Subject: Instruction Notes 4/04/05
From: Claire Biancalana
Organization: Cabrillo College, Office of Instruction
Instruction
Notes
4/04/05
Graduation
With graduation just a short distance down the road, I am collecting
interesting, or perhaps even amazing, stories you would like to share concerning
your students who are graduating. As you know, I always like to celebrate the
successes our students have achieved, and graduation day is the perfect time
to highlight some of them. Please forward your stories and information to the
Instruction Office as soon as you can.
Learning Skills
If you suspect that any of your students may have learning disabilities, and
would benefit from the services and strategies that could be provided to them
from the Learning Skills Program, please have them contact the Learning Skills
Program Office, located in Room 1073, as soon as possible. Office hours are
from 8:30 - 12:00 & 1:00 - 3:30, M-F. The telephone number is 479-6566.
Please contact Deborah Shulman, LSP director, or Cathy Brogoitti, Program Specialist,
if you have any questions.
Office Hours
Faculty office hours are online at: http://www.cabrillo.edu/services/instruction/officehours/officeindex.htm
The Voice
This semester, the email addresses of editors and reporters are being included
in the print and online editions of our college newspaper. Please use those
addresses to correspond with the dedicated and hard working members of our newspaper
staff. As practicing journalists whose mission is to serve our community by
covering Cabrillo, our journalism students would appreciate knowing that their
work is being read and what the readership thinks of its quality.
Open-Access
Computing
Open-Access computing is now available on the upper campus. Twenty laptop PCs
are available for two-hour checkout periods at the library. Students can use
self-directed tutorials for MS Office and work on their papers. The laptops
are wireless and print to the library's network printer. Lower campus open-access
is available in the 1400 building.
Free
Financial Aid and Scholarship Workshop
(Please announce the following information to your students) A workshop will
be held on Wednesday, April 13, from 2:30-4:30, at Cabrillo College, in Room
834. Students will be able to learn about money for college tuition, books,
childcare, and living expenses. They will also learn to access available campus
and community resources --especially those entering Health Careers. As always
all interested are welcome to attend! The workshop is being co-sponsored by
Pathway to Health Careers, Fast Track to Work and Puente Project of Cabrillo
College. For more information please call Shirley Flores-Munoz – (831)
479-5788.
Health
and Science Career and Education Day
This year’s Health and Science Career And Education Day will take place
on May 9 at 85 Nielsen Street. Mark your calendars! The purpose of the event
is to expand awareness and to provide information about career preparation in
Health Occupations. As we all know, there is a terrific need for more of our
community members to consider a career in health care. There will be jobs available
and there will be a need for many years to come. Many individuals would like
to pursue a new career but just don’t know how to get started. This year
our health career day will offer them information from over 20 training and
educational institutions.
For those interested in helping make this event successful, please come to the
planning meeting for this year’s health career day on Monday, April 4,
2005, from10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at 85 Nielsen Street, Watsonville. If you
do plan to attend, RSVP to Shirley Flores-Munoz at 479-5788.
SLO Corner
During the feedback sessions at the Food and Thought: Chewing on Learning
Outcomes flex workshop, many good questions were raised. The SLO Corner
will answer a few of them in each issue of Instruction Notes. Today’s questions
and answers are:
Will working with SLOs infringe on academic freedom? Will this affect
the teaching methodology I use?
The process that Cabrillo has adopted to measure student learning outcomes in
the classroom is designed to preserve instructor autonomy. Transfer and basic
skills faculty use a particular process, called course-embedded assessment that
looks in detail at one class assignment or a series of test questions that they
have designed. No one can tell an instructor what assignment to use or how to
teach it. Academic freedom is not affected. Nor is teaching methodology.
Occupation faculty will assess their programs’ SLOs using a process that
the department creates together. Many are adopting the same course-embedded
approach that transfer and basic skills faculty use. Other occupational programs
are using the results of required state board exams or other assessments that
they already have in place. Since the department designs the process together,
no one’s academic freedom or methodology is infringed upon.
Will this encourage us to give inflated assessments or grades?
No. Faculty report the results on a simple form that does not record individual
grades. Instead, faculty are asked to identify what student issues or needs
became apparent as a result of the assignment and to discuss what is needed
to improve teaching and learning. Later, in a department meeting, faculty share
both the assignment and the student needs and issues it revealed. The entire
department discusses what they need as a whole to improve teaching and learning.
Those improvements are then incorporated into the department’s Instructional
Plan. Since no grades are recorded, there is no reason to inflate them. Individual
instructors are not judged by how their students perform on the assignment.
What matters is the instructor’s identification of student needs and issues
and how the department decides to address them. More details about the faculty’s
role in assessing SLOs can be found in three workbooks (Classroom/Course SLO
Assessment, Occupational Programs, and Instructional Planning) on our SLO web
page at www.cabrillo.edu/services/pro/assess/assessweb/index.html