilemma. We often wondered if the changes […]

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The Before and After Reading Tool

November 14, 2008

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 […]

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Pre/post Testing, Reading, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Measuring Student Perceptions of Confidence

November 14, 2008

From Pat Wagener, Can Problem Solving Become a Habit of Mind? Pat says: Students’ own perceptions of their math skills and abilities are often considered as anecdotal evidence, rather than factual information that has been quantified. In a meeting at the start of the Fall 2006 semester, this subject came up, and it occurred to […]

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Pre/post Testing, Student Confidence, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Think Alouds in an English Course

November 14, 2008

A focus on students and their learning is central to the faculty inquiry process. Consider Katalina Wethington, who participated in a scholarship of teaching and learning seminar at Los Medanos College in fall 2006. Wethington was puzzled by a problem in a developmental English course one level below freshman English. In Wethington’s case, the problem […]

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Three Models for Faculty Inquiry Groups

November 14, 2008

SPECC campuses explored many models for bringing people together in faculty inquiry groups, which varied depending on the circumstances of the college, the history of faculty collaboration in developmental education, the creativity of the coordinators, and the purpose at hand. Some groups emphasized individual projects; others focused on a theme of common concern. Some involved […]

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FIGs: The Importance of Collaboration

November 14, 2008

Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs) treat professional development as a collaborative enterprise. One of the most persistent impediments to educational improvement is that teachers have-because institutions provide-so few purposeful, constructive occasions for sharing what they know and do with one another. Thus, one of the most important moves a campus can make is to create occasions […]

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Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs), Uncategorized | Comments Off

Common Exams as Prompts for Improvement

November 14, 2008

Glendale Community College’s mathematics program, in 2000, instituted a common final examination for all sections of pre-collegiate algebra. The department produces tabularized information after each examination in order to show, among other things, the dropout rate and mean GPA for each class, as well as the performance of each class (properly coded to ensure anonymity) […]

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Common Exam, Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs), Uncategorized | Comments Off