SAS Developmental Writing Program Review - 2011-12

faculty to help acclimate our newest department members to our school, become familiar with curricula, answer questions, build collegiality ● Literacy Empowerment Paired-Reading mentor p

GRCC Program Review

Instructional Program:

Developmental Writing

Document Prepared By:

Megan Coakley Katie Kalisz Susan Mowers Tony VanderArk Janice Balyeat

Year of Review:

2011 – 2012

The Program Profile

_

A The Mission/Purpose

The Mission/Statement of Purpose

The English Department challenges students to become stronger writers, readers, listeners, speakers, and thinkers, and to cultivate a critical understanding of their own lives, the lives of others, and the world in which they live

Revised by the English Department 2010.

ACTION NEEDED? NO

Department web pages/marketing materials: The English department web page was updated in the last

year, both for visual consistency with other college pages and for content The site is clearly organized and easy to navigate, and the information is up-to-date and consistent with the college catalog The site also includes several helpful resources for students and faculty, such as links to Display magazine, Scholarship offerings, and documents related to Academic Freedom and Academic Honesty.

One issue that should be addressed, however, is that the list of Course Offerings on the web page does not include seminar or pilot courses Examples of current offerings that don't appear on the web page include EN293 (EcoLit and Activism) and EN293 (Writing & Leadership) The technical reason for this absence is that the list of course offerings is automatically generated on our web page from the current catalog files, which do not include these courses But leaving out the department’s special offerings does a disservice both to students looking for course options and to faculty who want those courses to fill

It’s not clear whether this is a content issue that can be remedied by the English department or a technical issue that needs to be solved by IT One possible solution is to include a submenu on the Course Offerings page that would list and describe seminar and pilot courses along with any other special offerings

ACTION NEEDED YES

B The Faculty & Staf

Full & Part Time Faculty

Leese, Rhonda Master’s Adjunct

Staf

All developmental faculty are appropriately credentialed

ACTION NEEDED? NO

1 Accomplishments of Faculty

The English Department faculty distinguishes itself professionally by contributing to the ongoing conversation about writing, reading, and teaching at the local, state, national, and international level This list represents a fraction of the hours, effort, and expertise

of the faculty of the English Department:

Departmental accomplishments:

● New Adjunct Mentor program: pairs new adjunct faculty with seasoned English Dept faculty to help acclimate our newest department members to our school, become familiar with curricula, answer questions, build collegiality

● Literacy Empowerment Paired-Reading mentor program

● English Department Learning Day

● Reading Apprenticeship Training (September 2011)

● English Department Symposium (Oct 2011): "Who Cares? Why Bother? Real Writing for Real People," an event designed to showcase writing as a valuable activity and to give our students tools they can utilize The event was filled with two days of interactive workshops led by professionals in our community

● Poetry Conference (April 2012) Another first for Grand Rapids occurred when Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) hosted The Grand Rapids Poets’ Conference: A Celebration of Grand Rapids Poetry The four-day event included panel discussions, seminars and learning sessions at

108 Sneden Hall during the day, and evening readings on the second floor of the GRCC library All events were free to the public.

Faculty accomplishments:

● Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids: Dave Cope

● Grand Rapids Poets’ Conference (coordinated by Dave Cope)

● Publications: poetry, chapbook; articles, book chapter; reviews ;screenplays; (online, state, national, international publications) – Kim Wyngarden, Mary Bayer, Dave Cope, Mikael Sikkema, and others

● Poetry readings: Kim Wyngarden, Mikael Sikkema, Mursalata Muhammad; David Cope

● Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Contest Coordinator (Mursalata Muhammad)

● Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Contest preliminary judge (Kim Wyngarden)

● KDL Teen Poetry Contest judge (Dave Cope)

● “This I Believe” essay contest judges

● LAND (Liberal Arts Network for Development) state committee members (Roland Gani, Joan Gearns, Jim Hayes)

● Professional Development small group leaders (Tom Mulder-Differentiating Instruction; Kellie Roblin – Peer Review of our Teaching practices; Jessie Richter – Technology in the Classroom; Nora Neill – Self-monitoring and Self-reflection; Mike Miller and Mursalata Muhammad – Publication and Scholarship; Lynnea Page-Jenkins – Classroom Strategies

to Facilitate Learning; David Settle – Peer Review strategies)

● Website creators (Dave Cope – Shakespeare; Diane Henderson “Teach With Me”)

● Lake Michigan Writing Project co-director (Susan Mowers)

● State and national conference presentations:

○ MDEC (Tom Mulder, Aimee Pawloski, Lynnea Page-Jenkins)

● Conferences attended:

○ MCTE

○ National Writing Project annual conference

○ CCCC conference

○ Community College Conference on Legal Issues

○ National Association for Developmental Education

○ Michigan Developmental Educators Consortium (MDEC) Lansing

○ National Council of Teachers of English annual conference

○ Kellogg Institute at Appalachia State University

● College-wide committee service:

○ Globalization committee

○ Sabbatical Review committee

○ Faculty Association Negotiating Team (Pres and member)

○ Total Compensation Study Team

○ Achieving the Dream

○ Strategic Leadership Team

○ Academic Governing Council

○ Enrollment Cut-off Date team

○ Adult and Developmental Education

○ General Education Team

● Speaker: Teacher Education Seminar (Beverly Shannon)

● Service Learning (Mursalata Muhammad, Linda Spoelman, Christina McElwee)

● GRCC Learning Day presenters: Vikki Cooper, Sheryl York

● Coalition for Secure Retirement (CSR) secretary (Fred van Hartesveldt)

● President, Michigan Developmental Educators (Linda Spoelman)

● Secretary-elect, Michigan Developmental Educators (Sheryl York)

● Faculty Association President (Fred van Hartesveldt)

● Media liaison (Fred van Hartesveldt)

● Association representatives on Faculty Council (Dave Cope and Andrew Lussky)

● Literary Empowerment Project mentors

● Founder / Adviser of Jules (GRCC Creative Writing Club): Kellie Roblin, Mike Miller

● Literacy Empowerment Paired – Reading mentors

● Online and hybrid course training

● Program Review committee members

● EN097/EN100 coordinator (Megan Coakley)

● Reading coordinators (Vikki Cooper and Jan Chapman)

● Freshman composition coordinators (Katie Kalisz and Susan Mowers)

● Innumerable graduate and continuing education credits towards MFA, Master’s degrees,

MA + 10, 20, and 30

● Volunteer tutor (Literacy Center)

● YWCA Domestic Crisis Center – GRCC donations coordinator (Dave Cope)

2 Faculty Professional Development

● English Department Learning Day – October 2011 English Department Learning Day

involved all full-time English faculty and 10 adjuncts who participated in an introductory training about Reading Apprenticeship and how we can integrate these strategies into our composition classes to help improve student achievement.

● The Composition faculty conducted a separate year-long Professional Reading Group The purpose was to read about teaching the writing process, to discuss our best

practices, to develop assignments and approaches to teaching writing, and to practice new techniques that will bring the writing process into a composition classroom

● Additionally, the Program Review Committee conducted two department-wide Rubric Training sessions for composition faculty It is imperative that we have well-trained faculty teaching to the learning outcomes for each of our classes Training becomes vitally important in our discipline in order to have consistent delivery and assessment of our curriculum Consequently, each session provided training for composition faculty to discuss and rank student writing related to exit level skills for our composition classes

● Our English Dept Professional Development Committee also designed and implementedsmall groups on various topics for faculty to engage in informal sharing of best practices throughout the year

○ Differentiating Instruction

○ Pedagogy Peer Review

○ Technology in the Classroom

○ Self-monitoring and Self-Reflection

○ Publication and Scholarship

○ Classroom Strategies to Facilitate Learning

○ Peer Review Strategies

● Finally, the English Department experienced collaborative learning and collegiality among all faculty who participate in these professional development activities Fun!

ACTION NEEDED? YES

Continued support for our professional reading groups, our off campus learning day, and our other professional development activities.

Fall Learning Day: Exploring diversity: understanding ourselves and our African-American male students, the students who are struggling the most in our composition classes Panel discussion of successful

One book, one department: we anticipate picking a book or series of articles we can read as a

department to understand our diverse student body and how we can help improve student achievement

in our gateway courses, of which composition is one We are presently reviewing suggested books We would focus on our diverse students, especially African-American male achievement

Explore bringing “Love and Logic” to our campus for adjunct professional development We understand classroom management is an area our department needs to address to help our large adjunct faculty have better classroom management, thus improving student achievement A special area of concern is our African-American male students and their low achievement rate in our composition classes

Rubric training: We will again offer two rubric training sessions, Thursday, September 13 from 5 – 8:30, and Saturday, January 13, 8:30 – 12 It is the department’s goal that all composition faculty, both full- time and adjunct, will participate in rubric training annually

We plan to bring consultants from ETS to observe and review our rubric training They are experts in the

field of writing assessment.

3 Number of PT/PT Faculty:

% Contact hours taught by each:

However, the majority of these sections are taught by adjunct faculty: For winter 2012 EN102

sections, 62% of courses are taught by adjunct faculty Of EN101, 74% are taught by adjunct, of EN100, 71% are taught by adjunct, of reading 097 classes 41% are taught by adjunct and reading 098 59% are taught by adjunct.

The importance of having an adequate number of full-time faculty members cannot be

overstated The student experience in our English classes can make or break a student’s

persistence and retention in college Our students need access to a superior academic

experience in our English classes and the more consistent we are in delivering our curriculum, the better the academic experience for students Presently, adjuncts in our department

outnumber time faculty 4:1 (Fall 2011: 27 time, 116 adjuncts; Winter 2012: 27 time and 106 adjuncts) It goes without saying that the required contributions of full-time faculty are different than the required contributions of adjunct faculty; the disproportionate ratio of full-time to adjunct faculty makes consistent delivery of curricula, oversight and

full-evaluation of teaching practices, and department engagement difficult, to say the least The negative effects of this ratio most certainly have an impact on students and their success at the college, as well as elsewhere (e.g., transfer institutions, the workplace, etc.)

The College Success Program (Title III Grant) and the Achieving the Dream initiatives are

designed to increase graduation rates One of our CAPs is to increase MACRAO graduates Among the College Success Program’s goals for 2016 are increases in the number of degree-seeking developmental students who graduate within three years, receive a grade of “C” or better in developmental courses, and complete 30+ college-level credit hours Reading, writing and critical thinking are the foundation of all academic success Six of the 15 “gateway” classes

as defined by Achieving the Dream are in the English Department (RD097, RD098, EN097, EN100, EN101, EN102) Skills taught in reading and composition courses are specifically

designed to assist with success across disciplines, and additionally to familiarize students with and increase willingness to take advantage of resources available for academic support

opportunities on campus All of this requires all students to acquire college level

communication skills in reading and writing Therefore, a student’s success in college often

depends on his or her success in the English department The more full-time faculty we have in

our department, the better experience we can offer students, and the more likely they are to besuccessful, at GRCC and beyond

While we actively participate in training as a department (because with so many adjuncts, we must strive to have consistent delivery and assessment of our curriculum across 130 – 140 people), twice-a-year training cannot make up for the disproportionate ratio Full-time faculty are responsible for the creation, revision, adoption, and review of our curricula, curricula that is often different from the other institutions where our adjunct instructors also teach Full-time English faculty have a long-term commitment to the department and to GRCC, and work

together to improve student achievement in courses Full-time faculty understand the mission

and vision of this community college and work in the trenches to help students be successful by

connecting them with support services, walking them to a counselor’s appointment, meeting in regular office hours, not to mention offering teaching expertise that they craft with several professional development activities Full-time faculty also support co-curricular activities such

as student book clubs, a creative writing club, Academic Service Learning and Display magazine

It is full-time faculty who are responsible for developing a new model for program review, whichincludes assessment of our program learning outcomes Full-time faculty then must

communicate this new model, and all of its various parts, to adjunct faculty

There are a number of specific, measurable outcomes that will come from the addition of four full-time faculty

● There will be 15% more time available for full-time faculty to meetone-on-one with students during office hours, something adjunct faculty are not required to do

● There will be 15% more available time for full-time faculty to be available for the increasing expectations for faculty to assist students with academic advising

● Adding additional full time faculty will create a greater level of consistency of course delivery and assessment, with four people teaching 32+ classes versus 16-32 different people teaching those same courses during an academic year

● The additional full-time faculty will increase productivity in the department with more people to share the important work Winter 2012: 27 full-time and 105 adjunct

● The new positions would offer 15% more full-time faculty dedicated to the work of course curriculum and assessment processes, to assist with the development of new courses, while enhancing the effectiveness of existing classes, through

collaboration on a daily basis with other full-time faculty in the department

● Additional full-time faculty members will enhance the ability of our department to develop new classes and help coordinate academic alignment and transferability with partner institutions.

ACTION NEEDED? YES

Two full-time tenure track positions

Program Content

A Curriculum History

1 Program/Curriculum Changes

A Brief History of the Developmental Composition Curriculum at GRCC

Prior to 2005, English 097 could be seen as a slower-paced version of English 100 Objectives were unclear to instructors and students alike In 2005, the English Department began to work toward departmental alignment regarding assessment and objectives Previous department Learning Days focused on placement of student essays into composition classes without a common view of the characteristics of said essays or composition classes So, we created a rubric for Entering Skills for EN 100/101 resulting in Exiting Skills for EN 097 This shift in the department from placement to rubric training in 2007 has increased common assessment of student essays and put greater focus on outcomes and objectives

As a part of the Academic Foundations Program (AFP), English 097 also benefited from the creation of the Common Course Outcomes (CCO) designed in 2008 The CCOs, tied to GRCC’s General Learner Outcomes, help guide instructors in implementing the non-disciplined based skills that students should acquire in their AFP classes The CCOs focus on the necessary

academic behaviors that students need: setting and planning goals, self-assessment of the learning experience, personal responsibility, and collaborative learning (peer-editing.) Now, all

of these behaviors are discussed in EN 097

2009 saw a change from the nebulous EN 100-like curriculum to a more deliberate and focused Developmental Composition document The committee that developed the document was comprised of the five full-time instructors who taught EN 097 For the first time, the outcomes taken from the EN 097 CARP were on paper along with the tools and processes used

to reach these outcomes Instructors now have a resource to guide them in creating effective assignments for their classes; in fact, the document includes several example assignments from

EN 097 instructors along with justifications for those assignments

Some other changes have occurred in the past few years English 097 enrollment has

increased significantly In Fall of 2007, 453 students were enrolled in EN 097; in Fall of 2009,

628 students were enrolled resulting in almost 30 sections of EN 097 We have also seen innovations in the design of the class Integrated Tutorial Support (ITS) has been attached to some sections of EN 097 The classes with ITS have a tutorial session once a week that works in conjunction with the material covered in class This provides the students with extra scaffolding

to ensure academic success Another innovation is the Career Advancement Program class taught with career-specific assignments to prepare students for work in their future professions English 097 has been taught at the Wealthy Street Learning Corner to bring the college class to students who may benefit from learning together in their community Winter 2011 saw the first

EN 097 designed and delivered to an all-male, all-athlete student body The work and

observations that occurred in this class will be used for future classes of the same kind

Recently, the Program Review Committee for the English Department has started to look at the data regarding success rates for the EN 097 students Over four years, the success rate is at

gender, Pell grant recipients, and age Males tend to be less successful than females, and minorities, especially African-Americans, have very low pass rates (35%) These results are requiring our department to identify possible reasons for a lack of success as well as potential ways to address the issue The Fall 2012 English Department Learning Day will focus on the struggles that minority males face; ideally, this will help faculty recognize ways in which we can contribute to the success of our students Another factor within GRCC’s control is enforcing the required C- before students can enroll in the next level composition course While this could result in students taking EN 097 more than once, enforced prerequisites will lead to higher success rates in EN 100/101.

We have not changed everything about English 097, especially those things that work We still teach with the goal of preparing students for EN 100/101 We still follow the writing

process of pre-writing, drafting, editing and revising – we spend more time on the additions of peer-review and self-assessment as part of the process The English Department continues to include Adjunct Instructors in the conversation in order to maintain consistency Finally, we still work to have our students think critically about what they read, what they write, and

themselves – the only difference is that now we have a more specific curriculum developed by faculty that teach the course, and additional support programs to help students meet the objectives

2 External Accreditation

We are in the process of applying for general NADE certification for our developmental

program, which includes Developmental Composition Intended completion date: August 2012

3 Distance education oferings and use of technology

The English Department has determined that our developmental classes are not suited for online courses

4 Experiential Learning Opportunities

● ASL courses offered within the program

We do not offer Academic Service Learning or honors classes within our developmental

● Writing assessment should place priority on the improvement of teaching and learning

● Writing assessment should demonstrate that students communicate effectively

● Writing assessment should provide the foundation for data-driven, or based, decision making

evidence-● Writing assessment should be informed by current scholarship and research in assessment

● Writing assessment should recognize diversity in language

● Writing assessment should positively impact pedagogy and curriculum

● Writing assessment should use multiple measures and engage multiple

perspectives to make decisions that improve teaching and learning

● Writing assessment should include appropriate input from and information and feedback for students

● Writing assessment should be based on continuous conversations with as many stakeholders as possible

● Writing assessment should encourage and expect teachers to be trusted,

knowledgeable, and communicative

● Writing assessment should articulate and communicate clearly its values and expectations to all stakeholders, especially students and, if applicable, parents

Additionally, we follow NADE guidelines for our developmental courses

Professional Standards according to the National Association for Developmental

● To preserve and make possible educational opportunity for each postsecondary learner.

● To develop in each learner the skills and attitudes necessary for the attainment ofacademic, career, and life goals

● To ensure proper placement by assessing each learner's level of preparedness forcollege coursework

● To maintain academic standards by enabling learners to acquire competencies needed for success in mainstream college courses

● To enhance the retention of students

● To promote the continued development and application of cognitive and

affective learning theory

http :// www nade net / AboutDevEd html

GRCC’s English Department strives to uphold each of these standards, both in the design

of our curriculum and in our approach to assessment of student writing

ACTION NEEDED? NO

2 Institutional Learning Outcomes

The ability to write a richly developed, clearly organized, relevant, grammatically correct college essay is essential to college success This foundation in written communication is required of all college degrees at GRCC as well as other colleges and universities It is the composition

requirement for the MAACRO agreement in Michigan The Developmental composition

curriculum is connected to our freshman composition program through our Exit Outcomes rubric, leading to a seamless development of written communication skills

This developmental composition curriculum is aligned with the ILOs Primarily, it is the

Communications ILO; however, critical thinking is required at all steps of the writing process

including peer review, revision, and proofreading; personal responsibility is required for

students to meet deadlines for submission of drafts for peer review, for discussion groups, and for other academic classroom responsibilities

ACTION NEEDED? NO

4 Experiential Learning

Does not apply to developmental composition

ACTION NEEDED NO

5 Distance Education Oferings

The English department has determined that no developmental class is appropriate for online learning

ACTION NEEDED? NO

6 Program Student Learning Outcomes

• PLO: Demonstrate competency in ideas/development, organization, style, and English conventions in college essay writing (Communications ILO; Critical Thinking ILO; Personal Responsibility ILO)

• The ability to write a richly developed, clearly organized, relevant, grammatically correct college essay is essential to college success This foundation in written communication is required of all college degrees at GRCC as well as other colleges and universities It is the composition requirement for the MAACRO agreement in Michigan This developmental composition course is the entry level for academically underprepared GRCC students This first course in the composition sequence reflects the preparation needed for the next level

of freshman composition

• Our course outcomes are identical to our developmental composition program outcomes because we presently only have one course, EN097.

• This program learning outcome of developmental essay writing is aligned with the ILOs

Primarily, it is the Communications ILO; however, critical thinking is required at all steps of the writing process including peer review, revision, and proofreading; personal responsibility

is required for students to meet deadlines for submission of drafts for peer review, for discussion groups, and for other academic classroom responsibilities

• Our PLO is measurable Student writing is collected and scored by trained GRCC faculty using an exit outcomes rubric created by GRCC faculty No revision needed for the next four years

ACTION NEEDED NO

7 Course Sequences