WLDC Announcements
- Please see the email that Shawn sent out last week, which explains why it’s a good idea to take your class in to visit the Writing and Language Development Center. (She sent it Jan 21; it was a reply to my email, so the subject line should read “Reminder: English Department meeting Tuesday.”)
- The email also includes an attached homework assignment that Shawn uses, based on assignments from Katie Oesau and Brian Jukes, which requires students to get feedback from the WLDC before turning in an essay.
- The WLDC also offers tutoring for online students. For more information about that, see the email from Kiara Koenig (date: Jan 22, Subject: “re: Online Tutoring support (for students taking online English classes only”). It includes an explanation of what’s offered, and a couple examples of language used in online courses to introduce the support services.
- Kiara sent a second email about the WLDC more generally, with a couple additional ways to promote and incorporated the WLDC into your courses (date: Jan 22, Subject: “More ways to Promote & Incorporate the WLDC).
PSLO Work Reminder
Full-time faculty: Remember that a draft Program-level SLO is due for discussion at the Feb 18 department meeting. We agreed to develop 5 SLOs, with the following faculty attached to each:
- Rhetorical choices – Cassandra, Shawn
- Critical reading – Greg
- Writing process – Jukes
- Writing as art; appreciation – Zack
- Traditions – Carrie, Kiara
If you’re a part-timer and would like to join in, please contact the person(s) attached to the SLO that interests you. (Condrey and Kyra–feel free to attach yourself to one as well.)
Summer schedule update
Since the meeting, I’ve moved on to contacting part-timers who have return rights. It’s still in process–it’s a short list of classes, but it’s still a bit of a jigsaw. I’ll be out of town for the next couple of days, but I hope to finish and turn it in early next week.
Curriculum updates
- ENGL 1E (the replacement for the co-req 1A + 10) is being offered for Fall 2020. There are still a few questions to clear up around general education and transfer. More to follow on that.
- ENGL 1B has been launched. (For those who don’t remember: we chose to keep the Course Outline of Record the same, and to change the number of units to 4. For more information on that, search in your email for a message from me (Date: 11/22/19; Subject: “English faculty: important ENGL 1B survey, redux). Obviously, the survey is no longer active, but the information about why we had to make a decision is there.
- As far as I can tell, only two courses have yet to be launched, in our process of updating curriculum every 5 (?) years. Condrey is working on them.
- Carrie and I will meet to talk through the issues around whether or not we should reconsider our local English AA degree. On the one hand, it’s very close to the AA-T now (with the 1B change), so we’ll probably need to justify it. On the other hand, some of the options we wanted to offer our students (e.g., different “paths” toward publication, literature, or composition) may be precluded by the AA-T degree. We’ll figure out the situation and bring a clear explanation to the department.
- A moratorium [I just learned that I don’t know how to spell that word…] on curriculum begins March 2, which is why we’re working to get as much of this done quickly. We’ll be able to look at, but not launch or revise, anything in curriculum through at least the rest of the semester, and probably the summer. Training on the new system should happen during convocation week in fall. (Fingers crossed… the last three-month moratorium took something like a year and a half….)
Professional development
This semester, no one is taking on an official position of coordinating the same type of Teaching Community that we had last semester. Part of it is time (stipends don’t generate time); part of it is the complexity of finding a time when a maximal number of folk can attend. So, instead, we’re exploring two things:
- Shawn is going to run a book club, reading Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Shawn will be in touch with more information–the extent to which it will be face-to-face or online, etc. We’re also going to try to use funds we have in a Foundation account to pay for the book for interested part-time faculty. Again, watch for a communique from Shawn.
- Kiara may organize a “Partnership Plus” program, which will pair faculty together for small study-group partnerships (two? three?). These will be flexible, but there will be requirements (e.g., an inquiry topic, a report in a larger group setting toward the end of the semester) so that we can offer stipends to part-time faculty.
Note that I may have misconstrued some details on these. Please don’t hold Shawn or Kiara to anything I’ve written here; I’m just offering my best recollection of the discussion. They’re in charge of the details.
SLO Comments
The last question of the SLO reporting survey asks for comments or suggestions. I collected those comments on this document, in case there’s anything we want to discuss.
[Update: I forgot this on first draft] We determined (last semester) that students who do not participate in the assessment should not be included in the SLO results. I will work to make sure this is made clear for the next SLO reporting survey.
Future agenda items
I created a board where I’ll collect and organize upcoming agenda items. Feel free to drop in and take a look and, if you notice anything missing, or have something you’d like to add, let me know. I’ll try to keep it updated.
You may, of course, click on that link. But if you’re not on this page, I made a reasonably memorable bitly link that you can use: bit.ly/yce-agenda
(yce = Yuba College English, in case you wondered…)