Academic Senate
2008-2009
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Academic Senate |
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Basic Skills
Basic Skills Action Plan 2008-2013
Basic Skills Expenditure Report 10-08
Documents from the Basic Skills Institute, August 10-13, 2008
News You Can Use
June 2008
Welcome to the first edition of the Monterey Peninsula College Basic Skills Initiative Newsletter. The goal of this newsletter is to provide you with regular updates on what is happening with the Basic Skills Initiative here on campus, share with you professional development opportunities that are available, and be a centralized source for information related to Basic Skills.
Debbie Anthony, Laurie Buchholz, Susan Joplin, Jon Mikkelsen, Carsbia Anderson, Karen Engelsen, Michael Gilmartin, and John Gonzalez attended this regional workshop. See below for what a couple of us learned at the meeting.
This workshop is designed for part-time instructors. MPC is sending four instructors to this meeting in Newport Beach. They will be learning about best practices in pedagogy for basic skills.
Learning Styles Inventories
VARK
http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp
DVC Learning Styles Survey
http://www.metamath.com/lsweb/dvclearn.html
The
BSI Committee meets the first and third Friday of every month at 2:30pm.
Our next meeting will take place during Flex Week.
Mission Statement
The BSI Committee is committed to supporting highly coordinated, integrated,
and collaborative learning and support environments; raising awareness of
basic skills; removing academic barriers; facilitating smooth academic
transitions; creating clearer pathways to student success in both academic
and vocational areas; and providing student-focused approaches to learning.
BSI Regional Workshop Participant Feedback
I attended two great sessions…
Session 1 was Butte College's Center for Academic Success which offered a reading and writing center and Critical Skills Workshops. The workshops were offered independently or could be taken as a 1/2 credit course. The presenter was Miya Squires at SquiresMi@butte.edu or 530-895-2811.
Session 2 was about Mission College's Writing Center which has evolved from a "drill and kill" kind of curriculum to using students' own writing as the course materials. It sounds like it's been working brilliantly. The presenter, Margaret Juncker, gave us a 24-page packet and said she's happy to email extra copies and respond to questions. Her email address is margaret_juncker@wvm.edu.
Laurie Buchholz
I attended two breakout sessions:
PUENTE: I attended the Puente presentation by Dr. Adela Najarro. Dr. Najarro, English instructor, and Alethea De Soto, counselor, are the Puente Project team at Cabrillo College. I chose to attend this session because I have spoken with Ms. De Soto before and was excited to meet her English-Instructor counterpart and hear about their program (Cabrillo has had Puente now for twenty years). It was inspiring to hear about the success of this learning community that opens doors to students through its high expectations, its focus on teaching students how to learn, and its incorporation of culturally relevant classroom content. Puente has shown great success in increasing the number of educationally disadvantaged students who enroll in four year institutions of higher learning and also in the number who go on to earn their college degrees. I love the emphasis on language as power (Pierre Bourdieu's work was briefly addressed as having an influence on the Puente Program). I also benefited at this session from the input of others who shared their experiences of working with students in Puente Programs at various locations in our region. I came away with ideas that have inspired me and that I can apply to my own work with students.
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING & ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES IN READING: I attended this active-learning breakout session by Aaron Malchow, Reading Instructor at Mission College, Santa Clara. Aaron had the session attendees collaborate on a summarizing activity that resulted in our learning from each other and creating together an assessment tool (rubric) to check our understanding. His active learning methods promote comprehension and critical reading skills and foster student metacognitive awareness. I'm excited to incorporate some of Mr. Malchow's ideas in my own teaching and to share his techniques with interested colleagues at MPC.
Susan Joplin
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We want to hear from you. If you have questions concerning Basic Skills or if you would like to contribute something to this newsletter, please contact mgilmartin@mpc.edu.
