ESL Department Spring Flex Day

March 5, 2010

8:45a – 3:00p, ESL103

Minutes

1. Announcements:

  • BSI-funded workshops – for ESL Dept (MLC instructors invited), led by K. Graziadei, March 12th and May 14Th (11:15-1:15), Rm ESL105; lunch included; please RSVP to Keith
  • F10 schedule – FT and Associate Fac schedule offers have been made; the remainder of part-time schedule offers are forthcoming over the next several months
  • Accreditation Team visit – March 8th – 11th (They may visit classrooms or interview individuals); see SMC web site for link to all accreditation docs and visiting team bios.
  • S/ILO proposal – See below. Department consensus was that there are numerous questions that need to be resolved. The worth and meaningfulness of collecting data in this manner to programs and departments is unclear. Tying the data directly to budget decisions made by DPAC is also of concern given that the data is likely to be inaccurate in that it doesn’t allow for nuance and appears to be a quick and easy method of getting numbers outside the process currently in place. How will departments/programs be able to use this information in a timely and manageable manner?
  • Tutoring staff – New tutor joining us: Ann Hollerman; Nicole and Liza continue from winter. Kaori and Eunhye have departed, but we hope they will choose to return after a year. There are students who sign up for tutoring every week. Instructors should emphasize to their students that our tutors are not meant to take the place of support courses. Instructors should check the tutoring attendance records for their classes to see if there is a student who is doing this.
  • Conversation Exchange Program – instructors will meet this afternoon to match ESL students with their MLC counterparts; students will be notified by email by their mentor instructors the week of 3/8; a field trip (TBA) and an end-of-semester party (at Bundy) on May 28th are planned events. Funding for transportation and party goods is coming from the Global Council.
  • Cheating/plagiarism – John Hoover gave updates from Honor Council; departmental policy is zero tolerance. Students should be reported to the disciplinarian, Judy Penchansky (form available through ISIS roster page under “dates and deadlines”), the first time they are caught cheating (including during the diagnostic testing process). Students collecting add codes (or being enrolled in a section but ‘shopping’ around for another) will be curtailed from now on. In future semesters, instructors will require that students present their enrollment form before they are allowed to add their names to the waitlist. Students who are already enrolled in another section will be told to attend that section or drop it.

2. Faculty presentations - Plotner on plagiarism; York-Herjeczki on reading; Sucherdescribed her upcoming sabbatical. If instructors would like the department to schedule complete workshops, they should email Toni.

3. 21A/B texts, assignments, grading, rubrics, assignment weighting (in class vs. out of class) (Emily, Sharon, Judy). 21A instructors will stay with Quest 3 and may use any portion(s) of it. 21B instructors will use either New Directions or America Now. EXCEPT for the 21A/21B combo courses, 21B instructors should NOT use Quest 3. 21B instructors may wish to use a novel as well.

4. 11A/B texts, assignments, grading, rubrics, assignment weighting (in class vs. out of class). Piloting of Interactions 2 will continue.

*S/ILO Cmmt idea: Faculty would assess each student in terms of the ILOs: self-confidence (measured by the students' learning of content and being able to do assigned tasks), academic behaviors (measured by attendance and academic honesty), critical thinking, and, depending on the course, global citizenship, and environmental ethics, for lack of a better title (both measured by a various class assignments if applicable to the course content). On each faculty member's portal, there would be an SLO roster with fields marked generically: SLO 1, SLO 2, SLO 3, SLO 4, etc. The departments would have the exact wording behind each of the course SLOs and the department would know which SLOs map to self-confidence, which to academic behaviors, which to critical thinking, which to global citizenship, and which to environmental ethics. At least at the beginning, participation in filling out the SLO roster would be voluntary but we hope that it would catch on and faculty would want to record how their students are doing on these dimensions.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Upcoming events:

March 12th Smart cart workshop 1 (11:15-1:15; ESL105)

March 18thInstitutional flexday

April 9th Eng 1 workshop (for 21B students) ESL123

April 22-25thCATESOL, Santa Clara

April 30 Dept meeting (11-1, ESL123)

April 30 Common essay preparation workshop (11:30-12:30; ESL 105)

May 7th Common essay norming session (12-2; DH313)

May 14th Smart cart workshop 2 (11:15-1:15, ESL 105)

June 4thDept meeting (12-2, ESL105)