Cerritos College Faculty Inquiry

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Cerritos College Faculty Inquiry

• Improving Academic Achievement
• byAssessing Student Learning in Developmental
  English and Math
• Jan Connal, Patty George, Frank Mixson Lynn
  Serwin

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Our Fundamental Premise

• When faculty members spend more time
  collaborating and closely assessing student
  learning, their teaching practices improveThis,
  in turn, improves student learning and success.

• Rather than investigate teaching methods
  directly, we are finding and assessing evidence
  of what and how developmental English and math
  students learn.

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Faculty Participants Added Incrementally
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3-semester Assessment Inquiry Cycle
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What Faculty are Assessing

• English faculty
• Student Writings to detect
• use of supporting details
• construction of coherent paragraphs

• Math faculty
• Student Think Alouds to reveal understanding of
  Word Problems in
• Basic Math
• Pre-Algebra
• Elementary Algebra

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What Were Learning from the Inquiry Projects in
English

• Students
• notice that good writers use details to enhance
  their points
• can analyze their own writing, pointing out
  details and explaining exactly why the details
  are important to their point
• write confidently and creatively if they take
  risks
• who become advanced writers are those who use
  more complex sentence structures because
  they value building connections and transitions
  between ideas

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Assessment

• Use of rubrics to discover learning
• Details project individual rubrics for each
  writing assignment
• Risk-taking project overall rubric on skills
  assessment for all assignments
• Revision of rubrics student work indicated a
  need for a change and/or additional rubrics.

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Rubric for Writing Supporting Paragraphs with
Specific, Engaging Examples
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Change in Pedagogy

• Create a rubric just for specific details in
  paragraphs.
• Instructor change in skills evaluation

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Details Assessment

• Pedagogical Intervention 1
• create descriptive details at a sentence level
• Pedagogical Intervention 2
• create descriptive details at a paragraph level
  including a group revision

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What We Are Learning from Inquiry Projects in
Mathematics

• Students are more successful in solving
  problems when they
• are familiar with the type of problem
• organize their work in a meaningful way
• are willing to experiment with problem solving
  techniques and strategies that are different from
  those previously learned
• check their work before stating conclusions

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Activity
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What We Are Learning from Inquiry Projects in
Mathematics

• Students are less successful in solving
  problems when they
• are not familiar with the type of problem
• record their work in a sloppy and disorganized
  fashion
• parrot problem solving processes
• insist on using problem solving techniques and
  strategies that they practice incorrectly
• state conclusions prior to rechecking the work

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The Think Aloud Process

• Students enrolled in the following classes were
  recorded solving problems outside of the context
  of the classroom. The recordings were not
  conducted by the course instructor.
• Basic Arithmetic
• Pre Algebra
• Beginning Algebra

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Examples of Prompts Used for the Pre Algebra
class

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The First Prompt

• Solve for x

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The Second Prompt

• Frank has 58 in his wallet today. Renee has
  half of that amount in her wallet.
• How much does Renee have in her wallet?

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The Third Prompt

• There was of a pizza in Jans refrigerator.
  She ate half of that and left the rest for her
  husband.
• What part of the pizza was left for her
  husband?
• Answer in a complete sentence.

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What qualities interfere with the students
ability to solve simple problems?
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Observation and Analysis in Process

• Positive Evidence of Student Learning
• Evidence Demonstrating Lack of Understanding

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Video Clips
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Students Still Struggle in Performing the Four
Basic Operations on Whole Numbers Quickly and
Confidently
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Persistent and Perplexing Issues

• Language difficulties for second language
  learners
• Lack of understanding key concepts or ideas
• (i.e., adding details)
• Poor class attendance
• Insufficient time spent outside of class on
  homework and studying
• Failing to check, correct or question ones own
  work
• Unwillingness or inability to experiment with new
  methods or ideas

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Future Directions

• To better understand some of these persistent
  concerns we are developing Learning Communities
  to link developmental courses with student
  development courses

• Counseling faculty are pairing up with English
  and Math faculty to teach two Learning
  Communities, one each for
• Developmental English
• Developmental Math
• These faculty are also engaging in joint evidence
  inquiry projects

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• Thank You