Time for a new approach for training community college writing teachers?

Interesting piece in USA Today by Inside Higher Ed's Scott Jaschik regarding university programs that are supposed to prepare teachers to teach writing at community colleges

In the piece, it's pointed out that regarding hiring writing instructors, community colleges

• aren't content to hire literature doctorates who are applying for composition jobs at community colleges because of the tough job market for new humanities Ph.D.'s.  (Note: Having been on many hiring committees, I've seen a goodly number of candidates like these).
• are looking for someone who has actually been in a community college classroom.

Read more...

Of completion rates, pass rates and grades...

I taught two classes of Eng 8 (6 credits each) in the Fall 2010 semester at Leeward CC.  BTW, Eng 8 is the first in a sequence of courses offered at my college.  Though a basic reading and writing class, Eng 8 is quite rigorous, at least that's my opinion and that's the way I designed it to be.

Here's the semester recap:

Section 1 -- 26 enrolled

• N* = 12 (of these, 3 were no-shows; 4 completed the class [i.e. they were still attending class up to the last day and took the final exam; the other 5 dropped out at varying points in the semester.) (*N is our college's equivalent of F for remedial/development courses; however, an N grade does not bear upon a student's GPA).

• D = 0
• C = 5
• B = 8
• A = 1

Section 2 -- 25 enrolled

• N = 8  (of these,  2 completed the class ; the other 6 dropped out at varying points in the semester).
• D = 4  (all 4 completed the class)
• C = 8
• B = 4
• A = 1

Overall:

• 51 enrolled
• 37 of 51 completed the class = 72% completion rate
• 27 of 51 passed (C or higher grade) the class = 53% pass rate

Overall Grades for the two sections of Eng 8

• N = 20
• D = 4
• C = 13
• B = 12
• A = 2

When  I did some poking around to find out about pass rates for community college courses, I discovered a plethora of material about pass rates for nursing exams and the like but not much else except a discussion of how the pass rates might too high by a community college dean.  As for completion rates, the discussion focuses on the rate of completion to earn a degree rather than completing a specific class, though to earn a degree, one will have to complete (and pass) a slew of classes to do so.  Speaking of which, the national goal is a degree-earned completion rate of 50% by 2020.

Well, I have seen 27 students in my classes this semester heading in that direction.

Distance Ed. classes for Basic Readers and Writers?

H.R Boylan (2002), Director of the National Center for Developmental Education, says that distance learning for developmental students has yet to proven effective because it requires what development students lack, namely

• independent learning skills,
• study discipline, 
• time management skills, 
• a high degree of motivation‖ (p. 82). 

At my college, where there are three levels of  development reading and writing (which some refer to as pre-college courses), there are distance ed (i.e. online) classes for the uppermost developmental writing class (Eng 22--Intro to Expository Writing) but none (so far!) for the lower two writing levels and none at all for the three developmental writing levels.

A quick perusal of developmental writing course offerings for the six community colleges in Hawaii indicated that there were 153 sections offered with just five of these sections being offered via distance ed/online.

Perhaps I will look further into what the distance ed. situation for developmental reading and writing courses is like for community colleges elsewhere.  Anyone know?

Boylan, H. R. (2002). What works: Research-based practices in developmental education. Boone, NC: National Center for Developmental Education.

Diigo: New help for students (and yourself) with research

I read here for the first time about diigo, a social bookmarking site which allows users to not only add bookmarks, but to also add sticky notes on the website to track thinking or quotes for a research paper or some other piece of writing  With Diigo there is no need for note cards while researching.

Before you dismiss  diigo as just another techie bell-and-whistle-thingee,  check it out for it will make researching and compiling notes easier for your students (and you, too). In less than 30 minutes, you can be set up and on your way.

Reading Plus, a Plus?

Reading instructors at our college have been using the ReadingPlus program for courses they teach.  Except for this semester, I, too, have used ReadingPlus.

Why not this semester?  While I had ReadingPlus slotted into my course, when it came time to introduce it and assign it to my students, I didn't think they were ready for the added load of coursework, which would probably amount to and hour or two a week.  Consequently, I kept putting off ReadingPlus until I felt they were ready.

Well, I never felt they were ready and now the end of the semester has arrived.  So I'll do a comparative study of students this semester with students of past semesters using the Nelson-Denny Form H results which I give as a post-test at the conclusion of the course.

I will report the results at a future date.

Meanwhile, I'd like to know about others' experiences with ReadingPlus.  What went well?  Not well?  Best practices?