Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A linguist and a librarian go up the mountain and meet a bunch of honey badgers.  They come back down as new-age dragon slayers determined to change peoples’ lives through a non-movement movement.

What do you mean, you don’t get it?

We are talking about BSILI, of course.  This is the story about how Christina and Paula, the 2012 team from Los Medanos College, travelled all the way to beautiful Lake Arrowhead and had a transformative experience working with colleagues from around the state to identify and analyze problems and issues their campuses face.  Armed with the appreciative inquiry model and the guiding framework of the Habits of Mind Community of Practice, they returned to campus with a vision for change.

What is a positive, contextualized approach to strengthening student success and uniting the campus community at Los Medanos College?  Christina and Paula believe that student success happens both inside and outside of the classroom, and that it is imperative to be mindful of and recognize the amazing work that so many of their LMC colleagues are already doing.  The duo also recognize that this good work has led to a certain amount of siloing and fatigue, and that different initiatives and programs have had varying levels of effectiveness and success.  Their vision for moving forward was not to become a next generation of audacious, bold, singular leaders of a new movement, but to be a quiet, guiding, background force helping isolated efforts to gather strength, find coherence, and gain momentum.

Using the principle of each one bring one, Christina and Paula began their non-movement by extending personalized invitations to powerful LMC faculty, administrator and classified educators.  Using the first stage of the appreciative inquiry model as a guide, they gathered this discovery group together as a kind of think tank to unpack the activities and strategies that characterize their high impact work.  The group was also introduced to Habits of Mind and identified others on campus who are promoting the 16 Habits of Mind in what they do. This first event ended with each participant choosing one or two tools from a collective tool kit that they might use as inspiration and/or integration in their work.

At the second event, which corresponded to the appreciative inquiry dream stage, a few of these individuals shared how they had used their tools to, for example, help students reflect on their learning, cheer students on to their future goals, diffuse potentially confrontational situations, delve more deeply into the needs of the college, selflessly help when a need was observed, and recognize the hard work of one’s colleagues. The former and new participants at the dream event (which included students) got personal tools this time – magnifying glasses to encourage continued discovery and kaleidoscopes to help them see things differently.  Additionally, Christina made buttons with a variety of quotations about the role of dreams and dreaming as a means of combating a dragon-ish response to an invitation to this second event: “I’m too busy to dream. I have real work to do.”  Thus equipped, the dreamers set about to add to the Habits of Mind lists of good work being done on the LMC campus.  They then collectively rated the Habits of Mind they viewed as having the greatest potential across campus to prepare students to succeed. And finally, groups focused on one of these winners – pictured at right – and determined what exactly a single area, program, department, initiative, or person on campus is doing to promote that HoM, and what it would look like if we all did it…

That dreaming/envisioning has set the stage for the third event, which focused on designing and developing the dream.  Once again, a set of invitations to participate was created based on the suggestions received from previous event participants.  And once again, Paula and Christina created an appreciative, collaborative, meaningful, and as much FUN experience for participants.  It is a challenge, but the interest shown and encouragement received so far makes it easier. Also, the collegial interaction and engagement and the potential effect on the success of LMC students make it priceless.

Due to the sellout LINKS event at Irvine Valley College, 3CSN decided to offer another LINKS event for the LA/OC colleges.  Despite it being the Friday before Final Exams, a very receptive and engaging group of faculty came together at College of the Canyons to explore more about how to create a Powerful Classroom.

Speed Dating in Santa Clarita

Who knew that there was going to be 3 rounds of Speed Dating?  Each round had a different focus and Crystal made sure the speed daters didn't linger too long with their new pedagogy crushes.  Each round explored the relationship between students and the required texts for the course and how various Reading Apprenticeship strategies and techniques might affect these relationships.

3CSN's 3 Communities of  Practice from an Instructor's Point of View

• Reading Apprenticeship – Maria Perser, Pierce College
• Habits of Mind – Kim Manner, Pierce College
• California Acceleraton Project (CAP)  - Summer Serpas, Irvine Valley College

HoM Classification Presentation

For those of you who missed the post-conference session, it was AMAZING. Each of the Communities of Practice gave great reports on what they have accomplished thus far and where they are going next. Both the Acceleration and Reading Apprenticeship BSILI CoPs have two well established CoPs to latch onto and interact with (CAP and RAP, respectively.) I loved hearing about “8 different kinds of math acceleration” and the results of the RA survey. Habits of Mind, unlike the other two, had its beginnings at this past BSILI and is still in the formulation, definition and documentation stages. Despite starting from ground zero, Habits of Mind CoP’s detailed and tested identification, classification, naming and eventual storage and dissemination of these HoMs was phenomenal. This was just the beginning of a set of tools that seek to describe the complexity of student behavior, while placing it within some common terms that will enable us to dialogue across classrooms and campuses.

“Non-Template Template”

The “Non-Template Template” should have been an indicator of what was to come from our two Los Medanos “We don’t want to start a movement” BSILIers. It was great to see how they were putting into practice the values and shared assumptions of BSILI (and 3CSN.) As Paula and Christina began unfolding their story of how not to start a movement, appreciative inquiry and a growth mindset took on whole new meanings. In the end we got a new slogan from Christina and Paula that is truly inclusive, empowering and mind-blowing in its simplicity — Student Success Lives Here.

BSILI Acceleration CoP

BSILI Reading Apprenticeship CoP

BSILI Habits of Mind CoP Workgroups

Indicators

Report Template

Data Repository

This year’s Strengthening Student Success Conference (SSSC) in Costa Mesa was a great indicator of how broad and deep the network has grown since it’s inception four years ago.  Close to 20 presentations were given by 3CSN, BSILI, FTLA Alumnae during the Conference.  Topics covered 3CSN’s established Communities of Practice (CoP), the California Acceleration Project (CAP) and the Reading Apprenticeship Project (RAP,) as well as implementation of student voice, data-driven decision-making, and professional development.

BSILI Reunion

On Thursday evening of the Conference, 3CSN held its traditional BSILI reunion, bringing together participants form all four years of BSILI.  Highlights of the event included BSILI trivia and the spontaneous creation of the slogan, “The Network Works.”

Presentations

Writing for College & Career Readiness

Fostering Partnerships Among High School, College and University Instructors (9-16)

Sponsored by California Community College Success Network in collaboration with

San Diego Area Writing Project • UC San Diego

FACILITATED BY SDAWP TEACHER CONSULTANTS: Holly Bauer, Jan Jarrell, Mark Manasse,

Nadia Mandilawi, Divona Roy, and Monique Lamphiere-Tamayoshi

Addressing the issues our students face transitioning from High School to College

August 10, 2012

San Diego Miramar College

Common Goals Handout (K-12, Community Colleges, CSU’s and Uc’s)

Expectation of Entering College and University Students

It all began on a Sunday afternoon, with over 40 faculty, administrators and staff converging on the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center for a taste of 3CSN’s best − BSILI 2012 – Leadership for Curricular and Institutional Transformation. For some, it was straight out of the car and into the Iris Lodge where they were grouped together by table and began the infamous Marshmallow Challenge.  Teams were to build the tallest tower, with the marshmallow on top, out of spaghetti, string and a few pieces of tape.  As you can see in the video below, the winners were rock solid.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After a great BBQ Dinner, attendees returned to the lodge where we began to mull over the concept of the “Power Classroom.”  Participants broke off into pairs or small groups and began interviewing each other about what they saw as qualities of the powerful classroom.  Approaching 9:00 pm, participants learned that they would need to create a skit about the powerful classroom.  There were some cries of dismay about 9:00 pm bedtimes, but everyone pushed ahead and created some amazingly, creative videos about powerful classrooms.  One of the crowd favorites, was a simple song, done Adams Family style.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Powerful Classrooms

Day 1.0, although it really seemed like Day 2.0 because of the amount of work that went in to the Day 0.5, began with a huge upswing of energy as we reviewed the BSILIers first efforts at video production.  The videos turned out to be so innovative and inspiring, they ultimately set the stage for the rest of the day.  Besides creating videos, BSILIers also wrote down the attributes of a powerful classroom.  We took all of those attributes, fed them into the computer and ended up with the picture to the right.

The day moved rapidly as we began with a short exercise using the Cohort Tracking Tool.  BSILIers looked at their own campus data from the Tool as well as their top-10 Gatekeeper courses and were asked to begin thinking about how this data fit into the narrative supportive of change that they were beginning to create.  Becky Rudd, Reading and English Accelerator extraordinaire and BSILI graduate, now turned BSILI presenter, lead us through a narrative of Citrus College’s own Reading and Writing Integration and Realignment.  A model example of how a data-driven, faculty -lead, administration-supported, student-voiced proposal can have such a huge impact upon the flow of students through Citrus College’s Reading and English sequences.   Becky then had BSILIers poring over Reading and English Course Outlines of Record looking for overlaps and commonalities that could be used to create a compressed sequence of courses for students.

That afternoon, Crystal Kiekel, of Pierce College and BSILI graduate now turned facilitator, began the afternoon by taking the BSILIers on journey through Pierce Colleges transformation of their Math program into the award-winning ASAP model.   Again demonstrating to everyone how creating a narrative rooted in data and emphasized by a student voice can create a powerful tool for curricular and institutional transformation.  Priyadarshini Chaplot, representing the RP Group and Completion by Design, reenforced both Becky and Crystal’s data driven efforts in increasing student completion.  After these powerful presentations and activities, BSILIers delved down deeply again into their own college’s pathways, using their college schedules of classes and catalogues.  One of the big revelations was it is amazing that any student can make sense out of the complicated resources and tools that we provide them with to “guide” them on their way to transfer, employment, and career goals.

At the end of Day 1.0, BSILIers were then given the task of identifying a shared problem that they could began unraveling at their college.  Once agreed upon by the team, they were to create a short presentation identifying a key barrier to student access, success, equity, or completion.  This time around there were no complaints about bedtimes or too much work, BSILIers began dialoguing, researching, data-gathering, and creating the beginnings of their narratives.

Day 2.0 began with each college team presenting the first draft of their presentation to another team.  This enabled teams to not only get early feedback on their work but to also see what other teams were focusing on and see what techniques and tools were catching everyone’s attention.  Borrowing from Reading Apprenticeship, we held a gallery walk, where BSILIers could give appreciative inquiry on one anothers’ work.

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Nika Introducing Reading Apprenticeship

Reading Apprenticeship™ Project

On Day 1, the first BSILI Community of Practice (CoP) on Acceleration was introduced.  Day 2′s agenda was devoted to the other two Communities of Practice, Reading Apprenticeship™ and Habit of Mind.   The Reading Apprenticeship Project is the second Community of Practice that was established by 3CSN in partnership with WestEd, the organization that took Reading Apprenticeship from a small “district-level” experiment to a nationwide movement and it is a key factor in WestEd’s Strategic Literacy Initiative.  3CSN’s  partnership with WestEd is to help spread and increase the number and availability of professional development opportunities  for all community college faculty in Reading Apprenticeship.

Nika Hogan, 3CSN’s resident Reading Apprenticeship™ goddess, took the participants through an abbreviated introduction to Reading Apprenticeship™.  Some of the techniques included Think Aloud, Talking to the Text, and others.

The goals of RAP are to:

• Help students learn to read and think like insiders (experts) in a subject area
• Overcome our own expert blind spot – blending subject-area knowledge with important understandings of how novices acquire the conventions, rituals, and expectations of discourse in that field

Jan Introduces Habits of Mind

Habits of Mind

Our Habits of Mind Community of Practice was introduced this Spring through 3CSN’s LINKS V events that took place in 5 different locations up and down the state.  The Habits of Mind breakout sessions during LINKS V were well received and if the number of Jan Connal, Counselor at Cerritos College, spearheaded the effort among 3CSN coordinators (Roza Ekiyam, Donna Cooper, and Lisa Brewster) to create the materials and activities that form the beginnings of this Community of Practice.

First off, what are “Habits of Mind?”

Several colleges use a ‘habits of mind’ model, often expressed as desired behaviors, to promote student success.   College of the Canyons’ 15 College Success Tips, Chaffey College’s Smart Start, and Cerritos College’s iFALCON program all illustrate the Habits of Mind model.   Across the various representations of the model, a set of principles for successful implementation of a Habits of Mind initiative have been found to include most, if not all, of the following:

• Faculty ownership and collaboration
• Student ownership and collaboration
• Administrative support and Board buy-in
• Clear and intentional messages across the campus
• Embedded across the curriculum
• Infused into student and academic support services
• Professional development to support
• Ongoing assessment

The anticipation of and the embracement of this newest Community of Practice was something we had expected given the response that the breakout sessions on Habits of Mind during the LINKS V events in the Spring.    Colleges are anxious to meet the needs of their students and help reduce the huge numbers of students that fail to complete.  The wonderful thing about this CoP is that it covers transformations that an individual instructor can make in his/her classroom to overarching, institutional transformations.  One of the most exciting parts about this CoP is that we have examples of colleges and programs, like Valencia College in Florida and their LifeMap tool, that have totally changed the tide of student dropout and recidivism in their area.

How to Start of Movement

Day 2 ended with a look at what it takes to start a movement and who at one’s campus are the “dragons” and who are potential “dancers.’

Click here to view the embedded video.

As can be seen in this great TED video and commentary by Derek Sivers, it isn’t the first person who begins dancing that is critical, but rather the second person that begins dancing who validates the first and makes it “OK” for others to join in.

Many people can have influence over your projects. Some influencers are obvious
and easy to spot. Others are less obvious, but are no less significant. If you fail to
recognize and “manage” these influencers, you’ll most-likely experience unexpected
resistance to your projects, and sometimes bewildering failure. This is increasingly
the case as you run large projects, and as the number of people affected by your
projects increases.

Through this process, you will build a network of sharing, interdependence and inquiry by asking:

• Who has relevant knowledge?
• Who need to be actively involved?
• Who needs to be aware of what is happening?
• Who could stop it (by action or lack thereof)?
• Who could be helpful?
• What already exists that you could build on
• Where are your dragons? Gaps?

With all three Communities of Practice showcased, BSILI participants on Day 3.0 had to make some decisions about with CoPs they would join.  Lisa Brewster gave a great overview if this in the video clip below.

BSILI Communities of Practice

Click here to view the embedded video.

To help facilitate the decision-making process, the BSILIers worked on their What Maps.  The What Map focused on answering the question, What solution are you going to implement through this community of practice  to help close the gap on student persistence, acceleration, and completion.

It is hard to believe that it have only been 4 days up here at Lake Arrowhead.  Time has ceased to function normally as it would on the campus. The amount of energy, planning, dreaming, networking, and creating has been enough to keep Lake Arrowhead in lights for the next year.  Each of the three CoP, began Day 4.0 by presenting their Logic Models to the rest of the group.

One of the major milestones of the CoPs is the October 2012, Strengthening Student Success Conference.  Each of the CoPs will be presenting on their Logic Models and progress in fulfilling the outcomes that they defined.

 Evaluation with an Impact

Following the Logic Model presentations, Tina Christie and Michael Harner  began the final presentation of the Institute on Assessment.  Tina began with this great TED talk on  evaluation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The second Math Pathways symposium, held at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, welcomed Julie Phelps, of Valencia Community College in Florida to a day of math curricular and institutional redesign from local colleges like Pierce, Pasadena City College, College of the Canyons.  Over one hundred people signed up for the sold out event to both hear Julie speak about her experiences in redesign at her own college as well as to see how local colleges are addressing student needs and success.

The symposium had five framing questions for both presenters and attendees to guide the conversations that day:

1. Why is curriculum reform necessary?
2. How much change is needed to make a meaningful (and measurable) difference?
3. What are different schools doing?
4. What challenges can one expect to face while doing a significant redesign? How can one overcome these obstacles?
5. What kind of support is available for a college that wants to do a redesign?

Poster Presentatons

PI- Prealgebra Immersion

Pathways

Before Algebra

Linda Hintzman @Pasadena City College
Kathy Yoshiwara @Pierce College
Jennifer Martinez @ Pierce College

STEM Pathway

Charlie Hogue @Pasadena City College
Kathie Yoder @Pierce College
Ben Martin @Pierce College

• ASAP – Algebra Success At Pierce
• APT – Accelerated Pre-Calculus and Trigonometry
• Math Path - Pasadena

Non-STEM Pathway

Kathy Kubo & Matt Teachout @ College of the Canyons
Bob Martinez @ Pierce College
Roger Yang @ Pasadena City College

The first of two conferences focused on math instruction and completion in community colleges got underway with a bang in Foster City.  Uri Treisman, professor of mathematics and of public affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, laid a foundation of inquiry about developmental education, the struggle of math faculty to raise success rates from 25% to 30%, bright spots of change occurring in the delivery and content of math courses, the need to stop the dumbing down of math courses, and the struggle to change and reinvigorate the structure of colleges.  Dr. Treisman focused on five areas in which community colleges needed to focus on:

1. Content
2. Structure
3. Delivery Methods
4. Instructional Support
5. Faculty Support

The last example that he shared involved a community college in Georgia.  At the college, math faculty invite students from the previous semester that earned an “A” in their class to come and speak to the new semester’s students.  A simple effort that promotes student success with actual student success.  Instead of the usual fears and anxieties that many students have during the first weeks of a math course, they are shown that success in obtainable and real. Some of the reports and studies that Uri mentioned are listed below.

• Predicting Success in College: The Importance of Placement Tests and High School Transcripts (CCRC Working Paper No. 42)
  
  




• One-Shot Deal?  Student’s  Perceptions of Assessment and Course  Placement in California’s Community Colleges by Andrea Venezia, Kathy Bracco, and Thad Nodine
  




• The Critical Role of Mathematics for Community College Students – Dissertation by Pamela Mery, Ed.D.  Read the article about Pamela and her dissertation on the California Acceleration Project’s website
  

Morning Panel Presentations

Statway/Quantway Overview

presented by Karon Klipple, PhD

Afternoon Breakouts

Math Performance Success: Elementary Algebra - Statistics Hermonio Hernando, Mehrdad Khosravi, Rich Lopez @ De Anza College

Math My Way

What is the Basic Skills Cohort Tracking Tool?

The Cohort Tracking Tool gives all 112 California community colleges  immediate, easy access to data on student progress through their English, reading, ESL, and math pipelines. Envisioned and sponsored by 3CSN, this online tool has been expertly developed by the Research and Planning Group in collaboration with the CCCCO.

Across the state, the lower down a student starts in our basic skills sequences, the lower their rates of completing college level gatekeeper courses in English and Math. 3CSN is committed to doing something about this: The California Acceleration Project supports faculty to redesign their sequences to increase student completion.

Webinar

The  webinar introduces the new Basic Skills Cohort Tracking Tool on the Chancellor’s Office website.

Basic Skills Tracker Webinar- Final

Presenters:

Patrick Perry, Vice Chancellor of Technology, Research and Information Systems, California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office;
Deborah Harrington, Executive Director, 3CSN, and Dean for Student Success, Los Angeles CCD;
Craig Hayward, Director of Planning, Research & Knowledge Systems, Cabrillo College;
Katie Hern, English Instructor, Chabot College; Director, California Acceleration Project

It gives all 112 California community colleges  immediate, easy access to data on student progress through their English, reading, ESL, and math pipelines. Envisioned and sponsored by 3CSN, this online tool has been expertly developed by the Research and Planning Group in collaboration with the CCCCO.

 Basic Skills Cohort Tracking Tool Instructions, ver 1.1