LACCD Student Success Initiative Professional Development Taskforce Los Angeles City College Monday, April 21, 2008 In Attendance Deborah Harrington, District Office; Gerald Napoles, District Office; Evelyn Escatiola, ELAC; Mickey Hong, LACC; David Jordan, LAMC; Bradley Vaden, LATTC; Deborah Kaye, LAVC; Lloyd Thomas, WLAC;
Additional Items D. Harrington recognized the great work of WLAC during the April 11 SuccessNet program. It was great to see so many faculty members in attendance and the great synergy amongst them. D. Harrington would like to encourage innovations from faculty and staff to support Web 2.0 and other uses of technology. The District can use WordPress for interactive and static web pages.
Review of PDSSI Mini-Retreat Notes The members highlighted points from the retreat that they thought were important.
Review and Discussion of the Evaluating Staff and Organization Development Document
Flexible Calendar Plans D. Harrington highlighted that the categories in the flexible calendar program activities list should be connected with programs that are planned during the school year to encourage more faculty support. As a district, we need to look at teaching across the curriculum to help students succeed. We need to develop tools to help teachers achieve student success. It is important for students to learn techniques that will help them to succeed.
The district should have a variety of proactive techniques including Web 2.0 and online tutors. One of the goals is to link all the various committees and resources to improve student success. It is important that we empower ourselves to be able to leap into these initiatives.
A strategy used to complete Flexible Calendar Program Activities List is to incorporate what activities have occurred this year to plan for activities for next year. It is important to consider “How do we focus on what we can plan throughout the year and attach an assessment to prove achievement.” Another suggestion would be to incorporate “yearly faculty plans.” Faculty can meet with appropriate people before the first day of school to develop list of activities. This will make it easier to participate in these activities during the academic year. A “top-down” and “bottom-top” approach would be very effective.
Local Professional Development and Student Success committees should have good lines of communication and participation..
ELAC The Student Success Committee will use funds from Basic Skills. We have a sense of what we have not done. The college is considering bringing consultants from Chaffey College and Long Beach to make changes in support of student success. They felt it was important to bring an outside group to make the initiative successful. The team will evaluate many things such as marketing, catalogs, lab distributions, and utilization of resources. They will spend six days at the college. They will use this information to develop a “culture of success.”
LACCD students need help in the classroom because that is where they receive the most interactions at the college. Teachers can design activities that incorporate the use of learning labs. The consultants will be coming in a few weeks, and results will be presented in June. The Institutional Research department will be involved, but it is a matter for them to realistically achieve a certain number of items. For the next five years, professional development will be focused on student success. Basic Skills and Student Success committees work with each other, and Professional Development is part of the Student Success committee.
LATTC Faculty work with Student Success committee in the Faculty and Student Success Committee. It is not only student success, but faculty success as well. It is important to bring all the groups together in one meeting. There is a Basic Skills coordinator position at LATTC. The committee reports to the Academic Senate. This committee has representatives from student services and academics and classified staff. The department chairs hold meetings outside of the regular meetings to discuss how to address some of the issues. Staff development has been doubled to address specified goals. Almost half the money in Basic Skills is used to train faculty.
This is the same process at ELAC and Pierce College. The faculty need to be the drivers of these initiatives. The District Committee should develop a more cohesive plan so the training can be institutionalized.
Common Opening Day Announcement/Presentations M. Hong discussed presentation by LA City College. It is important to have a visual portion (even five minutes) to keep faculty engaged. She mentioned creating a testimonial to share the students’ stories.
It was asked if there was some “piece” in which faculty are brought together by discipline. The mission piece is how to bring success within the discipline. It is there that something can be designed (by discipline) that can be connected to student success task.
B. Vaden discussed speaking with students before the start of the semester. This will help develop conceptually items that connect students with each other. For example, everyone who teaches the same course provides the same activities. It would be a good idea if all the people teaching in the same class can write items to assess. Being ready to learn and giving tools and pathways are important for students to succeed at all levels.
Other Items Question was raised regarding if Professional Development reports to Shared Governance committee or Academic Senate. It varies by campuses, though the Professional Development of LAMC reports to the Shared Governance committee.
The LACCD SSI Professional Development Taskforce focuses on sustainability with emphasis on “people talking together to be able to leverage resources.”
Discussion was made about “technology boot camp for administrators” so that they serve as role model and encourage buy-in by other administrators. This would require student support to complete the “grunt work.”
This committee can create framework so that faculty, staff, and students can use the guidelines to successfully facilitate and create an environment to be more successful throughout all levels.
Next meeting
Monday, May 19, 2008 @ Los Angeles City College from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
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