Category: Faculty

The Yuba College English Department’s Unofficial Blog

Posted on

Notes from last week’s English Department meeting (1/15/19)

These are just notes from the items as they appeared on the “agenda-ish thing” that we used to structure the meeting.

Reminder: Syllabi to Sara

You probably saw Carla Tweed’s email reminding everyone to turn in a copy of each course syllabus to Sara. If you haven’t done that yet, please do. We need those for our records. (Sara’s email is sgaytan@yccd.edu. She’s fine with electronic copies.)

Meeting schedule

The English Dept. will be meeting every second and third Tuesday at noon, in Room 1171 (the journalism lab). The second Tuesday meeting will focus on business. The third Tuesday meeting will focus on discussions about teaching, textbooks, etc.

I will send an email out requesting agenda topic ideas for both categories–business we need to discuss, and teaching etc. issues we would like to discuss. Note that there are actually only three sets of meetings left for the semester, not including the end-of-semester SLO discussions, we we’ll need to be selective.

Also, the counselor who was “assigned” to the English Dept., David Perez, accepted my invitation for him to attend our business-focused meetings, to offer us a counselor’s perspective in some of our discussions.

SLO Update

(Note: this information is updated from the information that I had at the meeting): I just (today) received the links to the videos from the pre-semester SLO meetings we held the Thursday before classes started. I’m working on the closed captioning, in part because some of the discussion is really hard to hear. Since each of the three meetingw was an hour long, it will take me while to get the captioning edited (longer than just three hours).

I hope to distribute a brief version of the notes, plus a link to the captioned video (and supporting documents), early next week.

We will also have some SLO work–both Program SLOs, and course SLOs for our literature and other non-composition classes–to do during our business-focused meetings.

AB 705 Update

We spend some time answering some questions that Brian Jukes had forwarded about information gathering. I won’t go into the details here, in part because it is starting to look like the earth may shift under us again. I’ve been talking to the AB 705 workgroup about some rumors and rumors of rumors that have been rumbling, and I’m trying to nail down which of these are worth worrying about. So anything I write now would be uncertain and potentially confusing.

Posted on

Results of the Post-Final Meetings (Dec. 11-13)

We met to work on our SLOs, along with a few other things, on the three days after the scheduled final. I think the meeting was really positive; meeting as a department, both full- and part-time, is important–and will be more so given some of the changes in the works, primarily (thought not exclusively) regarding AB 705, as explained below.

So here are some highlights, including what we discussed, as well as some announcements and some decisions we made.

SLO Discussion

Issues

  • We didn’t all agree on some definitions of terms in the SLOs. The most obvious was the term “synthesize” (for 1A), but there were other examples as well.
  • We had a wide range of assessment methods, from specific assignments to more holistic assessments. Some of these might not fit the expectations for SLO assessment.
  • We haven’t had the opportunity to discuss ENGL 1B or 1C SLOs.
  • Discussion at the end of the semester is easily forgotten before the beginning of the semester, so we wondered about the timing of these meetings.

Decisions

We agreed to break these end-of-semester meetings into two separate meetings–one at the beginning of the semester, to discuss how we’ll define and assess that semester’s SLO; and one at the end of the semester, to discuss the results of that semester’s SLO assessments. 

Though the days will be distributed differently, this is the same work, so we plan to have part-time faculty sign in and be paid, as before.

The meeting before the semester begins:

  • One hour dedicated to each level: 1A, 56 (and 51) and 1B/1C.
  • Discussion with specific samples about the SLO, seeking agreement on definitions, assessment methods, and standards.
  • I will send an email requesting, for each course, assignments and/or writing samples (stripped of identifying information) that could be used to measure the SLO for that semester. This meeting won’t work if I don’t get those. So watch for that email.
  • We will try to record these meetings so that those who couldn’t attend will be able to listen (or watch?) the discussion. 
  • Next semester, we’ll be measuring the same SLOs that we measured this semester, but this will likely change each year (we’re required to measure each SLO at least once each four-year program review cycle.

The meeting after the semester begins will take place over two days, to accommodate MW and TTh teaching schedules.

AB 705

Over the past few months, we’ve been working to get ourselves set up to comply with AB 705 while still serving our students well–and without lowering standards, as many of us fear may be inevitable. Some highlights of that discussion:

  • For those who want background information, there are a few resources that you should check out:
  • Some decisions have already been put into place:
    • English 105 has been discontinued, effective Spring 2019 (next semester)
    • English 51 will be discontinued effective Fall 2019
    • Effective Fall 2019, we will offer, in effect, three levels of basic composition:
      • English 1A – for the highest placing students (high school GPA of 2.6 and up) 
      • English 1A plus a co-requisite, English 10 (see below) – for middle placing students (high school GPA of 1.9 up to 2.59)
      • English 56 – for students with high school GPA > 1.9.
    • English 10 has been approved by the curriculum committee.  The Course Outline of Record (which you can see on CurricuNet Meta) includes topics from ENGL 56 and 1A, with the instructor deciding what to select from among those topics based on the need of her specific students.
  • Some decisions are still being finalized:
    • We have a new, 5-unit course that, we hope, will replace ENGL 1A+10, but we will need to be sure that it will articulate with CSU and UC before we can offer it. Assuming that isn’t a problem, that would likely go into effect Fall 2020.
    • Beginning Fall 2019, we plan to offer on-going professional development that would include:
      • Readers Apprenticeship workshop during professional development week
      • Inquiry groups throughout the semester. We don’t have details yet, but it would be something like a couple hours twice a month, with both predetermined topics and opportunity for troubleshooting-type discussions
      • Stipends for part-time faculty to participate
    • Looking further ahead:
      • There are some requirements (which, as Carrie pointed out, are likely to change, so we probably have a moving target…) that we’ll need to prove we’ve met in order to keep placing students into the co-req course and/or 56. So there is a chance that Fall 2021 will again look different. (Ugh.)

We had a few issues come up, mostly around concerns–all of which are perfectly justified–about what the state is demanding from us. A few things I think are worth keeping in mind (and, yes, this is my perspective–not everyone will agree with me on this):

  • The percentage of students that the state expects to fail to pass ENGL 1A within a year is very high. There’s concern–and it’s probably right–that many students will just quit. But the number of students they expect to pass in a year is actually higher than the number who spend multiple years and don’t pass.
  • National research shows that high school GPA is a significantly better predictor of success in English and math courses. By using placement exams (we’ve used Accuplacer, which I regularly heard called “Inaccuplacer” at state academic senate meetings), we’ve been underplacing students. This means that students who could have succeeded in 1A have been forced to take 56, or even 105, which adds to the time they need to stay at Yuba–if it doesn’t make them quit altogether.

My personal take: we would have gotten to something similar to AB 705 sooner or later, given our previous efforts around acceleration (moving from 5 levels of comp (110A, 110B, 105, 51, 1A) to two or three (56, 1A or 105, 51, 1A) and the work around Guided Pathways. So I’m not opposed to the theory. But the implementation timeline has been insane, and doesn’t give us the opportunity to figure out the best way to do things.

That said: the AB 705 workgroup (Shawn, Kiara, and Carrie) have been doing great work working through options and recommending the best routes for the time we have.

Final Exam Schedule

Next semester, we will no longer be giving our final exams at a common time. Instead, we’ll be scheduled like pretty much all the rest (the exceptions being math and ESL). A couple things to note:

  • The final exam schedule is on one of the last pages of the semester’s printed Schedule of Classes. (Here’s the Spring 2019 Schedule of Classes; you’ll find the final exam schedule on page 129.)
  • The final is only two hours (1:50, technically), not the three that you may be used to when we had a common time.
  • If we have the misfortune of having our class’s final scheduled on the last day (Monday, May 20 in the upcoming semester), we are still required to meet with the class at the time. This is true even if we don’t plan to offer an actual final exam–even if, for example, we have a writing project due the last day of regular classes. District policy, based on state law, requires us to meet. We are allowed to do whatever we think is appropriate for our class. But we do have to meet.

Closing thoughts

I think that’s it. If you think of anything I left out that I shouldn’t have, please let me know. (My email is gkemble@yccd.edu )

Posted on

About Fall 2018 SLOs

Shorter version

This year, we’re working with a new SLO process, which includes both updated SLOs and a reliance on individual faculty to assess the SLOs in their courses (see Background, at the end of this post, if you’re interested in how that came about). For the composition courses, you’ll still report the SLOs to the comp coordinator (me), and I’ll enter them in aggregate into TracDat, our SLO recording software. But we will no longer be reporting scores from the (no longer existent) shared department final.

Longer Version

The SLOs

As I said, we’ve updated our SLOs; here’s a list of them for all the composition classes ( Word DOC | PDF ). The ones that are underlined and bold are the ones we’ve chosen to asses this semester. (I’ve listed those below.) (Note that I sent a copy of these out at the very beginning of the semester, when announcing the department’s SLO meeting during Convocation Week this semester, so hopefully this isn’t the first time you’ve seen them.) ENGL 105: Upon completion of this course, students will use reading strategies to understand texts. ENGL 51 and 56: Upon completion of this course, students will compose a clearly-written, well-organized, purpose-driven analysis. ENGL 1A: Upon completion of this course, students will synthesize evidence from outside sources to support claims effectively. ENGL 1B: 1. Upon completion of the course, students will evaluate a literary text for its use of genre conventions. ENGL 1C: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to evaluate arguments for validity and soundness.

Assessment

During our discussions at the end of the last semester, and then again during Convocation Week, we agreed that each faculty member would assess the students’ fulfilling (or not) the expectations of the identified SLO. In most cases (ENGL 105 might be an exception), we recommended (but do not require) that you use an assignment from late enough in the semester that they’d have had the opportunity to learn what they need in order to fulfill the SLO.  Further, the idea is not to created a dedicated assignment to measure the SLO (though you may, if you prefer); the idea is to assess the SLO within an assignment you already are requiring. English 105 measures students ability to “use reading strategies to understand texts.” There’s (unfortunately, but perhaps unavoidably) some ambiguity there: an essay that demonstrates understanding might imply that reading strategies were used, so you could use an essay as the assessment method. But any exercise that lets you assess their ability to understand a text using reading strategies (T-charts, annotations, etc.) would be acceptable.

Reporting

At the end of the semester, for any of the composition courses, I’ll send out a Google Form (or something like it) to collect your results, which I will then put in TracDat in aggregate. (I’m not sure if we used to do this with ENGL 1B and 1C, since we did not have a common final for those classes, but I plan to include them this time). All I will need to know is (a) how many students met your expectations on the SLO, and (b) how many did not. The judgment as to whether the student passed the SLO is up to you.

Improving the process

Our discussions at the end of last year, and at the beginning of this year, were useful but, in many ways, ambiguous. The fundamental point is that SLOs are primarily useful for the conversations they provoke; given the ambiguity around the process for this semester, I expect that a lot of conversation will indeed be provoked. For example, leaving both assessment method and evaluation completely up to each faculty member might create some “apples to oranges” issues. I understand that. But I also know that the more we tried to come to agreement on various issues–for example, the definition of “synthesize” or even “outside sources”–the more mired down in unhelpful detail we got. My hope is that, armed with some experience–insights, frustrations, etc.–we’ll be able to hone our process and our expectations, both of the students and of ourselves.

Background

Over the past several years, the department had been frustrated with our SLO assessment and discussion. There were two main problems:
  1. Our SLOs themselves were not very helpful; they had so many parts to them that it was hard to pull meaningful information–about our students’ needs, about our teaching, etc.–out of the results.
  2. The holistically scored final had several positive outcomes (most notably, getting the whole department together to discuss norms and expectations), but it was a high-demand process that wasn’t giving us meaningful SLO information–and one of our main justifications for the final was SLO assessment.
So we decided to jettison the holistically scored final, rewrite the SLOs, and put each faculty member in charge of assessing whether the students met the SLO or not. This is our first year with the new process, which I would say is probably still under construction, to some extent. We will have meetings to discuss the SLOs, and the SLO process, at the end of the semester, during the time that used to be used for holistically scoring the final.
Posted on

Department Meeting (9/11/18) – “Minutes”

This was my first time running the English Dept. meeting this round of comp coordinatorship, so I didn’t take good notes. Here’s a run-down of what we talked about, though. 

Note: If anyone who was there remembers something else that should be in this report, please let me know and I’ll update the entry. And if anyone has any questions, let me know that, too, and I’ll try to find answers.

Announcements

  • College Information Day is Oct. 3. I reserved us a table. I’ll send out a request for people to help me run the table, as well as for ideas to make the table interesting. One thought that comes to me now: it might be fun to put out work that our faculty have had published.
  • The Composition Coordinator “Memorandum of Agreement” has things on it that we don’t really do (for example, supporting the WLDC in supporting the Writing Lab [which I don’t think exists any more]). It should be updated. I just wanted people to know that this was on my to-do list.
  • Carrie would like us to consider adding ENGL 38 (Youth Lit) into our rotation. When we develop our program maps–a Guided Pathways thing–we can work on incorporating the class into a student-friendly rotation.
  • Program Review is due Oct. 15. Ugh.

AB 705 

  • We agreed to discontinue ENGL 105, effective next semester (Spring 2019), for the reasons I explained in the previous blog post.
  • We agreed that we’d like to develop a 1-unit co-requisite for some sections of ENGL 1A. There are still a lot of details to iron out–should we require this co-requisite for students who place lower, and which ones?  (AB 705 has some ugly demands for validating co-reqs if we require them.) Should we offer both credit and non-credit versions as options for students? Can we request/demand a lower cap for sections that have the co-req? The AB 705 workgroup will continue to work on developing a full recommendation.
  • We agreed, more or less, to keep some version of one-below-college-level in place for now. There are a lot of variables here, too: do we keep both ENGL 56 and 51, or do we just have one (likely ENGL 56)? Do we keep this in place for one year or two, while we gather the data to validate (by state standards) that we are increasing the likelihood of students getting through ENGL 1A within one year?
  • We know that we need to figure out support systems, both for the students (the co-req model, but possibly embedded tutors or other strategies) and for faculty (professional development opportunities for acceleration, both 1A and 56). We especially need to figure out how to financially support part-time faculty for participation in such professional development.

There are two looming deadlines that make some of this work more urgent than we’d like. First, the co-req would need to go through the curriculum committee, and to get it done in time for the legal deadline, that would need to be completed in October. Second, as I mentioned above, Program Review is due in October, and any requests we want to make (money for embedded tutors, etc.) need to be included in PR. 

So keep your eyes open for emails from me. I may have an occasional question that needs your input, whether that is an open-ended reply to the email, or a survey for simpler questions.

Posted on

AB 705 Group Recommendations (so far)

Why is this important?

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, the AB 705 group is going to make a presentation at the English Dept. meeting. The presentation will include a recommendation and a request for some guidance. And there’s some urgency here: Program Review is due Oct. 15, and some of what we decide should probably make an appearance there.

We meet in that lunch room outside the Language Arts Office. All English faculty (full- and part-time) are welcome to attend. But we know that not everyone is available at that time. So we wanted to get as much information out as possible so that there’s time (a) to prepare for the meeting (for those who can attend), and (b) to email me any thoughts, which I will share at the meeting.

Note that I am doing my best to accurately represent the group’s position on these issues. The members of the group can correct anything I get wrong. (As to why I might misrepresent some of this, see #2 under “Some notes,”  below.)

Our request:

We welcome any available English faculty to attend our department meetings. We’d love to have you directly in the conversation. 

If you’re not available, though (and we understand!), please send any thoughts to me (gkemble@yccd.edu). I’ll make sure your views are heard.

The recommendation:

Discontinue English 105, effective Spring 2019 (next semester).

Reasoning: AB 705 requires that we maximize the chance for students to complete English 1A in one year. Since English 105 is two levels below ENGL 1A, it is impossible for a 105 student to complete 1A in a year.

There is broad consensus that two-levels-below classes will simply not be allowed beginning Fall 2019. This means that a student who took 105 in Spring would go on to the next level no matter what. In other words, students who fail 105 in Spring 2019 would end up in the same place as students who pass. We see no benefit in that, and so recommend that we just discontinue it immediately.

Up for discussion:

We need to decide if we want to discontinue English 51 and/or English 56 in Fall 2016.

Initially, we thought that this was a fait accompli–that we would not be allowed to offer one-level-below-transfer courses (both ENLG 51 and 56 fit that bill). However, we now believe that we probably have two years to offer the class(es) and, if the data supports it, to continue to offer them.

More specifically: AB 705 requires that we prove two things: (a) that students are highly unlikely to complete ENGL 1A in their first year without such a course, and (b) that they are more likely to complete 1A in their first year if they take the course. 

That second half is the killer. If we want to continue offering ENGL 51 and/or 56, we’ll need to collect data that shows that our “throughput” (getting students through ENGL 1A within one year) is better than the state average.

So there are two things to keep in mind as we make this decision:

  1. We have two years to test this, if we decide this is the way we want to go. We’ll need to arrange with Jeremy to be sure we’re collecting the data we need to assess whether this is successful (by the state’s definition) or not.
  2. I know we think that these courses are in our students’ best interests, and I hear a lot of fear (and share it, to a large extent) that eliminating them is really bad for students. But the research (at least as I understand it) seems to suggest that below-transfer work is not effective. (Of course, that’s the point of testing and assessing it….)

In progress:

This is mostly an FYI, but we welcome any input.

We were originally planning to make two additional, general recommendations:

  1. Some type of support for all ENGL 1A courses–most likely embedded tutors, but also training and support for faculty–though we need time to research what those solutions would be (and how we’d manage to pay for it). AND
  2. Some sort of 5-unit solution for students whose GPA placed them at the “highly recommended” level (see the Memo, linked to in the first item in “Some notes,” below). Two possible solutions: a 5-unit course, or a 1-unit co-requisite. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. The details need to be addressed (and there are devils in those details), but this is the general direction we’ve discussed.

Much of that second recommendation depends on what is legal and logistically possible. But since that discussion, we’ve learned a number of things that require that we meet again for further discussion.

So, for this item, we basically want to inform y’all that we’re having these discussions, and to ask that you offer any thoughts that you might have.

Some notes:

  1. There are two really important documents that we recommend that you read: the Implementation Memo (a joint memo from the state Chancellor’s Office and the state Academic Senate), and an AB 705 FAQ from the Chancellor’s Office that, among other things, seeks to clarify some issues and/or misunderstandings that the Implementation Memo has raised. Please read these. They’re required for an informed discussion.
  2. If it seems like things are a little disorganized, that’s because they are. But that’s because there’s a lot of uncertainty at the state level. The legislature passed AB 705 with little warning, and no time for preparation. The state Chancellor’s Office is putting out implementation guidelines very quickly, which often leads to some confusion. And this affects our ability to make clear recommendations. For example, we had a pretty clear recommendation on #3 (above), but shortly afterwards learned new information that requires additional discussion. Apologies… but it’s pretty much unavoidable.
  3. As I mentioned, Program Review is due in October. This means that we may need to make some decisions before the next department meeting. Some of that may electronic, but I suspect we’ll need to arrange another face-to-face meeting. Keep your eye out for emails.

BTW: Who is this AB 705 group?

Shawn, Kiara, and Carrie agreed to split the AB 705 English lead position. As Comp Coordinator, I’ve joined in the meetings to offer support. And Jeremy Brown, the Dean of Institutional Effectiveness (our main researcher), has been helping out, too.

Posted on

AB 705 and Spring 2019

If we seem late with the Spring 2019 schedule, it’s because we are. We’re scrambling a bit to adjust to some changes that were brought about by the recently passed, and now-in-the-process-of-being-implemented, AB 705.

I won’t go into great detail here, though if you are interested in what’s going on, I recommend you read this memorandum from the state Chancellor and state Academic Senate, which gives both a brief history of the law and guidelines for implementing it. I will, however, mention two things worth noting:

First: One of the requirements of the law changes how we place students into our courses. An oversimplified version of this (though not by much) is that we have to use high school GPAs as the primary method for placement, which has resulted in a significant shift in what courses are needed.

So Carla (our dean) and I have been waiting for information from census (which is next week) to be able to assess what we’ll need to offer in Spring. I have a meeting with Carla (the dean) on Sept. 11 to finalize what we’ll be offering. Once we know that, I’ll be able to start plugging in names.

Second: This is just something for everyone to be aware of. The department needs to make a lot of decisions that come out of this new law. Very little has been finalized yet–we have an AB 705 team working on developing recommendations for the department to consider–but it is pretty clear that our offerings will need to change. English 105 will certainly need to be discontinued. English 51 and/56 may need to be discontinued, though we’re working through some subtleties in the law (as well as subtleties in our own views). 

And the number of English 1A sections taught are certain to increase pretty dramatically. For those who have not taught 1A for awhile, I recommend that you prepare yourself for that possibility (likelihood?)–and with the knowledge that the range of students’ abilities will be much wider than they have in the past. (Note that support for those students and for faculty teaching them is on the AB 705 team’s radar.)

Part-time faculty: I’ve sent an email requesting your availability and preferences. Please fill out that Google form as soon as you can–certainly by Friday, Sept. 14, if possible. I hope to leave that Sept. 11 meeting with a workable schedule, and I’ll begin work on your schedules as soon as the full-time assignments have been worked out. And, as always, I’ll be compiling the jig-saw puzzle keeping in mind the requirements of the contract, respect for seniority, and (to the best of my ability) accommodating your requests.

Posted on

Unofficial YC English blog

There’s a lot to keep track of, and email doesn’t seem the best way to do that. So I (Greg, the current composition coordinator) have started a blog, where I’ll post announcements, explanations, and so on.

You’re not required to check here to keep up to date on things. If something is important, I’ll at least mention it in an email. But that email might link to a more in-depth discussion of the issue here.

I’ve left comments off because I don’t want to have to monitor the page or moderate discussion. Further, the page is public (I don’t want to have to monitor membership, either), so I’d like to make sure the content is somewhat curated.

If I have time, I also hope to set up a “Resources” section, which might house (or point to) resources to help English faculty at Yuba College. If you have any any ideas about what types of resources would indeed be helpful, please click on “Contact Me” (top of the blog) and let me know.

Finally: please note that this is an experiment, and that I’m running it on my own. I’ll happily hand the keys over to the next coordinator, if he or she is interested. But it’s not meant to set a precedent for future coordinators.