NCC The Little Train That Did! Successfully Writing to the New Criteria!

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NCCThe Little TrainThat Did!Successfully
Writing to the New Criteria!

• Northwest Iowa Community College
• Sheldon, IA

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Your Conductors Today Are

• Steve Pearce
• Rhonda Pennings
• Gretchen Bartelson
• Alethea Stubbe

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All Aboard!
Organizing Getting Started

• Steve Pearce
• NCA Co-Chair

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• NCC
• Organization
• Advantages
• NCA Alert Campus Newsletters

All Aboard!
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Leaving the Station
The writing of the first drafts and the first
work of editing.

• Rhonda Pennings
• NCA Editing Team

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• Writing in teams
• First Drafts First Editing
• Institutional Challenges
• Food helps

Leaving the Station
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Keeping on Track In spite of Detours, Delays
Changes in Destination.

• Gretchen Bartelson
• Editing Team Final Editor

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Main Issues
Editing team

• The Editor
• Avoiding Duplication the New Criteria
• Writing Tips
• Graphic Design Layout

Keeping on Track
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Keeping on Track
The Editor Editing Team

• Find an editor with the time to do the Job!
• Get a good technical writer
• Maybe a journalist or a grant-writer

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Dont write in Silos!
The Editor Editing Team

• The Editor or Editing Team must work
  with all writing teams from the beginning.

• An Editing Team with representatives from all
  Writing Teams?

Keeping on Track
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Have a Retreat

• Spend time analyzing the

• 5 Criteria
• 21 Core Components
• and suggested patterns of evidence

Keeping on Track
New Criteria
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Writing to the New Criteria

• Redundancy, redundancy more redundancy!

Maybe not!

• Schedule brain-storming sessions Turn the Ball!

Keeping on Track
New Criteria
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Turning the Ball

• or learning to take a look at something from
  all sides even if it is round.

• What are they looking for? Look at the
  language.

Keeping on Track

• When two groups use the same evidence for
  different points are they making the right
  distinction?

New Criteria
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• Mission and Integrity
• Preparing for the Future
• Student Learning Effective Teaching
• Acquisition, Discovery Application of Knowledge
• Engagement and Service

Keeping on Track
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Its about Your College!

• Find YOUR OWN patterns of evidence.
• Snapshot of your college set an end date for
  data/ language.
• What are YOU good at?

Keeping on Track
New Criteria
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Its about Your College!

• None of us does it all
• Dont hide your shortcomings admit them.
• Try to have a plan for addressing those
  shortcomings

Keeping on Track
New Criteria
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• We avoided redundancy by putting common material
  in the appendix/resource room
• We looked at what was really different about
  similar patterns of evidence
• Combined patterns that were similar
• Used introductory paragraphs about key ideas

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The Mysterious
CROSS CUTTING THEMES

• They did appear!
• We used pull-out quotes in the margins and color
  coded them.

Keeping on Track
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Keeping on Track
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Our New Branding
Keeping on Track
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Writing tips
Writing Tips

• Make it clear and easy to read
• Use a journalistic approach to writing.

Keeping on Track
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The Inverted Pyramid
Writing Tips

• Put the most important information first

Put the supporting information elsewhere
Keeping on Track
Use Language that is descriptive and to the point.
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Lori Richards the other member of our
team!
Layout Design

• Get a GREAT Graphic Designer!

Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
Layout Design

• Graphically outline the criteria, core components
  and patterns of evidence.

Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
Layout Design

• Lots of white space judicious use of color.

Keeping on Track
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Black Blue
Layout Design
Color in Charts
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Layout Design
Layout Design

• 12 pt Times Roman about 1.25 spacing
• 2 inch margin on the right for appearance and for
  note taking.

Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
2 Inch Margins
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Do not make the reader look for anything ever!
Layout Design

• Put page numbers for the appendix in the
  self-study
• Websites
• Reference Room

Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
Keeping on Track
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Layout Design
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Coming intothe Station
Working with the Higher Learning Commission,
Outside entities, and the Visiting Team

• Alethea Stubbe
• NCA Co-Chair

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• Working with the Higher Learning Commission
• Outside entities
• The Visiting Team

Coming into the Station
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Reaching our Destination

• Organized document resource room
• Campus wide participation
• Honest snapshot reflected who we were
• Plans to address issues esp. assessment
• Demonstrated ability to get things done

The Journeys End
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The View from the Caboose.
The Journeys End
Questions?