Using Foundations Of Excellence to Consolidate Learning Outcomes for the First Year

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Using Foundations Of Excellence to Consolidate
Learning Outcomes for the First Year

• Dr. Beth Bir
• Dr. Oliver Johnson
• Dr. Peter Valenti

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Sources of Information

• CBASE
• NSSE
• FSSE
• FOE 9 Dimension Committees
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• CLA
• Noel Levitz SSI
• Accuplacer results
• BCSSE

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Sources of Information

• CBASE
• NSSE
• FSSE
• FOE 9 Dimension Committees
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• CLA
• Noel Levitz SSI
• Accuplacer results
• BCSSE

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We need a roadmap so many choices !
Source http//www.leanstrategies.com/images/servi
ces-roadmap.gif
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Scaffolding necessary for learning
Source http//flickr.com/photos/annp/2079129952/
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Pre-FOE Issues

• Retention
• Student Academic Performance
• Ratio of hours earned to hours attempted
• Conclusions

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Responses to these challenges

• FOE as an umbrella
• Student Affairs
• Academic Affairs
• Hidden Issues of student persistence

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What we learn from the data required for FOE

• NSSE
• Faculty Survey
• Student Survey

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What learning from the data required for FOE

• Inquiry learning
• Transfer theory
• Scaffolding to accommodate first two categories
• Importance of scaffolding questions to engage
  studentscf. Robert Leamnson, Thinking about
  Teaching and Learning (Sterling, VA Stylus, 1999)

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What discussion resulting from FOE Dimensional
Committee work reveals

• Complexities of student experience
• Points of intersecting student concerns,
  interests, and perplexities

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A Perpetual Dilemma

• Institutional Culture (Agreed upon indices of
  student performance behavioral objectives,
  learning outcomes)

• Individual Practices (discipline specific
  training, expectations, traditional ways of doing
  business)

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What Has FOE Taught Us Thus Far?

• Wealth of information available
• Rewards of cross-comparing data from various
  sources to provide new perspectives on recurring
  issues

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Example of New KnowledgeLimitations of Our
Connections with Students Families

• Considered previously in only limited fashion
  Family Association indicated an attempt at
  creating a relationship but FOE Student Survey
  shows that this was clearly ineffective

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Move toward Solution

• Purchase for each students family a copy of
  Empowering First Year Students
• Establish a curriculum for family members to use
  the booklet and develop an action plan to be a
  positive agent in their childs education
• Rejuvenate Parents Association committee by
  seeking leadership with commitment to the task

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Tendency to worry about student abilities

• NSSE data shows we actually need to require more
  of students (statistically significant figures
  lower than selected Carnegie peers)
• 1.c. Prepared two or more drafts of a paper or
  assignment before handing it in
• 1.q. Received prompt written or oral feedback
  from faculty on your academic performance
• 1.r. Worked harder than you thought you could to
  meet an instructors standards or expectations

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Unanticipated Benefits from FOE

• Self-evaluation and reflection have enabled us to
  find missing written information that we presumed
  to exist this demonstrates that we are probably
  operating on numerous errors, both conceptual and
  strategic, that may cause us to go astray.

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Committee Composition Bridging Gaps

• Dimension Committee members from all parts of
  campus participate in sharing perspectives about
  how to enrich student experiences and make them
  more effective learners. We academic types
  didnt know we had so much to learn! The
  challenge of improving attendance in freshman
  classes may be more closely related to increasing
  attendance at cultural events such as Three Mo
  Tenors than many of use would have realized when
  we started this process.Dr. David Preston

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• Speaking as a faculty member who teaches only
  upper division classes, the FOE process has
  allowed me the opportunity to interact with
  colleagues from across the campus and hear
  different views and concerns related to
  first-year students that I would not otherwise be
  privy to. It has been a rewarding learning
  experience that has allowed me to reflect on how
  we can all serve the needs of first-year
  students.Dr. Colleen Walker

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Student Affairs Needs

• Better understanding of all the ramifications of
  diversity
• Health care professional prepared to address
  specific needs of first year

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Surveys Reveal Disconnects

• Q10SS 50.3 answered 4/5 To what degree has
  this institution communicated the importance of
  out-of-class activities?
• Q21FS 71.1 answered 4/5 To what degree can you
  correctly refer new students regarding becoming
  involved with an institution-sponsored
  organization/event?

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Surveys Warn Us

• Q7SS Only 39.9 responded 4/5 to To what degree
  has this institution connected you with faculty
  members outside of class?
• Q17SS Only 35 responded 4/5 to exposure to
  world cultures
• Q18SS Only 27.6 responded 4/5 to exposing you
  to world religions

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Point to Ponder

• SS Qs 47-51 reveal generally low correlations
  between course requirements and basic academic
  requirements
• SS Qs 55-60 indicate high estimates of the
  instructor and her/his attitude toward students

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How Can FOE Help Us to Improve the Data We Find
Critical?

• The inquiry learning is finebut exactly how do
  we overlay the FOE data?
• Should we increase the outside of class
  experiences that may influence in-class
  activityand should we attempt to involve parents
  in this process?
• Should we step up our demands on students so that
  fewer will say they are not being challenged
  sufficiently?

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• Institutional culture dictates learning practices
  and teaching techniques that may differ from
  those learned in discipline specific graduate
  programs.
• Modes of learning to achieve mastery in the
  discipline will almost certainly differ from
  those used by (required by) students learning
  these disciplines at introductory levels.

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How can FOE help us to resolve this dilemma?
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Metaphors of Foundation

• Structure
• Getting a handle on . . .
• Scaffolding
• Roadmap
• Central focus (for pre- and post-school
  conferences)

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Inquiry Based Learning

• The question is the key to learning.
• Memorizing facts and details is far less
  important than understanding how facts and
  details fit into larger wholes.
• Students play active roles in constructing their
  own knowledge.

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The Complexity of Inquiry Based Learning

• Despite its seeming simplicity, inquiry based
  learning requires
• Clear context for questions
• Foundation/Structure/Scaffolding for questions
• Perceivable focus for questions
• Appropriate levels of questions (order determined
  by learning needs)

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Scaffolding

• Primary metaphor for building learning structures
  capable of enabling and encouraging students to
  move along a standards-based curriculum
• Resonates with Lakoff Johnsons claims that
  understanding metaphor is the key to a powerful
  literacy

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Design Features for Disciplinary Literacy

• Identify theme
• Sort rigorous texts by difficulty/accessibility
• Emphasize both content thinking patterns
• Umbrella questions
• Note potential trouble spots
• Consider strategies to tackle difficulties
• Specific questions, writings, reflections
• Petrosky, A. (2006). Inquiry teaching
  learning in Doecke, Only connect English
  teaching and democracy. Kent Town, SAu,
  Wakefield Press

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Curricular Architecture

• Architectures represent structures that enable
  the development of coherent units of study built
  around interrelated sequences of texts and
  assignments.
• --Petrosky, Inquiry teaching learning

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Texts, Tasks, Talk Inquiry Teaching and Learning

• NCTE 2007 Workshop November 19, 2007 New York
  City
• Lead Presenter Anthony Petrosky
• Disciplinary Literacy Project
• Institute for Learning
• University of Pittsburgh

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One Crucial Model

• Carol D. Lee, Is October Brown Chinese? A
  Cultural Modeling Activity System for
  Underachieving Students, American Educational
  Research Journal, Spring 2001, Vol. 38, No. 1,
  pp. 97-141.
• Central text Maxine Claire, Rattlebone (Penguin,
  1994).

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Texts that facilitate learning for a unit on
miseducation

• Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
  Every Ghetto Every City
• Sonia Sanchez, Norma
• Sandra Cisneros, Eleven
• Sherman Alexie, Indian Education
• Gary Soto, The Jacket
• Lorna Dee Cervantes, Poets Progress
• Sandra Cisneros, Only Daughter

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Alan Lawrence Sitomer and Michael Cirelli,
Hip-Hop Poetry the Classics for the Classroom

• Complete lesson plans sequences of instruction
  aligned with California Language Arts Standards
• Pairs contemporary with classic texts
• Tupac Shakur, Me Against the World
• Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good
  Night

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Building Bridges of Accessibility NCTE review,
2005

• Sitomer, who also teaches a methods course for
  aspiring teachers at Loyola Marymount University,
  gives this example of how he works hip-hop poetry
  into his classroom After reading the lyrics to
  Three Strikes You In by the artist Ice Cube,
  students analyze the references to baseball and
  Californias three-strike system, discussing the
  racism inherent in the system. Then students read
  Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar, studying the
  symbolism of the caged bird. Next they compare
  and contrast the poems, looking for additional
  symbols that resonate with other books, songs,
  and films. Finally, they write poems that use
  symbolism.  

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Model Learning Activity

• Situates learner at a position where the learner
  does not feel threatened or devalued
• Allows learner to engage meaningful text that may
  resonate with personal experience
• Encourages revisiting of the text to answer
  crucial questions
• Generates opportunities to write/create texts in
  the students own voice but modeled on the texts
  provided
• Scaffolds experience of learning in classroom
  setting to lead easily to other, more complex
  experiences

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Larger Educational Contexts

• Work of William Glasser, esp. on Quality Schools
• Jonathan Kozol, Bearing Witness Addressing
  Inequities in Public Education NCTE address
  2007 work with beginning teachers
• Albert Mamary, Creating the Ideal School Where
  Teachers Want to Teach and Students Want to Learn
• Film texts Charles Burnett The Great Debaters

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How might we move forward?

• Next steps
• Evolution of what weve done so far measures?
• Where / when do we begin?
• Suggestions Advice for us? Tell us about your
  successes!