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GSCC Continues!


LaGuardia Community College Foundation Receives $1.05M for Global Skills for College Completion

Long Island City, NY—January 19, 2012–LaGuardia Community College Foundation has been awarded a $1,048,143 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue the development of Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC). GSCC, a project partnership between LaGuardia Community College and Knowledge in the Public Interest, is a network of community college faculty and researchers committed to the idea that improving our nation’s graduation rates starts with the professors who teach basic skills in mathematics and English. GSCC has created an online practice improvement strategy that allows college faculty across the country to connect with and learn from each other in order to help students achieve better pass rates in basic skills classes.

Over the past two years, GSCC worked with 25 of the country’s most effective professors teaching remediation at community colleges across the country, gathering information about their classroom methods of success. Using innovative technology and a set of powerful digital tools created by GSCC, faculty examined and analyzed their personal teaching patterns. GSCC faculty also connected and worked with each other to create more engaging, inspiring and effective classrooms by testing and adapting new tactics that improve student outcomes. GSCC has analyzed its data to identify classroom practices most commonly used by great teachers and found that it’s not just what you teach, it’s how you teach it.

At a time when an educated workforce is more important than ever before, the time for a bold new look at college – particularly in remedial classrooms – is now. This generous grant from BMGF will enable GSCC to continue our important work with faculty across the country, using new tactics and technology to improve our nation’s graduation rates,” said Dr. Gail O. Mellow, President of LaGuardia Community College, Co-Principal Investigator GSCC.

The current award will allow GSCC to launch a second cohort of full time and adjunct faculty who teach remedial mathematics or English, to be recruited from community colleges across the country, as well as to refine GSCC’s innovative online tools. A call for the faculty participants will be issued in late January, 2012 for a fall semester launch.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation award will also fund the development of a business plan for an online Research & Development Network that will capitalize on the success of the GSCC. The Research & Development Network will be a linked system that can support and supplement research in developmental education by providing a ready set of faculty to explore and test activities, curriculum, online tools, etc., that are being developed by other projects—in real time in actual classrooms.

“Our paradigm-shifting methods help faculty re-examine their own practices, test and adapt methods most appropriate to their own challenges and connect with fellow educators for a largernetwork of support and ideas. This funding will allow GSCC to bring this innovative approach to community colleges across the country in order to bring better outcomes to the students who need it most,” said Dr. Diana D. Woolis, Founding Partner, Knowledge in the Public Interest, Co-Principal Investigator GSCC.

For information about Global Skills for College Completion, please contact Dr. Marisa Klages, Project Director, mklages@lagcc.cuny.edu , 718-482-5677.
••••

LaGuardia Community College located in Long Island City, Queens, was founded in 1971 as a bold experiment in opening the doors of higher education to all, and proudly carries forward that legacy today. LaGuardia educates students through over 50 degree, certificate and continuing education programs, providing an inspiring place for students to achieve their dreams. Upon graduation, LaGuardia students’ lives are transformed as family income increases 17%, and students transfer to four-year colleges at three times the national average. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY), LaGuardia is a nationally recognized leader among community colleges for its boundary-breaking success educating underserved students. At LaGuardia we imagine new ideas, create new curriculum and pioneer programs to make our community and our country stronger. http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/home/

Knowledge in the Public Interest, founded in 2001, designs conversations that are transforming education. Through innovative uses of social media, KPI fosters powerful online collaborations focusing on educational practice and policy. KPI brings together education leaders, researchers,
practitioners, and other experts throughJams—one‐day, synchronous, moderated online exchanges;eCommunities—structured, facilitated virtual working groups that achieve specific outcomes over set timeframes; and Networks**—ongoing interactions of diverse participants addressing issues of shared concern. http://www.kpublic.com/

Contact us if you are interested in joining the effort.

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Resources From the Pedagogy Matters! Jam

Last February, the GSCC Team hosted a National Jam where scores of developmental education faculty from across the country participated in an online discussion on the topic of developmental education pedagogy. For those who may have missed the Jam, or would like to follow up on the results, read the concise wrap up of the Jam from the Project director. For a comprehensive analysis, download the full Jam report, Pedagogy Matters: Perspectives of Community College Developmental Educators. Additionally, the librarians captured the resources that were discussed throughout the Jam and have made these available as annotated links in the Jam Resources Report.

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AMATYC honors Bronte Miller with the 2011 Teaching Excellence Award

American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) honors GSCC member Bronte Miller with the 2011 Teaching Excellence Award. Bronte teaches at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, Virginia.

We warmly congratulate Bronte.

 

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The GSCC Experience: New Model For Professional Development

A survey of GSCC faculty and a follow-up dialog in a Choice Event provided insight into what has been most valuable about their participation in the project and this new model of professional development. Foremost, they find the experience of GSCC to be a highly effective model of professional development.

Faculty noted the benefit they gained from being a member of a community of practice comprised of colleagues from around the country and from networking with a wider group of developmental educators. They described how GSCC changed their teaching, particularly in the case of enhancing their assessment practices. For example, they learned to include more, short, low stakes assessments throughout the semester, rather than waiting until the end to find out if students have mastered skills.

A challenge, at least in the beginning, was to understand the process and the goals of the project, especially as these evolved organically as the semesters progressed. One survey respondent pinpointed the way GSCC is different from other professional development: “The hardest adjustment was to switch my thinking from ‘Am I teaching the right content/curriculum?’ to ‘How am I teaching the content?’ Everything else out there is curriculum/content focused. It took a long time to break me of that thinking.”

The survey asked for suggestions on what should be included for a future cohort. In response, faculty highlighted: sharing classroom practice, reflection, tagging with themes, the Pedagogy Circles, and peer review of work. Faculty found Pathfinder, the database of links to lessons and resources used in GSCC classrooms, to be a tool of growing value. Making efforts to ensure that GSCC is affordable for faculty who would like to take advantage of this new model ranked high. In particular, this would allow adjunct faculty, who do not have access to professional development funds, to be involved in the process.

In the end, both the results of the survey and the reflections in the Choice Event confirmed the success of GSCC.

Here are some quotes from faculty:

“Having all of these amazing colleagues all over the country to commiserate over the trials and tribulations of developmental education has been one of the most valuable parts of my GSCC experience.”

“Practice without assessment is empty. What GSCC did for me was help me refocus my attention on this part of the learning cycle…”

“[Pathfinder] gave me a brand new lesson I have never used before and is helping [me] get ideas for how to show more Caring and Tailored instruction, my primary themes to work on this semester…”

“[GSCC] was invigorating, thought provoking, reflective, encouraging, inspiring, challenging, tiring at times, but always promising for improved student achievement.”

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Moneyball and GSCC

I recently saw the movie Moneyball, the story of how the use of a new kind of statistical analysis of player performance changed baseball. I was struck by the similarities with GSCC. By looking at the patterns of individual players, within a common framework (getting to first base, etc), they were able to develop and deploy player skills in a new and highly effective way. This type of analysis CHANGED baseball. But not before institutions, commentators, players, and fans vehemently resisted the ideas behind the new model.

Baseball has TONS of statistics kept every which way. What data elements can help refine our “seeing” pedagogical patterns so we can provide faculty improvement opportunities as precisely as Billy Bean did for the Oakland A’s?


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Appreciative or Strengths-based Coaching

Appreciative Inquiry is about searching for the best in people, their organizations and the relevant world around them. In the case of GSCC, it’s about searching for the best in classroom pedagogy. The GSCC faculty design team incorporates Appreciative or Strengths-based Coaching into their discussions in ePortfolios, Pedagogy Circles and Choice Events. Instead of looking at what is not working and why, faculty shift to a positive focus on what is working so that they can build upon strengths.

Here are some examples of of how the GSCC faculty design team frame their appreciative-based coaching questions using themes and patterns to indicate strengths.

  • What strengths did you see in the portfolio overall?
  • Name these in terms of themes.
  • Were these the same strengths that the featured faculty identified and tagged?
  • Were these the ones that showed up in the preliminary patterns?

Suggested Readings
Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination
(book)
By Jane Magruder Watkins and Bernard J. Mohr. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2001

A Coaching Journey from Resilience and Well-being to Flourishing (article)
By Jacqueline Binkert & Ann L. Clancy
Appreciative Coaching, 2009


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Report on Jam: Turning Around Failure

Last week, the public policy initiative Getting Past Go hosted a Jam titled Turning Around Failure: System Triage for Severely Under-Prepared Adults in Higher Education.

The Jam was a great success; people from across the spectrum and every level added their voices to Turning Around Failure.  In total, the Jam saw over 150 participants from more than half the country — 28 states plus Washington, DC. Of those, 60 active participants posted their thoughts. Almost 100 people jumped on in the first 90 minutes and excitement built quickly among the participants!

Here is some of what was discussed:

“We all know that better-funded institutions embed student supports into the entire experience. Life at a wealthy institution can be one big safety net–students themselves call it a ‘bubble world.’ When we know that the sky is not going to open and rain down gobs of money upon our community colleges, how do we pick and choose among the most important support services?” – Lara Couturier, Jobs for the Future (JFF)

“One other thing looming on the horizon is the cut to Pell Grants. If there is likely to be less money going around, are we going to cut the aid to each student or are we going to need to focus on specific sets of students where we think the payoff or the need is greatest? Expanding or keeping the same pool of persons in a program with less and less money is going to have everyone coming up short.“  – Thomas Nenon, Vice Provost for Assessment, University of Memphis

“The Legislative Budget Board here in Texas published a report on Predictors of Access and Success. It found that the single strongest financial aid predictor of success is receiving a work study award. This study was commissioned as Texas was considering adding new merit criteria to the state’s largest need-based grant program-TEXAS grants. It’s an interesting study that may be of interest.“  – Leslie Helmkamp, Center for Public Policy Priorities (Texas)

“Michigan has just revamped part of its funding policies for ABE programs. Instead of going to a single organization or institution, certain kinds of funds will go only to a regional consortium made up of ABE/GED providers including school systems and community-based organizations, a community college, a four year university, and the workforce investment board. The state has been divided into regions, and while no funds have yet been released under this system, it does appear to be the future for the state in literacy/ABE/GED education….I anticipate we will cut costs by non duplication of services, and we will modify our roles so that we, as a region, can become more efficient and coordinated, leading to serving more students more effectively without increasing costs. We will be able to refer students smoothly from one program to another, from adult ed to community college, and, since we will be funded as a group, there should be no competition for the students.“  – Linda Spoleman, Director of Instruction, Grand Rapids Community College (Michigan)

To learn more, please visit Getting Past Go.

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Jam on Serving the Most Academically Challenged Students

The Jam, hosted by Knowledge in the Public Interest, Education Commission of the States and Jobs for the Future, is scheduled to take place on August 4, 2011, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m EST. It will address: lowest-level learners and defining who is the lowest-level learner; pedagogy and curriculum; institutional strategies; state and federal policies; and taking action – An 180 Day Action Agenda.

The impetus for this Jam emerged from a Lumina Foundation Convening in late June where representatives from over 30 programs, research organizations, institutions and states, along with five other foundations met to discuss the need for developmental education reform.

Following up on that momentum, we are looking forward to a deep conversation among a diverse group of stakeholders working on developmental education from classroom practice to financial aid policy.

Nothing would make us happier than the voice of GSCC faculty and their colleagues, including Presidents, Deans, Counselors, State Legislators, Governor’s ed staff.

Join the Jam by clicking here to register.

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Camp PAC, Semester 4 Kick-Off

The GSCC faculty is getting ready for the semester 4 kick-off in Camp PAC (Patterns, Assessment, Community). Camp PAC will consist of a two-day virtual convening that will take place both asynchronously and synchronously on August 2nd and 3rd.

In Webinars, faculty will be brought up to date on the grant and on the project’s data outcomes. The interim evaluation report from SRI, Seeing Pedagogy: Affordances of an Online Professional Development System for Individual Faculty Improvement, will be discussed in the Webinar on data outcomes. The report will be available on the website once it is finalized.

In the online community, faculty will take part in various activities where they will thoughtfully review their classroom practice from previous semesters. Activities will include faculty picking a notable lesson from last semester to identify the learning objectives , observing videos from past semesters that exemplify themes, and evaluating the materials they use to teach.

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30 Second GSCC

Global Skills for College Completion is a project which seeks to raise pass rates in Developmental Math and English by asking faculty to look deeply and methodically at what they are doing in the classroom and by tagging their classroom practice with a closed set of themes. We asked faculty two questions:

* How has GSCC changed what you do in the classroom?
* How has GSCC helped your students?

Our faculty made video responses! Here’s what Bronte Miller has to say.

Watch more GSCC faculty responses.
Trisha O’Conner, Delta College, Michigan
Katrina Nichols, Delta College
Richard Getso, South Texas College
Michelle Zollars, Patrick Henry Community College, Virginia
LaVache Scanlan, Kapi’olani Community College, Honolulu, Hawaii

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What Professors Do To Support Student Success

In March 2011, thirty-two students joined GSCC facilitators Marisa Klages, Lisa Levinson and Brenda Kaulback in focus groups to discuss the pedagogy styles of their GSCC faculty. The students shared their thoughts on what helps them to learn and provided valuable insight.

The intent of the focus groups was to delve deeper into issues that students had identified in the past two Student Jams, specifically (1) how teachers create a classroom environment that is conducive to learning, (2) teaching and presentation strategies that contribute to student success, and (3) faculty qualities that help students learn.

One of the themes that resonated with students was comfort. Students stated that a sense of comfort in the classroom means that they can more readily attend to their learning objectives. They suggested strategies for faculty to create a supportive learning environment. These included being respectful of how they treat students, adjusting the pace of the classroom according to students’ needs, having an easy teaching style that allowed students to feel connected, being passionate, having a caring attitude and being down to earth and authentic.

Students believe that offering a variety of approaches to presenting information is advantageous and contributes to student success. They urged clarity and repetition, contextualization through examples, and a warm and caring presentation style.

The personal qualities in faculty that students indicated they respond to positively were authenticity — the ability of faculty to show their human side, seeing students as people, passion for subject matter and teaching, having a sense humor, being energetic, open and understanding, and patience.

The full report, Student Focus Groups on Developmental Community College Pedagogy: What Professors Do To Support Student Success, is available to download.

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Pedagogy Matters! New Online Communities

Thanks to all who volunteered to take part in shaping Pedagogy Matters – our innovative online community of faculty. We’re excited to introduce new opportunities for getting involved:

For more information on taking part in the Pedagogy Matters community, contact Claudia Hindo at chindo@kpublic.org.

Read GSCC faculty design team’s declaration to a commitment to provide access to outstanding educational opportunities for all students in the Pedagogy Matters! Manifesto.

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Kudos to a GSCC Faculty Design Team Member

Michelle W. Zollars won the 2011 Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award at Patrick Henry Community College. Congratulations, Michelle!

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GSCC Design Team Spreads the Word

The GSCC Design Team have been busy sharing their findings across the country. At the League for Innovations Conference, Innovations 2011, in San Diego, Project Co-PIs, Drs. Gail Mellow and Diana Woolis, along with Dr. Louise Yarnall, lead evaluator from SRI, presented on “Pedagogical Patterning: Discovering the Patterns of Developmental Educators: A Story in Three Parts.” Here, they shared the work that GSCC has done around understanding the way that developmental educators teach by looking at the recurring themes that appear in a developmental educators teaching. Also at Innovations, Terry Shamblin, Trisha O’Connor, Bronte Miller and I presented on the Tools and Routines of GSCC with a focus on each of the main tools: ePortfolio, Polilogue, Tagging and Pathfinder.

Rosemary Arca presented on “Teachers on Teaching: From Reflection to Action: Incorporating Research into Classroom Practices” at the  Foundation Skills Teaching and Learning Community and Supported in part by Bridging Research, Information and Cultures (BRIC) in Mendocino, CA.

LaVache Scanlan and Dr. Yasser Hassebo have both recently presented about being mathematic faculty in the GSCC project in Hawaii and Michigan.

Michelle Zollars, Reid Sunahara, Dr. J. Elizabeth Clark and I presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication on “Digital Multiplicity: The Global Skills for College Completion Project to Create a Replicable Model for Success in Basic Writing” where they discussed having the time to delve deeply into their teaching, reflection, and tagging.

If you were at AERA, maybe you heard Dr. Louise Yarnall present Dr. Diana Woolis’ paper: “Action Pedagogy: Global Skills for College Completion.”  Otherwise, you can check out the article in the May/June 2011 Change Magazine “Developmental Education Pedagogy” by Drs. Gail Mellow, Diana Woolis and Diana Laurillard.

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Semester 2 Student Jam Report is Available

Students from GSCC classes across the country joined in dialogue to identify the critical pedagogical factors leading to their success. Student responses included comments on all 31 of the faculty themes, validating the pedagogical themes found in GSCC classroom activities and used by the GSCC team and faculty in their research. The top commented upon themes? Comfort, technology, time on task, enjoyment, and structure. The most remarked upon faculty quality? Passion. As one student noted about her teacher, “She shows us that she loves math so it makes me like math just a tad bit more.”
Download the 2nd Student Jam Report.

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GSCC seeking a Campaign Coordinator and an Online Community Coordinator

Two positions are available as a result of and response to Pedagogy Matters! The First National Jam on Teaching Developmental Education.

Pedagogy Matters Campaign Coordinator
The Pedagogy Matters Campaign Coordinator will create awareness and understanding of the role of pedagogy in the success of developmental education students. Click on the title to go to the application survey.

Online Adjunct Community Coordinator
The Online Adjunct Community Coordinator will help design and launch the online community focused on three objectives:
1. Provide a space for adjunct developmental education faculty to interact in a structured way;
2. Explore and recommend strategies for engaging developmental education faculty about developmental education innovation;
3. Explore and recommend, based on GSCC, strategies for adjunct developmental education faculty professional development.
Click on the title to go to the application survey.

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What do Google and GSCC have in common?

Diana Woolis, one of GSCC’s co-PIs, shared this article from The New York Times: Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss. The article outlines Google’s Project Oxygen, a data-driven study to determine the practices of the most effective managers in the company…and to figure out how to help under-performing managers perform better.

Diana excitedly notes some of the similarities between Google’s Project Oxygen and GSCC.  For example, GSCC began with 25 “deeply experienced” teachers who have proven their “exceptional impact with students.” Similarly, Google studied their best managers:  “The starting point was that our best managers have teams that perform better, are retained better, are happier — they do everything better,” Mr. Bock says. “So the biggest controllable factor that we could see was the quality of the manager, and how they sort of made things happen. The question we then asked was: What if every manager was that good? And then you start saying: Well, what makes them that good?”

Our processes are similar, too.  For GSCC, we comb through faculty ePortfolios and videos, and speak to students via student Jams. At Google “…statisticians gathered more than 10,000 observations about managers — across more than 100 variables, from various performance reviews, feedback surveys and other reports.”  As with GSCC, at Google the key was ultimately in the patterns.

And as we have found, “The process of reading and coding all the information was time-consuming. This was one area where computers couldn’t help, says Michelle Donovan, a manager of people analytics who was involved in the study….’People say there’s software that can help you do that,’ she says. ‘It’s been our experience that you just have to get in there and read it.’”

Congratulations to Google on their ground-breaking project. We at GSCC continue our deep reading of the patterns.

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A look at the new “tide” of remedial students

Last week’s New York Times article, CUNY Adjusts Amid Tide of Remedial Students, offered a close look at the challenges of developmental education in the community colleges that are part of the CUNY (City University of New York) system.

From the article: “About three-quarters of the 17,500 freshmen at the community colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading, writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required such instruction in all three subjects. In the past five years, a subset of students deemed “triple low remedial” — with the most severe deficits in all three subjects — has doubled, to 1,000.”

The article goes on to highlight some of the trends that have contributed to this need at CUNY, and in other colleges nationwide.

GSCC co-PI and LaGuardia Community College president, Dr. Gail O. Mellow, is quoted in the article. “I embrace developmental education because it pivots lives. If students get an associate’s degree, they can become nurses, making $85,000 a year. If they don’t make it through that developmental class, they’ll barely make minimum wage.”

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Spreading the love through GSCC

While the digital librarians comb through the online communities in Polilogue to capture mention of resources for GSCC’s web-based collection in Diigo and for Pathfinder, an internal database of faculty-generated materials,  we eavesdrop on the inspiring discussions. We just had to share these from the Coffee Klatch.

From Kate Smith :
“Hi all.  I thought some of you might appreciate the following conversation…”
“After class I had to talk with a student.  After we finished our chat he said:
“Miss, you are such a hippie.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, man, yeah . . . you are always spreading the love everywhere through math.”"

and from Rosemary Arca:
“My students are challenging me to continue in my Vinyasa Flow Yoga class, a class I complain to them about for its rigor and pain-inducing speed of poses. They responded: “Aw come on, Ms. Arca, you’re always talking about the value of persistence when things get hard. Show us what you’ve got.” ”

Caring and Persistence in a nutshell.

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Recommended readings

In addition to the countless readings that are shared informally among the GSCC faculty in the online community, Polilogue, each face-to-face meeting (there have been three) was accompanied by its own pre-conference reading assignment.

In order to better understand the thinking that has framed the GSCC project, we share these recommended readings (in chronological order).

These, and many other readings relating to the GSCC project, can be found in our Diigo group.

Camp Innovation (winter 2010)
The GSCC project kicked off  with a face-to-face called Camp Innovation.  This was the first opportunity for all involved in the project to meet, and for the team to introduce the goals and strategies of the project in person.

Art and science of teaching developmental mathematics: building perspective through dialogue
By Galbraith, Michael W. and Melanie Jones. In Journal of Developmental Education; 30.2 (2007): 20-27. Article is available for purchase or may be available through document delivery in your college’s library.

Digital technologies and their role in achieving our ambitions for education
By Diana Laurillard, London Knowledge Lab, London Institute of Education, Inaugural professorial lecture, February 2008. From the abstract, Laurillard argues for “an education-driven approach to the use of digital technologies to achieve our ambitions for education.”

Minding The Dream: The Process and Practice of the American Community College
By Gail O. Mellow and Cynthia Heelan (2008). This page is the announcement of the book from LaGuardia Community College and the text/video of Dr. Mellow’s lecture for the Robert H. Atwell lecture.

Support a Science of Performance Improvement
By Anthony S. Bryk in Phi Delta Kappan April 2009, vol 90 (8), pp. 597-600. Bryk, president of the Carnegie Foundation, argues for a “Design, Educational Engineering, and Development infrastructure….” Abstract available on this page. Full text by subscription. Check with your local library; they might be able to obtain it for you through interlibrary loan.

Theory, practice, and the future of developmental education
By Chung, C.J. In Journal of Developmental Education; 28.3 (2005): 2-11. Article is available for purchase or may be available through document delivery in your college’s library.

What is the future of basic writing?
Trudy Smoke, Published in Journal of Basic Writing, Vol 20, No 2 Fall 2001, pages 88-96. This bookmark is to the citation in ERIC. Check with your local library for assistance with access to full text.

What’s Needed To Make Sure Innovation Is Working?
By Jim Shelton and John Easton of the U.S. Education Department. The authors blogged as part of the National Journal’s Expert Blogs – Education area. In the initial post, Shelton and Easton post some questions about effective innovation. In the comments section (24 posted as of 4/1/10), others in the field respond.

Camp Tag-A-Lot (summer 2010)
This session was held between semesters one and two, and introduced the new themes to the GSCC faculty. Tagging was discussed as a means of attaching the themes to lessons, allowing some self-determination by the faculty.  Just before Camp, the faculty was invited to a sneak preview of “Our Head in the Cloud,” a forthcoming book chapter written by Diana D. Woolis and Gail O. Mellow.

Creativity Through e-Learning: Engendering Collaborative Creativity Through Folksonomy
By Andy Lapham, Faculty of the Arts, Thames Valley University, London, UK. This paper from the Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on e-Learning includes literature review and presents a cognitive analysis of tagging.

Our head in the cloud: Transforming work on college completion
By Diana D. Woolis and Gail O. Mellow. This page is the abstract for the book chapter on the Emerald (publisher’s) website.

Camp Breakthrough (winter 2011)
Most recently, before beginning semester 3, the GSCC faculty and team convened to discuss, among other things, the idea of appreciative inquiry.

Appreciative inquiry : change at the speed of imagination
By Jane Magruder Watkins and Bernard J. Mohr. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2001.  GSCC utilizes an AI approach to working together. There is a new edition of this book being published next month. This link goes to the title on Worldcat where you can locate a copy in a library.

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GSCC Continues!


LaGuardia Community College Foundation Receives $1.05M for Global Skills for College Completion

Long Island City, NY—January 19, 2012–LaGuardia Community College Foundation has been awarded a $1,048,143 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue the development of Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC). GSCC, a project partnership between LaGuardia Community College and Knowledge in the Public Interest, is a network of community college faculty and researchers committed to the idea that improving our nation’s graduation rates starts with the professors who teach basic skills in mathematics and English. GSCC has created an online practice improvement strategy that allows college faculty across the country to connect with and learn from each other in order to help students achieve better pass rates in basic skills classes.

Over the past two years, GSCC worked with 25 of the country’s most effective professors teaching remediation at community colleges across the country, gathering information about their classroom methods of success. Using innovative technology and a set of powerful digital tools created by GSCC, faculty examined and analyzed their personal teaching patterns. GSCC faculty also connected and worked with each other to create more engaging, inspiring and effective classrooms by testing and adapting new tactics that improve student outcomes. GSCC has analyzed its data to identify classroom practices most commonly used by great teachers and found that it’s not just what you teach, it’s how you teach it.

At a time when an educated workforce is more important than ever before, the time for a bold new look at college – particularly in remedial classrooms – is now. This generous grant from BMGF will enable GSCC to continue our important work with faculty across the country, using new tactics and technology to improve our nation’s graduation rates,” said Dr. Gail O. Mellow, President of LaGuardia Community College, Co-Principal Investigator GSCC.

The current award will allow GSCC to launch a second cohort of full time and adjunct faculty who teach remedial mathematics or English, to be recruited from community colleges across the country, as well as to refine GSCC’s innovative online tools. A call for the faculty participants will be issued in late January, 2012 for a fall semester launch.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation award will also fund the development of a business plan for an online Research & Development Network that will capitalize on the success of the GSCC. The Research & Development Network will be a linked system that can support and supplement research in developmental education by providing a ready set of faculty to explore and test activities, curriculum, online tools, etc., that are being developed by other projects—in real time in actual classrooms.

“Our paradigm-shifting methods help faculty re-examine their own practices, test and adapt methods most appropriate to their own challenges and connect with fellow educators for a largernetwork of support and ideas. This funding will allow GSCC to bring this innovative approach to community colleges across the country in order to bring better outcomes to the students who need it most,” said Dr. Diana D. Woolis, Founding Partner, Knowledge in the Public Interest, Co-Principal Investigator GSCC.

For information about Global Skills for College Completion, please contact Dr. Marisa Klages, Project Director, mklages@lagcc.cuny.edu , 718-482-5677.
••••

LaGuardia Community College located in Long Island City, Queens, was founded in 1971 as a bold experiment in opening the doors of higher education to all, and proudly carries forward that legacy today. LaGuardia educates students through over 50 degree, certificate and continuing education programs, providing an inspiring place for students to achieve their dreams. Upon graduation, LaGuardia students’ lives are transformed as family income increases 17%, and students transfer to four-year colleges at three times the national average. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY), LaGuardia is a nationally recognized leader among community colleges for its boundary-breaking success educating underserved students. At LaGuardia we imagine new ideas, create new curriculum and pioneer programs to make our community and our country stronger. http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/home/

Knowledge in the Public Interest, founded in 2001, designs conversations that are transforming education. Through innovative uses of social media, KPI fosters powerful online collaborations focusing on educational practice and policy. KPI brings together education leaders, researchers,
practitioners, and other experts throughJams—one‐day, synchronous, moderated online exchanges;eCommunities—structured, facilitated virtual working groups that achieve specific outcomes over set timeframes; and Networks**—ongoing interactions of diverse participants addressing issues of shared concern. http://www.kpublic.com/

Contact us if you are interested in joining the effort.

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Resources From the Pedagogy Matters! Jam

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AMATYC honors Bronte Miller with the 2011 Teaching Excellence Award

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The GSCC Experience: New Model For Professional Development

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Moneyball and GSCC

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Appreciative or Strengths-based Coaching

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Report on Jam: Turning Around Failure

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Jam on Serving the Most Academically Challenged Students

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Camp PAC, Semester 4 Kick-Off

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30 Second GSCC

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