Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
DEPARTMENT:
Year: 2013- 2014
Academic Literacy
A. DEPARTMENT SERVICES/ACTIVITIES REPORT IN 2013-14
1.
Department-sponsored services (fall and spring semesters combined)
Area of Service
1.
Number
Served
In June 2013, the Department ran the four experimental exit courses BE112, BE205, BE122 and
BE226. In order to replicate the results from the previous June Intersession, in each reading and
writing course, the ESL and Native Speakers of English (NES) were merged. The teachers used
the same textbook in all four courses and collaboratively prepared lessons. The results were as
follows:
Summary June Intersession BE122/BE226
Total
Population
ELLS
Native Speakers
Grade
n
Percentage
P
NC
R
Total
12
6
9
27
44 %
23 %
33 %
100 %
P
NC
R
Total
7
3
5
15
47%
20%
33%
100 %
P
NC
R
5
3
4
12
42%
25%
33%
100%
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Queensborough Community College
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Summary June Intersession CATW Writing
BE112/205
Grade
n
Percent
Total
P
19
51.4%
Population
NC
4
10.8%
R
10
27.0%
No Test
4
10.8%
Total
37
100%
ELLS
Native
Speakers
2.
P
NC
R
No Test
Total
12
2
7
3
24
37
50%
8%
29%
13%
100 %
7
P
NC
R
No Test
Total
2
3
1
13
54%
15%
23%
8%
100 %
Adjunct Faculty Year-End Report
a. The 2013-2014 academic year had 10 adjunct faculty teaching the 2013 University Summer
Immersion Program, 36 adjunct faculty teaching 49 courses in the Fall semester of 2013
(accounting for 53% of the total courses taught in Academic Literacy for the Fall 2013
semester), and 24 adjunct faculty teaching 31 courses in the Spring of 2014 (accounting for
48% of the total Academic Literacy courses taught for the Spring 2014 semester). Cary
Lane, the adjunct supervisor, met and worked with each and every adjunct to ensure they
were using appropriate textbooks, HIPs, etc.
b.
Year: 2013- 2014
In June 2013, the Academic Literacy’s adjunct faculty began the 2013-2014 academic year with
a June faculty development session for adjunct faculty teaching in USIP. Adjunct supervisor
Cary Lane led the program for the 10 participating adjuncts, and developed innovative
approaches for curriculum development, best practices, collaborative strategies for highimpact teaching, thematic pedagogy, effective uses of tutors, proper integration of ALLC
resources and effective methods for integrating reading and writing content.
10 in USIP
36 in Fall 13
24 in Spring 14
10
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Queensborough Community College
c.
3.
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
A second Academic Literacy adjunct faculty development workshop – the second annual
Academic Literacy Adjunct Faculty High-Impact Practices Luncheon – took place in
August, 2013 at the Kupferberg Holocaust Research Center and Archives. This symposium
focused on effective utilization of campus resources for high-impact teaching practices, and
included presentations from Academic Literacy adjunct faculty, as well as from attendees
from the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Office of Academic ServiceLearning, the Common Read and the Academic Literacy Learning Center. Cary Lane
followed this up with individual meetings with each member of the adjunct faculty staff,
where specific teaching strategies and departmental protocols were discussed and improved.
These include developing and incorporating (required) high-impact teaching practices,
effective use of Starfish and CUNYFirst, integrating ALLC resources, proper syllabus
construction, proper use of departmental reading and writing assessment instruments,
effective use of departmental prescription-based interventions based on assessment tools,
strategies for campus-wide collaborations, and student research initiatives (including
Library/information literacy strategies). The results of these interventions included dozens of
thematic, high-impact pedagogy projects involving themes across the disciplines and using
resources across campus. A capstone project best exemplifying this was an integrated, 100student debate collaboration by four Academic Literacy adjunct reading and writing faculty
members.
Technology Committee Year-End Report
a.
The Academic Literacy Tech Committee’s mission is to expand and improve the use of
instructional technology in our classrooms. Over the past year the committee secured, architected
and maintained the H339 smart room, as well as conducted a best practices event for full and part
time faculty on effective uses of this room.
b.
The committee also wrote requests and corresponding rationales for new desktop computers for
the Academic Literacy offices, as well as two portable smart carts which would be used in
classrooms with no fixed instructional technology. This equipment would allow instructors to
more easily transport computing to classrooms which do not yet have fixed instructional
technology -- and do it on an as-needed basis. The LCD projectors, laptops and iPads included in
the request would allow immediate, mobile Internet access, software access and projection of
course content and software. Apple TV units would be included in the smart carts, and would
facilitate wireless projection of content from iPads, which our faculty members would share.
Faculty would be able to upload and prepare lessons and content on the iPads, which could then
be brought to H203, H208, H313, MC21, MC31, M140, M143 (as well as our 3 classrooms with
e-podia) for projection.
21
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Queensborough Community College
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
4. Annual Report of the Textbook Committee for 2013-2014
The department appears to be relatively content with the current textbook list
(Summer/Fall 2013) as there have been very few suggestions for new texts since that
time. Recently the committee approved 3 new series of books from Cengage/National
Geographic that are rich in content, beautiful, and highly affordable. We believe they
will be useful at all levels for both reading and writing classes. Committee members are
currently looking into Getting the Most Out of College by Richard Light, a study skills
book. As the publisher does not provide free copies, Jilani Warsi has graciously offered
to circulate his copy among the committee members. We hope to be able decide on the
book in time for the next updated list. That is likely to be sent out shortly after finals
week when faculty will be making decisions about books for the fall. Informal
observation suggests that as textbook prices continue to rise, faculty are moving away
from expensive rhetoric/reader combinations and toward other, more affordable options,
such as the New York Times (now free on line to the college community). This year
members of the committee (Gordon, Lane, Rothman, Warsi) have worked to develop
new uniform midterm and final exams for reading (upper and lower levels summary
exams) and writing (CATW practices). We anticipate continuing to write new exams
each semester until there is a sufficient bank of them to allow us to recycle securely.
5.
In the 2013-2014 academic year, the curriculum committee has made a number of
attempts to rethink the curriculum of the department. Of the many changes we
discussed, two have had immediate effects within this academic year. One, we changed
the rule for upper-level reading and writing classes, so that students who fail the class
more than twice or more were not allowed to retake the class.
We also began implementing the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) within the
department in Spring 2014. For the latter project, no documents were presented from
the committee (as it is presently constructed as a Learning Community), but committee
members Jed Shahar and Jennifer Maloy have regularly discussed (along with out
colleague, Cheryl Comeau-Kirschner and Leah Anderst of the English department) the
curriculum for this new program.
In addition, the committee prepared a number of lower-level combined reading and
Year: 2013- 2014
Entire
developmental
population
150
28
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
writing courses. In Fall 2013, a combined ESL, native-speaking class for a wide range
of students was presented, focusing on Linguistics.
The department as a whole raised questions about the specificity of the course, and so in
Spring 2014 the class was re-imagined as a special topics class. Another lower-level
class combining reading and writing was prepared by Kerri-Ann Smith, but because of
questions regarding the number of hours, it was did not advance.
6. In the July 2013 USIP program, Reading and Writing were taught together nstead
of being instructed separately for 60 hours. .
ESL and NES ACT Reading Results
218 ACT
Reading
Students:
ACT Reading Total Scores
Failed
140
64%
Passed
76
35%
Missing
2
1%
218
100%
Total Students Served
ACT Reading BE 21 (112/122)
ACT Reading BE 20 (111/121)
Failed
20
69%
Passed
9
31%
Total
29
10%
Failed
Passed
Total
28
33
61
46%
54%
100%
ACT Reading BE 22 (203/225)
Failed
38
78%
Passed
11
22%
Total
49
100%
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
ACT Reading BE 23 (205/226)
Failed
54
68%
Passed
23
29%
Missing
2
3%
79
100%
Total
Total ESL and NES CATW Writing
Total USIP CATW Scores
No. Students
Failed
147
67%
Passed
69
31%
Missing
4
2%
Total Students Served
220
100%
BE 20 CATW (111/121)
Failed
Passed
Missing
Total
20
18
1
39
BE 21 CATW (112/122)
Failed
19
53%
Passed
17
47%
Total
36
100%
51%
46%
3%
100%
BE 22 CATW (203/225)
Failed
Passed
Missing
Total
44
5
1
50
88%
10%
2%
100%
220 CATW
Writing
Students
BE 23 CATW (205/226)
Failed
64
67%
Passed
29
31%
Missing
2
2%
Total
95
100%
6
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
6. As a result of the CUNY PMP results, the chairperson launched a manual CUNY
First investigation to determine the number of students in Academic Literacy who
had failed exit courses more than two times and these were the results.
Percentage of Students Repeating
Course
Tot. Population
Number of
Repeaters
% of Repeaters
BE112
255
99
39 %
BE122
442
102
23%
BE205
253
153
60%
BE226
254
110
43%
When it became apparent that too many students were repeating exit courses
more than two times, the Department sought approval from curriculum
committee to limit the number of times a student may take exit courses such as
BE205/112 and BE226/122. (Please see Section B Course Changes for details.)
In addition, the Department required every student who was identified as a
multiple repeater to participate in special workshops designed to develop these
students’ needs. The results of the multiple repeaters’ workshops were:
FALL 2013 CAT-W INTERVENTIONS FOR MULTIPLE REPEATERS OF BE
112/205
Student Cohort: Students enrolled in BE 112 and BE 205 who were manually
identified through a CUNY First search as multiple repeaters:
students repeating the course for the third time; however, some
students in this cohort were repeating the course more than three
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
times, and others were repeating the course only the second time.
BE 112
BE 205
Total number of
students served in
CATW Multiple
Repeaters
Workshops
Number of Students
Attended
30 attended
25 tested
90 attended
76 tested
Pass Rate
110 attended
101 tested
9 not tested
29.7% (30 of 101
tested)
110
36% (9 of 25 tested)
28% (21 of 76 tested)
FALL ACT COMPASS READING INTERVENTION FOR MULTIPLE
REPEATERS OF BE 122/226
Multiple repeater: students repeating the course for the third time; however, some
students in this cohort were repeating the course more than three times, and others were
repeating the course only the second time.
BE122
BE226
Total number of
ACT Reading
Students Served
Number of Students
Attended
24
47
70 attended
64 tested
7 not-tested
Pass Rate
12.5%
23.4
70
22%
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Queensborough Community College
7.
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
In January 2014, students identified as multiple repeaters were offered twenty
(20) hour workshops to prepare for the ACT Reading and CATW Writing
Exams. The results are as follows.
BE 17: CAT-W INTERVENTIONS FOR MULTIPLE REPEATERS OF BE
112/205: January 2014
Total
Served
Number of Students
Attended
78 Attended
75 tested
No.
Passed
19
Failed Pass Rate
78
56 25%
BE 18:
ACT COMPASS READING INTERVENTION FOR MULTIPLE REPEATERS
OF BE 122/226: January 2014
66
Total
Served
Number of Students
Attended
66 Attended
57 Tested
No.
Passed
11
Failed Pass Rate
46 19%
9
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
8. In the Spring 2014 another multiple repeaters workshop was offered with 30
hours of classroom instruction an 30 hours of tutoring.
Spring 2014 Multiple Repeaters Workshop Results
Pass
ACT Reading
CATW
Writing
Fail
Total
% Passed
21
42
63
33.3%
8
56
64
12.5%
63 ACT
Reading
64 CATW
writing
9. ACT COMPASS Reading Early Exit: Fall 2013
When students in lower level courses evidence the ability to pass the exit exam(s), they
are permitted to participate in the Early Exit Program. The results are:
Student Cohort:
Fall 2013 Students enrolled in BE 121 and BE 225
Attendance Requirement
12 hours of instruction over a 3-day period
BE 121
BE 225
Total
Number of
Students
Attended
36 attended
35 tested
18 tested
54 Attended
53 tested
Pass Rate
No.
Passed
No.
Failed
57%
20
15
53%
55%
9
29
9
24
53 ACT
Reading
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Queensborough Community College
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
10. CAT-W Early Exit Intervention for BE 111 and BE 203: Fall 2013
When students in lower level courses evidence the ability to pass the exit exam(s), they
are permitted to participate in the Early Exit Program. The results are:
Student Cohort: Fall 2013 Students enrolled in BE 111 and BE 203
Attendance Requirement:
12 hours of instruction over a 3-day period
BE 111
BE 203
Total Served
Number of
Students
Attended and
Tested
23
7
30
Pass Rate
No.
Passed
No.
Failed
30
65.21%
28.6%
56.6%
15
2
17
8
5
13
11. Accelerated Immersion Program BE-16
The goal of this program is to give students access to a reading course that emphasizes
embedded and individual tutoring, along with additional lab hours outside of an intensive course
as a means of helping them (1) improve their ACT Compass scores, and (2) successfully
advance beyond remediation. In order to recruit students for the program, the Coordinator asked
professors in the Department of Academic Literacy to recommend students who met the
following criteria:
 Scored at least a grade of 82% on the Terra Nova midterm exam;
 Scored at least a three (3) on the midterm summary;
 Scored between 58-63 on the ACT Compass exam
 Exemplary attendance records; and
 Demonstrated a strong commitment to course materials and are motivated to
exit remediation.
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
The results are as follows:
15
Accelerated Immersion Program BE-16
January 2014
Number Passed
Number Failed
Total Population
Pass Rate
8
7
15
53%
Accelerated Immersion Program BE-16
June 2014
14
Number Passed
Number Failed
Total Population
Tested
Pass Rate
8
4
12
66.6%
12. Consequences of the Assessment of BE205
After attending the Assessment Institute, Jennifer Maloy conducted an assessment of the
BE205 Advanced ESL Composition students, and she discovered the following issue.

123
The average total score of the 123 student writing samples was 55.8, slightly
below a 56, which is a passing score on the CATW. The median total score
was 57. The lowest score was 28, and the highest score was 65. 47 students
received a score lower than 56, and the most frequent score was 60. A total
of 76 students, or 62% of students sampled, received a passing score on the
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Queensborough Community College
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
final, indicating that a majority of students received a passing score in
accordance with the CATW rubric, thereby achieving the learning objectives
of the course. However, departmental data indicated that only 25 % of the
students in BE205 had passed the CATW exam. This suggests that the
teachers’ scoring of the BE205 students’ finals was not rigorous enough.


CATW Norming Sessions: In order make certain that all of our writing
teachers are only passing the students who are ready for the demands of the
higher level writing courses, the Best Practices Committee arranged for a
series of CATW norming sessions in early December and in March so that
each teacher would know exactly what students should be able to do in order
to pass BE201/203/111 and enter courses that require the students to pass the
CATW exam. Our department’s most seasoned and certified CATW readers
led several norming sessions and emphasized the need to improve the quality
and consistency of writing finals grading. These sessions provided nuanced
guidance, cross-grading and expert feedback in a small-group setting.
As a result, the Department has decided to institute a new grading policy and
to provide additional norming sessions so that the AL instructors’ grading is
better aligned with the official CATW readers’ grades. In the past, the
students’ final exams would be graded according to the CATW rubric by
their individual instructor and another writing teacher. However, in order to
reduce the subjective effect of a teacher’s grading his/her own students’ tests,
in the future, midterm and final exams will be exchanged among the writing
faculty who will blindly read and grade the exams from two other classes. If
an instructor disagrees with the final score, he/she can provide a
departmental committee with a student portfolio and/or offer another writing
exam to guarantee that each student is assessed accurately. The following
chart demonstrates the Spring 2014 exit pass rates out of lower level writing
courses. Thus, when exit exams were normed and read by two teachers in the
Department instead of by the students’ instructors, the pass rate in all of the
Departments’ lower level courses decreased.
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
Spring 2014 Exit Results
Low Level Writing
BE111
BE201
BE203
P
R
NC
INC
Ws Total
38.5%
63.2%
45.9%
41.0%
22.1%
44.0%
0%
4.3%
0%
1.0%
16.2% 100.0%
14.7% 100.0%
9.2% 100.0%
0%
0%
These norming sessions should prevent unprepared students from entering writing exit
courses (BE112 and BE205) prematurely and the Department will continue to grade
midterms and finals in this fashion.
14
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
13. Accelerated Learning Program
Spring 2014
In the Spring 2014, the English and Academic Literacy Departments piloted two
sections of the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) program which permits
students to enroll in a developmental writing class (BE112) and English
composition (English 101). Two sections were offered and taught by one AL
instructor (Jennifer Maloy) and one English 101 instructor (Leah Anderst). After
the semester ends, the instructors will examine the results, adjust their pedagogy
and share the data with both departments.
27
The results indicate that 70.3% of the students passed BE112 and the CATW
exam:
ALP Spring 2014
Passing BE112 and CATW Exam
Total
Number
Passing
% Passing
Number BE112 BE112 and CATW
and CATW
ESL
12
8
67%
Native Speak
15
11
73%
total
27
19
70.3%*
After taking one NC workshop in June, the pass rate rose to 78%
Fall 2014
In the Fall 2014, six sections of the ALP will be offered. However, instead of
just connecting BE112 and English 101, we will also offer an ALP model for
BE122, advanced reading students, and English 101. Once again after the
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
semester has finished, the results will be analyzed.
In the Fall 2014, the ALP will be expanded to include six sections of English
101, four sections of BE112 and two experimental sections of BE122. The
proposed schedule is as follows:
Course
Days
Time
Course
Code
ENG 101
B13B
BE 112 D13A
ENG 101
F24E
BE122 D24A
ENG 101
F24A
BE112 D24A
ENG101
D24C
BE112 F24A
ENG 101
D24B
BE112 F24B
ENG 101
F24F
BE 122 D24B
M/W
8:10 AM – 10:00 AM
41925
M/W
T/TH
10:10AM – 12:00 PM
12:10 PM – 2:00 PM
36637
42436
T/TH
T/TH
10:10AM – 12:00 PM
12:10 PM – 2:00 PM
36707
42422
T/TH
T/TH
10:10AM – 12:00 PM
10:10AM – 12:00 PM
36675
42277
T/TH
T/TH
12:10AM – 2:00 PM
10:10AM – 12:00 PM
36678
42264
T/TH
T/Th
12:10 PM – 2:00 PM
12:10 PM – 2:00 PM
36680
70040
T/Th
10:10AM – 12:00 PM
39571
For the complete ALP Report, please see Attachment A.
14
The Best Practices Committee offered two CATW Norming Sessions for fulltime and adjunct faculty in the Spring 2014 semester. The first workshop offered
on March 12, 2014 included 5 full-time faculty, 4 adjunct faculty, and one fulltime faculty member from the English Department.
5 F/T
4 adjunct
3 Facilitators to
conduct
norming
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Queensborough Community College
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
sessions
The second workshop offered on March 18, 2014 included 4 adjunct faculty and 1
ALLC tutor. These sessions were offered based on the findings of the BE 201 and BE
205 course assessments that revealed inconsistencies in departmental scoring of final
exams that use CATW summaries and essays. Three certified-CATW readers on the
Best Practices Committee (David Rothman, Susan Hock, and Cheryl ComeauKirschner) collected two essays from BE 112 and two essays from BE 205 and crossgraded each of them for use in the norming sessions. Furthermore, we developed a
scoring grid for session participants to use for practice scoring and discussion. The
scoring grid was organized with the five CATW domains and a space for the total score
across the top of the grid, and four spaces for papers 1-4 vertically positioned on the
grid. Both norming sessions began with a brief recap of the BE 201 and BE 205 course
assessment findings in order to provide context for departmental scoring patterns and
the disparity among faculty and official university exam results. Next, we discussed
each the parameters of each CATW domain and the differences between upper-, mid-,
and lower- range CATW essay responses. Finally, we broke into smaller groups to
grade each of the four normed CATW essays. Depending on the preference of each
facilitator (David Rothman, Susan Hock, Jennifer Maloy, and Cheryl ComeauKirschner), groups discussed essay scoring after each one or after scoring all four
essays. Finally, we concluded the sessions with whole group discussion of participant
feedback and remaining questions.
4 Adjunct
1 tutor
These sessions were ultimately followed up with the majority of full-time writing
faculty and several adjunct writing faculty participating in cross-grading of all lowerand upper-level writing class final exams. We hope that this first semester of norming
sessions and departmental cross-grading will be continued in future semesters.
10 F/T (one
from English
Dept)
8 Adjunct
2 facilitators to
conduct
norming
sessions
14. The Department designed the following New Course Proposals; however,
the Department was asked to postpone these courses until the new provost
had input:
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Queensborough Community College
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
BE204: Reading and Writing for Intermediate ESL Students
BE204 is a High Impact course for ESL students who enter the college with a
CATW Scores between 40- 52 and ACT Reading score between 39 – 60. Students in
this class should have a basic understanding of English and have demonstrated the
ability to comprehend short articles and write a basic composition. The main
objective of this course is to provide these students with the opportunity to improve
their ability to read, comprehend and write so that they can advance their fluency
and accuracy in English while engaging the in the college and the larger community.
This will be accomplished by having students participate in a high impact project
that allows student to develop summarizing, paraphrasing, transitions, grammar,
punctuation and composition skills along with the development of vocabulary,
English idioms, listening, speaking and comprehension. By the end of the semester,
students should be able to comprehend articles, write and develop compositions that
contain at least two well-developed body paragraphs so that they develop a firm
foundation before they enter the advanced ESL reading course or content courses.
BE090 Course title: A Thematic Overview of Linguistics for Developmental Reading
and Writing Students
A Thematic Overview of Linguistics for Developmental Reading and Writing
Students is an eight-hour, reading-writing course designed for a wide range of
students who place into Academic Literacy as either ESL or native-speaking
(scores ranging from 50-69 on the ACT reading exam and 42-55 on the CATW).
The project-based course looks to make use of the incredible diversity of linguistic
backgrounds present at Queensborough Community College by introducing
students to the basic principles of linguistics—that is the scientific study of
language in order to enhance their reading and writing skills. As students learn
about the scientific method, and the basics of phonetics, morphology, syntax,
semantics, dialects and sociolinguistics, they will concurrently develop academic
literacy, reading and writing skills. The course is thus a theme-based combined
reading and writing course. Alongside reading and writing assignments, students
will work on two projects during their semester of work: one, a study of their
linguistic environments and the another, a group linguistic experiment conducted in
class and written up as a lab report.
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
15. Early Exit Results for the Spring 2014
Early Exit Results Spring 2014
Pass
ACT Reading
CATW Writing
Fail
Total
Percent
6
3
9
66.7%
20
20
40
50.0%
9 Reading
Students
40 CATW
writing students
16. Spring 2014 Multiple Repeaters Workshop Results
During the Spring 2014, multiple repeaters were offered Friday workshops that
consisted of 30 hours of classroom instruction and 30 hours of tutor assistance.
BE17 = 64
BE18 = 63
Spring 2014 Multiple Repeaters
# of Students
# Passed
% passed
BE18 ACT Reading
workshop
63
21
33.3 %
BE17 CATW
Writing Workshop
64
8
12.50 %
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Queensborough Community College
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
It was noted that most of the repeaters that failed in BE17 (writing) were ESL students.
In addition, these students were insisted on using their phones as translation devices to
write, even though they are not permitted to use these devices during the actual CATW
exam. Thus, it has been determined that in future workshops, the students will be
banned from using their phones. Instead, they will be required to use a paper English
dictionary. If the students do not have a dictionary, the Department will lend them one.
16. Department-sponsored faculty/staff development activities
Type of Activity and Topic
Date
The Best Practices Committee offered two CATW Norming Sessions for
full-time and adjunct faculty in the Spring 2014 semester. The first
workshop offered on March 12, 2014 included 5 full-time faculty, 4
adjunct faculty, and one full-time faculty member from the English
Department.
March 12
2014
The second workshop offered on March 18, 2014 included 4 adjunct
faculty and 1 ALLC tutor. These sessions were offered based on the
findings of the BE 201 and BE 205 course assessments that revealed
inconsistencies in departmental scoring of final exams that use CATW
summaries and essays. Three certified-CATW readers on the Best
Practices Committee (David Rothman, Susan Hock, and Cheryl ComeauKirschner) collected two essays from BE 112 and two essays from BE
205 and cross-graded each of them for use in the norming sessions.
Furthermore, we developed a scoring grid for session participants to use
for practice scoring and discussion. The scoring grid was organized with
the five CATW domains and a space for the total score across the top of
the grid, and four spaces for papers 1-4 vertically positioned on the grid.
Both norming sessions began with a brief recap of the BE 201 and BE
205 course assessment findings in order to provide context for
March 18,
2014
Number
Attending
5 F/T
4 adjunct
3 Facilitators to
conduct norming
sessions
10 F/T (one from
English Dept)
8 Adjunct
2 facilitators to
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
departmental scoring patterns and the disparity among faculty and official
university exam results. Next, we discussed each the parameters of each
CATW domain and the differences between upper-, mid-, and lowerrange CATW essay responses. Finally, we broke into smaller groups to
grade each of the four normed CATW essays. Depending on the
preference of each facilitator (David Rothman, Susan Hock, Jennifer
Maloy, and Cheryl Comeau-Kirschner), groups discussed essay scoring
after each one or after scoring all four essays. Finally, we concluded the
sessions with whole group discussion of participant feedback and
remaining questions.
a.
Year: 2013- 2014
conduct norming
sessions
These sessions were ultimately followed up with the majority of full-time
writing faculty and several adjunct writing faculty participating in crossgrading of all lower- and upper-level writing class final exams. We hope
that this first semester of norming sessions and departmental crossgrading will be continued in future semesters.
Aprl 30,
2014
In June 2013, the Academic Literacy’s adjunct faculty began the 2013-2014
academic year with a June faculty development session for adjunct faculty
teaching in USIP. Adjunct supervisor Cary Lane led the program for the 10
participating adjuncts, and developed innovative approaches for curriculum
development, best practices, collaborative strategies for high-impact teaching,
thematic pedagogy, effective uses of tutors, proper integration of ALLC
resources and effective methods for integrating reading and writing content
May 22
and
10
A second Academic Literacy adjunct faculty development workshop – the second
annual Academic Literacy Adjunct Faculty High-Impact Practices Luncheon
– took place in August, 2013 at the Kupferberg Holocaust Research Center
and Archives. This symposium focused on effective utilization of campus
resources for high-impact teaching practices, and included presentations
from Academic Literacy adjunct faculty, as well as from attendees from the
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Office of Academic
Service-Learning, the Common Read and the Academic Literacy Learning
Center. Cary Lane followed this up with individual meetings with each
member of the adjunct faculty staff, where specific teaching strategies and
departmental protocols were discussed and improved. These include
developing and incorporating (required) high-impact teaching practices,
effective use of Starfish and CUNYFirst, integrating ALLC resources,
Aug. 30
14
May 12,
2014
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Year: 2013- 2014
proper syllabus construction, proper use of departmental reading and writing
assessment instruments, effective use of departmental prescription-based
interventions based on assessment tools, strategies for campus-wide
collaborations, and student research initiatives (including
Library/information literacy strategies). The results of these interventions
included dozens of thematic, high-impact pedagogy projects involving
themes across the disciplines and using resources across campus. A capstone
project best exemplifying this was an integrated, 100-student debate
collaboration by four Academic Literacy adjunct reading and writing faculty
members.
Note: Faculty and staff development activities (grants, presentations, exhibitions, performances, publications, instructional improvement activities,
laboratory development, curriculum development, etc.)
INSTRUCTIONS:
For each activity, please indicate
1. whether department members organized the activities or gave presentations or both
2. the topic and type of activity and name of organizer/presenter, if applicable
3. the date (if not the exact date, indicate the month)
4. the number attending the event
B. COURSE CHANGES IN 2013-14
New, revised,
or deleted
Revised
Course
number
BE122
Course title
Revised
BE226
College Reading and
Study
Skills for ESL Students
College Reading
and Study Skills
Improvement
Semester
approved
Fall 2013
Fall 2013
Comments
Students may only enroll in
this course two times. If
students have not passed
after taking this course
twice, they will be advised
to enroll in a ACT Reading
Immersion Seminar.
Students may only enroll in
this course two times. If
students have not passed
after taking this course
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Revised
BE112
Composition Workshop
Fall 2013
Revised
BE205
Advanced Composition
for ESL
Students
Fall 2013
Year: 2013- 2014
twice, they will be advised
to enroll in a ACT Reading
Immersion Seminar.
Students may only enroll in
this course two times. If
students have not passed
after taking this course
twice, they will be advised
to enroll in a CATW
Writing Immersion Seminar.
Students may only enroll in
this course two times. If
students have not passed
after taking this course
twice, they will be advised
to enroll in a CATW
Writing Immersion Seminar.
C. PROGRAM CHANGES IN 2013-14
Program
Program change*
Effective Date
(Semester and
year)
Comments
n/a
*Key: (a)=initiated, (b)=closed, (c)=renamed, (d)=modified
INSTRUCTIONS:



Use the full title of the program, i.e. A.A. in Visual and Performing Arts.
Indicate whether the program change is initiated, closed, renamed, or modified. (If a new program has
been approved by the CUNY Board (or is expected to be approved by June 2013), use fall 2013 as the
effective date.)
Describe the exact status (i.e., proposal submitted to CUNY Board; approved by CUNY Board; etc.) in
the Comments.
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
D. DEPARTMENT CHANGES IN 2013-14
Type (see menu
below)
Description of
Change
Reason for
Change
Equipment
The Department
was provided a
computer
classroom which
contains 24
computer stations
and a work area
for students.
Summer and Fall
2013
n/a
Personnel or
organizational change
Retirement of two
full time faculty
members: Manette
Berlinger and
Helene
Dunkelblau
Weier Ye Earned
doctoral degree
Because of the
requirement to
include High
Impact Practices
(HIPs) in every
Academic Literacy
class, the students
and teachers
require greater
access to
technology.
retirement
Fall 2013
As a result, a total of 14
classes must be taught
by adjunct faculty.
Completed
doctorate
Reappointed to
assistant professor
retroactively to
August 28, 2013
Completed
doctorate
reappointed to
Assistant
Professor
April 2013
Reappointed to assistant
professor retroactively
to August 28, 2013
Feb. 2014
Reappointed to assistant
professor as of
8/27/2014
Personnel or
organizational change
Personnel or
organizational change
ComeauKirschner, Cheryl
Earned doctoral
degree
Date/Semester
Evaluation of
Change*
*Please note that, if change has been too recent to evaluate, you may indicate NA.
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Queensborough Community College
Type of change
Personnel or organizational
change
Facilities/space
Equipment
Other
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
MENU
Description
New hires, retirees, resignations, promotions, department name changes, etc.
Renovations or development of office space or new facilities (i.e., computer laboratories)
Acquisition of new or disposition of old equipment
Other changes affecting the department not included above and including interactions with
other departments
E. DEPARTMENT ASSESSMENT IN 2013-14
1.
Departmental procedures for conducting assessment
The fundamental elements of standard 14 (assessment of student learning) of the Middle States Commission on Higher
Education include: clearly articulated statements of expected student learning outcomes…at all levels (institution,
degree/program, course) and for all programs that aim to foster student learning and development; a documented,
organized, and sustained assessment process to evaluate and improve student learning; evidence that student learning
assessment information is shared and discussed with appropriate constituents and is used to improve teaching and
learning.
Describe below the department’s ongoing procedures for assessing student learning and using assessment
results to improve teaching and learning. In your description, please explain how the department fulfills
each of the Middle States fundamental elements above.
In the fall 2013, the Department assessed two courses: BE201 and BE205.
BE205 Fall 2013 Assessment
Overview of Course Assessment
BE 205, Advanced Composition for ESL Students, is the upper level of the writing sequence that the Department of Academic Literacy
offers to students who speak English as a second language. The goals of the course are to provide students with reading and writing
strategies that prepare them to understand and analyze texts and to compose well-developed, organized, and coherent analytic essays. At
the end of the course, students who successfully have completed all requirements of the course are eligible to take the CUNY Assessment
Test in Writing (CATW).
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Year: 2013- 2014
This assessment project focused on the final essay that students wrote in class before they took the CATW exam at the end of the Fall 2013
semester. Five BE 205 instructors volunteered to submit their students’ scores on the final for the purpose of this assessment. Half of the
sections of 205 offered in Fall 2013 were represented, equaling 7 out of 14 sections and a sample size of 123 students.
All students represented in this assessment were assigned a department-wide final exam during the last week of November 2013. To grade
the exams, instructors used the CATW Analytic Scoring Rubric (see Appendix I), which scores students in each of five domains. Each of
the five scoring domains corresponds to one or more of the student learning outcomes for this course, as demonstrated in Table B.
This project used the exams scored by BE 205 instructors to assess the areas of strength and weakness in BE 205 students’ writing at the
end of the course in five domains that cover textual analysis, development of ideas, organization, and language use. In evaluating the
results of the assessment, the primary investigator considered the results in each domain as well as the weight upon which each domain is
scored according to the CATW rubric. She examined how many BE 205 students received scores of 56 or higher on their final, which
reflects a passing score on the CATW, as well as the average scores within each domain. She identified the areas of strength in student
essays as well as areas in which students needed improvement.
Student Learning Outcomes
Table A includes a list of the learning outcomes for BE 205 students. Each learning outcome corresponds to one or more of the following
General Education Objectives.
General Education Objectives:
1. Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking.
2. Use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems and evaluate evidence in order to make informed decisions.
3. Reason quantitatively and mathematically as required in their fields of interest and in everyday life.
4. Use information management and technology skills effectively for academic research and lifelong learning.
5. Integrate knowledge and skills in their program of study.
6. Differentiate and make informed decisions about issues based on multiple value systems.
7. Work collaboratively in diverse groups directed at accomplishing learning objectives.
8. Use historical or social sciences perspectives to examine formation of ideas, human behavior, social institutions, or social
processes.
9. Employ concepts and methods of the natural and physical sciences to make informed judgments.
10. Apply aesthetic and intellectual criteria in the evaluation or creation of works in the humanities or the arts.
Table A: The Connection of BE 205 Student Learning Outcomes to General Education Objectives
General
Education
Objective
1,2
BE 205 Student Learning Outcome
1. Students will write analytic essays of multiple paragraphs (500 words) that
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Queensborough Community College
1, 2
2.
1, 2
3.
1, 2, 6
4.
1
5.
1
6.
1
7.
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
introduce, develop, and conclude the discussion of an essay's topic with a
unified, logical, and coherent focus.
Students will write body paragraphs that develop one idea and support the
central focus of the essay.
Students will write essays that demonstrate the logical development of an
essay by using transitional words between and within paragraphs.
Students will summarize and analyze a variety of texts, identifying and
engaging in important ideas from the text and relating these ideas to other
readings or personal experiences.
Students will follow conventions of Standard Written English (SWE),
specifically using coordination and subordination to achieve sentence variety
as well as an appropriate and consistent level of diction in their essays.
Students will write essays, in and out of class, with minimal global errors,
showing a command of sentence boundaries and will be able to write an essay
that contains very few local errors related to fragments and/or run-ons,
subject-verb agreement, verb tense, pronoun agreement and reference, and
basic punctuation and capitalization.
Students will be able to proofread effectively for surface errors such
misspellings, as well as missing or misused apostrophes, articles, possessive
nouns, prepositions, and content words.
Student Assignment for Assessment
The assignment chosen for assessment was a timed in-class essay that served as BE 205 students’ final exam. During the last week of
November 2013, all students enrolled in BE 205 as well as BE 112, the equivalent course for students who have been identified as native
speakers of English, took a standardized final exam that resembles the CATW in instructions, requirements, and scoring (see Appendix II).
The final exam is distributed by individual instructors to their students approximately two weeks before classes end. Generally, a student’s
score on the final exam serves as an indicator of the score that the student will receive on the CATW exam, which all BE 205 and 112
students in good standing take at the end of the semester. The writing directions, accompanying reading passage, scoring rubric and
process, and the physical conditions of the exam closely resemble the CATW.
In the final exam, students have 90 minutes to write an essay that responds to a reading passage they are given. Students may use only a
dictionary or thesaurus and must write in pen in a blue book. The writing instructions for the exam are as follows:
Read the article provided and compose an essay that summarizes the short text, identifies a significant idea in the text, and relates
it to your own reading, observations, or personal experience. Your essay should consist of an introduction, a body, and a
conclusion.
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Students are then presented with a description of what to include in their introduction, body, and conclusion, and the CATW Analytical
Scoring Rubric and a scoring sheet is provided to students along with the reading they are asked to use.
The article to which the students were asked to respond was titled, “Are Public Cameras Taking Away Our Privacy?” adapted from a New
York Times article by David Halbfinger (see Appendix II).
Upon collecting exams from students, all instructors teaching BE 205 or BE 112 scored their students’ writing using the CATW Analytic
Scoring Rubric and then arranged for another BE 205/112 instructor to score the exams. The scoring of the exams by two readers
resembles the scoring protocol used for the CATW. All BE 205 and 112 instructors participate in norming sessions prior to scoring the
exams.
Evidence for Assessment
When scoring the final exam, instructors use the CATW Analytic Scoring Rubric, which assesses student essays in the following five
areas:
1. Critical Response to the Writing Task and the Test: This category focuses on whether students understand the main ideas in
the text and understand the nature of the writing task, which is to discuss these ideas and to critically analyze and integrate them
with their own ideas and experiences.
2. Development of the Writer’s Ideas: In this category students are assessed on whether they are able to develop their ideas
through summary, narrative and/or problem/solution. Students should support statements with details and examples from what
students have experienced, read, or learned about. Students also must refer to specific ideas from the reading to support their
ideas.
3. Structure of the Response: This category focuses on students’ ability to express ideas that connect to a central focus or thesis
and to use an organizational structure and transitions that help to support the thesis.
4. Language Use: Sentences and Word Choice: This category focuses on clarity and sentence control.
5. Language Use: Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics: This category focuses on students’ ability to follow conventions of
Standard American English.
The domains of the scoring rubric correspond to the Student Learning Outcomes as indicated in Table B.
Table B: Connection of BE 205 Student Learning Outcomes to the CATW Analytic Scoring Rubric
CATW Analytic Scoring
Rubric Domain
Critical Response to the Writing
Task and the Text
205 Student Learning Outcome
4. Students will summarize and analyze a variety of texts, identifying and engaging in
important ideas from the text and relating these ideas to other readings or personal
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Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
experiences.
Development of the Writer’s
Ideas
Structure of the Response
Language Use: Sentences and
Word Choice
Language Use: Grammar, Usage,
and Mechanics
2. Students will write body paragraphs that develop one idea and support the central focus
of the essay.
4. Students will summarize and analyze a variety of texts, identifying and engaging in
important ideas from the text and relating these ideas to other readings or personal
experiences.
1. Students will write analytic essays of multiple paragraphs (500 words) that introduce,
develop, and conclude the discussion of an essay's topic with a unified, logical, and
coherent focus.
3. Students will write essays that demonstrate the logical development of an essay by
using transitional words between and within paragraphs.
5. Students will follow conventions of Standard Written English (SWE), specifically using
coordination and subordination to achieve sentence variety as well as an appropriate and
consistent level of diction in their essays.
6. Students will write essays, in and out of class, with minimal global errors, showing a
command of sentence boundaries and will be able to write an essay that contains very few
local errors related to fragments and/or run-ons, subject-verb agreement, verb tense,
pronoun agreement and reference, and basic punctuation and capitalization.
7. Students will be able to proofread effectively for surface errors such misspellings, as
well as missing or misused apostrophes, articles, possessive nouns, prepositions, and
content words.
In this assessment, each of the five domains listed above were scored on a scale of 1-6 by two BE 205/112 instructors. The scores from
each instructor was calculated according to CATW guidelines, in which the scores in the first three (content) domains are doubled, added
to the two language domains, and then the scores from both individual instructors are combined for a totaled score.
Table C: Description of Scores within the CATW Analytic Scoring Rubric
Score
1
2
3
4
5
Description
The student demonstrates a minimal ability to accomplish the task within the essay.
The student demonstrates a weak ability to accomplish the task within the essay.
The student demonstrates a general or uneven ability to accomplish the task within the essay.
The student demonstrates a competent ability to accomplish the task within the essay.
The student demonstrates an effective or skillful ability to accomplish the task within the essay.
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
6
Year: 2013- 2014
The student demonstrates a thoughtful or insightful approach to accomplishing the task within the essay.
The total score may range from 16 (in which the student writer received a score of 1 from each reader in each of the five domains) to 96 (in
which the student writer received a score of 6 from each reader in each of the five domains). In terms of the CATW, students must receive
a score of 56 in order to pass the exam and exit writing remediation. The borderline score of 56 indicates that a student has received a
majority of individual scores of 4, described as “competent” in the rubric; however, the student also scored a 3 in more than one area of the
exam, meaning some aspects of the essay were deemed “uneven” or “general.”
Analysis of Assessment Results
Analysis of Total Score
The primary investigator (PI) recorded the scores received by each student included in the sample, examining the scores from individual
readers as well as the average scores in each domain to determine which areas BE 205 students included in the sample scored the highest,
indicating achievement of particular learning outcomes by the end of the semester, and areas in which the students scored the lowest,
indicating a need for improvement in particular learning outcomes.
As Table D indicates, the average total score of the 123 student writing samples was 55.8, slightly below a 56, which is a passing score on
the CATW. The median total score was 57. The lowest score was 28, and the highest score was 65. 47 students received a score lower than
56.
Table D: Distribution of Scores
n
Lowest
Highest
Average
Median
123
28
65.47
55.8
57
Table E demonstrates that a total of 76 students, or 62% of students sampled, received a passing score on the final, indicating that a
majority of students received a passing score in accordance with the CATW rubric, thereby achieving the learning objectives of the course
(listed on page 2 of this report).
Table E: Pass Fail Rate
n
Percent
Passed
76
62%
Failed
47
38%
Total
123
100 %
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The graph below displays a break down of the frequency of each numerical score in the sample. A score of 60 was the most frequent score.
Analysis of Domain Scores
Table F provides a breakdown of the average scores received by students in each domain for each reader.
Table F: Average Scores for Students in CATW Domains for Reader 1 and Reader 2
CATW Domain
CR: Critical Response to Writing Task and Text
Reader 1 Score
3.69
Reader 2 Score
3.62
Difference
-.07
DI: Development of Writer’s Ideas
3.54
3.46
-.08
SR: Structure of the Response
3.69
3.74
-.05
LUWC: Language Use: Sentences and Word Choice
LUGM: Language Use: Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics
3.20
3.07
3.20
3.03
0
-.04
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Table F demonstrates that the average domain score by the second reader was lower in four out of five domains; however, the difference in
the score average is never more than one point, demonstrating an overall consistency among scorers. In addition, this table, as well as
Table G below, presents the domain in which students scored highest—in Structure of the Response—and lowest—in Language Use:
Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics.
Table G: Average CATW Domain Scores
CATW Domain
CR: Critical Response to Writing Task and Text
DI: Development of Writer’s Ideas
Average Domain
Score
3.65
3.50
SR: Structure of the Response
3.71
LUWC: Language Use: Sentences and Word Choice
LUGM: Language Use: Grammar, Usage, Mechanics
3.20
3.05
The two lowest average scores, factoring in the individual domain scores of both readers for every individual essay, are in the Language
Use categories. While this finding is important for the Department of Academic Literacy to consider, the results may be attributed to the
linguistic backgrounds of BE 205 students, who have been identified as ESL based on linguistic and grammatical markers in their
placement test as well as by the information that students may provide to Queensborough Community College regarding their educational
and linguistic history, nationality, and the amount of time they have lived in the United States. Generally students who have been speaking
English for less than 5 years or who have recently moved to the United States are placed into the ESL section of developmental writing and
reading. Since BE 205 students are continuing to acquire proficiency in English as they take their developmental writing exam, it is
consistent with the knowledge of the field of TESOL that students working towards proficiency in English may score lower in language
domains on standardized timed-writing exams. Furthermore, because the two Language Use categories are not weighted as significantly in
the scoring of the CATW, it is important to examine the three domains on the exam, Critical Response, Development of Ideas, and
Structure of Response, that are more heavily weighted.
Within the three domains that are more heavily weighted and focus on the form and content of a student’s essay as a whole, the BE 205
students in the sample received the lowest score in the Development of Writer’s Ideas category. As Table H indicates, only 43.5% of
students received scores of 4 or higher from both readers in this domain, meaning that 56.5% of students received scores that defined their
ability to develop ideas as general/uneven or weak by at least one reader. As indicated on page 4 of this report, the Development of
Writer’s Idea domain includes the successful ability to summarize, narrate and/or problem-pose as well as develop points using examples
and details from the CATW passage and from a student’s own body of knowledge and experience. Therefore, this category requires
students to demonstrate a complex combination of reading, writing, and critical thinking skills involving analysis as well as comparison
and contrast as they refer to the reading passage in connection to events or issues outside of the reading.
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Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
Table H: Domain Scores for Development of Writer’s Ideas (DI) with Scores from Each Reader
Scores in
DI
Domain
Percentage
of
Students
2/2
2/3
2/4
3/3
3/4
4/4
4/5
5/5
1.5%
5%
1%
31%
18%
41%
1.5%
1%
As seen in Table G, the domain in which students scored the highest was Structure of Response. As Table I indicates, 67% of students
received scores of 4 or higher from both readers in this category. Only 33% of students received scores of 3 or lower from at least one
reader. These results demonstrate that a solid majority of students were able to competently organize their essay around a central focus. It
appears that BE 205 students demonstrate an essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion and present their ideas and points clearly to
develop the main focus of their essay.
Table I: Domain Scores for Structure of Response (SR) with Scores from Each Reader
Scores in
SR
Domain
Percentage
of
Students
2/2
2/3
2/4
3/3
3/4
4/4
4/5
5/5
1%
1%
0%
18%
13%
67%
0%
0%
Student Learning Outcomes
BE 205 Final Exam Results and Student Learning Outcomes
The results of this assessment provide an indication of the student learning outcomes that have been achieved by and need improvement for
the sample of BE 205 students examined at the end of the semester. Overall, the results indicate that this sample of students performed
strongly in the Critical Response to Writing Task and the Text as well as Structure of Response.
Referring to Table B, this would mean that BE 205 students have successfully done the following by the end of the semester:
1. Students will write analytic essays of multiple paragraphs (500 words) that introduce, develop, and conclude the
discussion of an essay's topic with a unified, logical, and coherent focus.
3. Students will write essays that demonstrate the logical development of an essay by using transitional words between
and within paragraphs.
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4. Students will summarize and analyze a variety of texts, identifying and engaging in important ideas from the text
and relating these ideas to other readings or personal experiences.
Ultimately, BE 205 students demonstrate in the final exam their ability to write multiple-paragraph essays that have a progression of ideas
and a cohesive focus. Students also seem to have a grasp on reading comprehension and are able to respond to the text in a critical way.
The need for improvement lies in BE 205 students’ ability to develop their ideas to support their essay’s central focus through careful
analysis of texts as well as their own experience. While there remains some overlap in the CR and DI domains of the CATW in relation to
their corresponding Student Learning Outcomes, the Student Learning Outcome that could be improved for Development of Writer’s Ideas
is #2:
2. Students will write body paragraphs that develop one idea and support the central focus of the essay.
The DI domain may be particularly difficult for students because it depends upon a student being able to generate a central focus in his/her
essay that responds critically to the text. Once the student has accomplished these two tasks, which to a certain extent correlate to the CR
and SR domains, the student must also be able to analyze particular points from the text and use them to support his/her central focus as
well as determine examples from his/her experience or knowledge that connect to this focus.
In addition, BE 205 students should be supported on continuing to work on Student Learning Outcomes 5-7. In particular, students could
work to improve the following, as they correspond to the CATW domain in which students scored the lowest:
6. Students will write essays, in and out of class, with minimal global errors, showing a command of sentence
boundaries and will be able to write an essay that contains very few local errors related to fragments and/or run-ons,
subject-verb agreement, verb tense, pronoun agreement and reference, and basic punctuation and capitalization.
7. Students will be able to proofread effectively for surface errors such misspellings, as well as missing or misused
apostrophes, articles, possessive nouns, prepositions, and content words.
Suggestions for Addressing Areas of Improvement
The PI’s suggestions for working on areas of improvement focus on two particular areas: development of ideas and language use.
In order to spend more time on development of ideas, BE 205 instructors may dedicate more time in the classroom to exploring the
elements of a well-developed paragraph that support a writer’s position. While this may involve discussing topic sentences and methods
for development such as narration, compare/contrast, cause-effect, and description (which all are common practice at present), instructors
also may spend more time working with students on textual analysis as well as choosing quotations. They also may spend more time in
class exploring analytical approaches and reading and writing sample paragraphs that use various types of evidence and approaches to
explanation to practice using such analysis as support.
Because BE 205 students come to the United States from a wide variety of countries across the world, instructors must take a great deal of
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time to explicitly explain possible rhetorical conventions and what types of examples may be most appropriate for particular topics
according to American academic conventions. Therefore, it is important for BE 205 faculty to explore continually new approaches for
students to gain intercultural awareness as they write and to have strategies for them to connect their experiences, knowledge, and
understanding across culturally specific contexts. Devoting more time in class to the above tasks is essential to increase students’ scores in
the DI category, and it also is important because this is the domain in which instructors’ scored differed the most, -.08, from Reader 1 to
Reader 2 (see Table F). A more intensive focus on the writing tasks involved in this domain will ensure that both instructors and students
think more precisely about what this domain involves.
The other area for improvement for BE 205 students is language use. While this aspect of writing may not be weighed as heavily in the
context of the CATW as the other writing tasks that focus on form and content, BE 205 could spend more time with students working on
identifying and addressing individual students’ grammatical and mechanical error patterns. Based on best practices in the field of TESOL,
detailed work on addressing such patterns often is most effective when done on an individual basis. It is therefore important for instructors
to direct students to the Academic Literacy Learning Center in order to receive one-on-one support to address error patterns. In addition, it
is important for instructors to provide students with multiple opportunities for revision in order for students to identify, learn about, and
address their error patterns.
Ideas for Future Assessment
While this assessment project provided useful information on the domain scores within the final exam and to identify specific aspects of
writing and Student Learning Outcomes that were strong and in need of improvement for BE 205 students at the end of the semester, the
nature of this project in its collection of only one writing sample limits the insight it is able to provide to BE 205 faculty. To expand this
assessment project, the PI suggests collecting beginning-of-the-semester diagnostic essays that use the same writing instructions and
grading rubric and then comparing that to the same sample of students’ final written exam in order to chart progress over the semester.
This would give the department a better sense of the areas in which students improve over the semester as well as areas in which more
instruction and support could be provided.
Another possibility for further investigation is to examine final essays with a focus only on the DI domain within the CATW scoring rubric
in order to determine the specific types of struggles students experience when trying to analyze or develop ideas. This could help faculty to
design specific in-class and homework activities that would target these issues and provide additional support for students. This also would
help faculty identify the multiple ways in which students are able to demonstrate competence in this area.
Lastly, the department may use a comparative study of BE 205 students’ final exams and students’ actual CATW scores at the end of the
semester in order to determine the extent to which the final predicts a students’ CATW scores. For example, although 62% of BE 205
students sampled in this project received a score of 56 or higher on their final exam, approximately 25% of BE 205 students passed the
CATW that they took the week of December 9, 2013. While there are a variety of factors that may have contributed to this difference,
including students’ test anxiety, the testing environment, the topic/length of the reading passage, the scoring process on the final, and
instructors’ scoring abilities and/or biases, the department should explore this result and attempt to account for it in future assessments. If
such a disparity consistently occurs, the department may consider a department-wide scoring process in which instructors do not score their
own students’ work and encourage more BE 205 instructors to train to become certified CATW readers.
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Year: 2013- 2014
BE201 Assessment in the Fall 2013
Course Description:
BE 201 is the first course of a writing skills sequence for students of English as a Second Language who have little or no previous
composition experience in English. The objective is to provide students with a sound foundation in the basic structure of English through
intensive instruction and drill in the relationship between spoken and written English and in the fundamentals of grammar, usage, sentence
structure, and paragraph development. Students who complete BE-201 successfully will be informed by their instructors whether to
register for BE-203 or BE-205.
Curricular objectives addressed by this course:
Upon completing the course, students should be able to demonstrate the ability to:
1. Recognize main idea of assigned reading selections.
2. Use the word order of the English language correctly.
3. Compose varied sentences: simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and interrogative
questions.
4. Identify and write topic sentences.
5. Support the topic sentence with sufficient details while avoiding digression and repetition.
6. Use heuristic devices such as brainstorming, clustering, free writing, outlining, and revising.
7. Summarize and paraphrase original written texts by identifying the thesis and some of its support.
8. Write one or two pages, including an introduction, body, and conclusion, on an assigned topic in response to
a reading.
Course Objectives and Desired Outcomes
1. Students will recognize main ideas in assigned reading selections.
4. Students will identify and write topic sentences.
7. Students will summarize and paraphrase original written texts by identifying the thesis and some of its
support.
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Year: 2013- 2014
General Education Objective(s) addressed in this assessment: (select from Table 3)
1. Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Reading: Students will read various passages and summarize them.
Writing: Students will write summaries.
Listening and speaking: Students will discuss key components of main ideas in
passages and summary writing in pairs and whole group.
2.
Students will use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems and evaluate evidence in order
to make informed decisions.
Students will make informed decisions about which ideas are most important to include in their
summaries.
7. Students will work collaboratively in diverse groups directed at accomplishing
learning objectives.
Students will work in pairs with diverse students to analyze key components of
summary writing.
Student Learning Outcomes:
1. Students will differentiate between major and minor details in reading passages.
2. Students will organize their ideas using appropriate transitional devices.
3. Students will write effective summaries on various reading passages.
Description of the assignment tobe assessed:
Students will be taught to read various passages and summarize them effectively.
Desired student learning
outcomes for the assignment
Briefly describe the range of activities student
will engage in for this assignment.
What assessment tools will be used to
measure how well students have met each
learning outcome?
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Queensborough Community College
Students will be able to recognize
the main idea by differentiating
major and minor details in various
reading passages.(Curricular
Objective #1)
Students will identify and write
topic sentences using various
reading passages.(Curricular
Objective #4)
Students will summarize reading
passages by identifying main
ideas, organizing these ideas
effectively, using appropriate
transitional devices, and
producing their summaries by
using their own
words.(Curricular Objective #7)
Communicate effectively through
reading, writing, listening and
speaking. (General Education
Objective#1)
Use analytical reasoning to
identify issues or problems and
evaluate evidence in order to
make informed decisions.
(General Education Objective
#2)
Work collaboratively in diverse
groups directed at accomplishing
learning objectives. (General
Education Objective #7)
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Day of the Lesson:
After teachers taught their students how to write a
summary, which took approximately forty minutes,
they asked the students to read the passage on
American Teen Health. This task took
approximately twenty-minutes. Once the students
had finished reading it, they worked in pairs to draft
a summary of it. This activity took approximately
twenty to twenty-five minutes. Once the students
finished writing their summaries, teachers noted
down the keys ideas of the passage on the board and
asked students to check whether or not they
included these ideas. If they hadn’t, they were
instructed to jot down notes below their summaries
and then if needed, revise their summaries at home.
Finally, the teacher gave students the second article,
entitled “Facebook Moms” and asked them to
summarize it at home for homework.
Day of Actual Assessment:
Teachers asked learners to turn in homework
summaries and in-class summaries if they had
needed to be revised. At the beginning of class,
teachers reviewed the key points of the homework
reading/summary. This took approximately fifteen
to twenty minutes.
Once teachers completed this activity, the students
read and summarized the reading on bullying. This
reading passage served as the first part of the actual
MTEL assessment. After the students finished
writing their summaries, the teachers placed them in
Dr. Carroll’s mailbox labeled with the teacher’s
name and class sections.
The Assessment Committee then evaluated the
summaries, noted the scores and returned the
students’ work to the teachers.
Year: 2013- 2014
Multiple Assessment Tools were employed
to measure the Curricular and Educational
outcomes of this assessment.
1. Instrument One: A Summary Scoring
Rubric derived from the (MTEL)
Communication and Literacy Skills Test
(01) –
The mid-term summary results were
examined using the MTEL rubric and they
were compared to the final summary results
to assess any improvement in students’
ability to write cohesive, accurate, and wellwritten summaries.
2. Instrument Two: The CUNY CATW
Assessment rubric
The second major measurement tool used
for this assessment was an adapted version
of CUNY CATW Assessment rubric.
However, for this particular assessment, the
evaluators only used the first domain,
which focuses essentially on how well a
student understands an article and
summarizes its key components. In
addition, any discussion of the writer’s
ideas that was part of that domain on the
rubric was not considered as part of the
evaluation.
The Department administers departmental
midterms and finals. Thus after the students
took the CATW-type midterm, their
performance on the summary section was
scored and later compared to their
summaries on the departmental final exam
to assess any improvement in students’
ability to write a summary that meets the
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Midterm Assessment:
Next, the Assessment Committee evaluated how
well students performed on the CATW midterm
assessment by examining the summary part of their
CATW essays. After the students completed the
midterm exam, the teachers submitted the midterm
essays to Dr. Carroll. The Assessment Committee
evaluated them and recorded the scores in a file.
Follow-Up Lesson and Final MTEL and CATW
Assessment:
Teachers repeated the summary lesson with
different reading passages. After this lesson,
teachers administered the MTEL final summary and
placed them in Dr. Carroll’s in-box so that the
Assessment Committee could evaluate the
summaries and record their scores in a file.
Next, after they administered the CATW Final
Exam, the teachers placed the exams in Dr.
Carroll’s mailbox so that the Assessment
Committee could evaluate the summaries and
record their scores in a file.
Year: 2013- 2014
requirements of the CATW test.
The timeline during which the two different
assessment measurements were
administered was as follows: The MTEL
was administered in mid-October, which is
approximately the mid-point of the fall
semester. Then, the mid-term exam version
of the CATW was administered in late
October. The second administration of the
MTEL occurred in early December, and
final CATW exam was administered in
mid-December.
Thus this assessment examined students’
performance according to two different
rubrics:
a) The MTEL Summary Scoring
rubric, and
b) The Adapted CATW
Assessment Rubrics for BE201
This assessment employed two different evaluation instruments over the course of the fall of 2013. The use of these two instruments
intended to provide distinctly different measures that evaluated how well low-level ESL students had learned to compose academic
summaries. It must be emphasized that these are two separate instruments, which are not directly compared. Instead, they were utilized to
provide the evaluators with in-depth knowledge from two different evaluation angles regarding how these students performed.
Instrument One: A Summary Scoring Rubric derived from the (MTEL) Communication and Literacy Skills Test (01) –
Background:
The MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric was developed by Department of Education of Massachusetts and Pearson Education. It is a
combined reading and writing test that incorporates the comprehension and analysis of readings as well as outlining and summarizing. It
was first copyrighted in 2008 through Pearson Education.
The Department of Academic Literacy at QCC utilizes this rubric to assess summary writing at midterms and finals in all its reading
courses. In addition, many writing instructors use it as a tool to assist their students with summary writing when they prepare them for the
demands of the CATW exam. Since this rubric has been successfully used as the official rubric to assess summary writing throughout the
Department, the members of the Assessment Committee concluded that it was an appropriate evaluation tool for the task of summary
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Year: 2013- 2014
writing. Thus, the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric was the first tool that was utilized to assess the students’ performance on writing
summaries at mid-terms and finals. This rubric consists of a four-point scale. The score of one represents the lowest level of ability, and it
is not passing. Two is approaching a passing level. Three is passing, and a score of four exceeds passing. Some of the most important
criteria that these scores are based on include: the extent to which the student understood the main idea of the article, how well the student
organized his or her own ideas, the degree to which the student used his or her own words, and how clearly the summary was written. This
rubric was provided to the BE201 instructors before they taught their lessons, and a simplified version was provided to the students so that
the students understood what to expect and how they would be assessed. However, the simplified version was not used to score the
students’ summaries. The BE201 instructors used and discussed the simplified version, which contains easier vocabulary, with the students
to aid their overall comprehension of the criteria on which they would ultimately be assessed.
How the MTEL Rubric Measured Curricular and General Educational Objectives for this Assessment:
This rubric measured both Curricular Outcomes and General Education Outcomes.
A. Curricular Objectives:
1. Students will be able to recognize the main idea by differentiating major and minor details in various reading passages.(Curricular
Objective #1)- This curricular objective is included in the MTEL because it examines how well students are able to locate an
article’s most important ideas.
2. Students will identify and write topic sentences within various reading passages. (Curricular Objective #4). In order for the
students to have the ability to convey the main ideas of an article, the students were required to write clear and focused topic
sentences.
3. Students will summarize reading passages by identifying main ideas, organizing these ideas effectively, using appropriate
transitional devices, and producing their summary by using their own words. (Curricular Objective #7). All of these components
above are included in the MTEL rubric.
B. General Educational Objectives:
1.
Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking. (General Education Objective#1). The rubric measured
how well the students read and understood reading passages as well as their ability to write an effective summary.
Instrument Two: The Adapted CUNY CATW Assessment rubric
The second major tool used for this assessment was the Adapted CUNY CATW Assessment rubric. (See Adapted CATW Rubric at the
end of this document.) However, for this particular assessment, the evaluators only used the first domain, which focuses essentially on
how well a student understands an article and is able to summarize its key components. In addition, since this assessment emphasized the
skill of summarizing the main ideas, any discussion of the writer’s ideas that was part of that domain of the rubric was not part of the
evaluation. Thus, the CATW Assessment rubric was adapted for the purpose of this assessment.
This Adapted CATW rubric was chosen because all of the students in our Department are eventually required to take and pass the CATW
before they advance into credit-bearing courses such as English Composition (EN-101). Since BE201 students are placed in the lowest
level of writing because they lack academic language and basic writing skills, our Department contends that earlier exposure to academic
types of writing, especially summary writing, will better prepare them to pass the CUNY standardized CATW writing exam. Therefore,
the Academic Literacy Department requires all of their writing classes to take a version of the CATW test as a mid-term and final exam.
However, the reading passages in the lower level courses are shorter and contain fewer vocabulary challenges than the mid-level and
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Year: 2013- 2014
advanced ESL writing courses. This approach assists our students in passing the official CATW standardized exam when they complete
BE205.
Description of the Adapted CATW Rubric:
This rubric contains a six-point scale that contains six domains. These domains evaluate a students’ ability to a) summarize and discuss
the main ideas of a reading, b) take a stand on a major idea in the article and c) relate that idea to their own experience, d) develop their
ideas with specific details, e) organize their ideas cohesively, and f) write grammatically. As stated above, for the purpose of this
assessment, the Committee adapted the rubric in order to focus on the first domain that emphasized how well the student understood the
main idea of an article and summarized that idea. (See Adapted CATW Rubric.)
How the first domain of the CATW Rubric Measured Curricular and General Educational Objectives for this
Assessment:
This rubric measured both Curricular Outcomes and General Education Outcomes.
Curricular Objectives:
1. Students will recognize the main idea by differentiating major and minor details in various reading passages.(Curricular Objective
#1)- This curricular objective is included in the first domain of the CATW by requiring students to ascertain an article’s most
important ideas.
2. Students will identify and write topic sentences within various reading passages. (Curricular Objective #4). In order for the students
to convey the main ideas in an article, they were required to write clear and focused topic sentences. The first domain of the CATW
addresses this particular curricular objective.
3. Students will summarize reading passages by identifying main ideas, organizing these ideas effectively, using appropriate transitional
devices, and producing their summary by using their own words. (Curricular Objective #7). All of these components are included in
the first domain of the CATW rubric.
Assessment Results
The lesson had one desired outcome: to improve students’ ability to write effective summaries. The following analysis indicates a
moderate level of success from the midterm to final on the MTEL Summary Assessment (See Table 1) and a higher level of success for the
Adapted CATW assessment (See Table 2). It should be noted that it is not the Assessment team’s intention to compare the results of the
two instruments directly. They are completely separate measurements. However, by employing two measurements, the Assessment
Committee can collect richer more in-depth data that will demonstrate how much the students have advanced their summary writing skills.
At the midterm, two separate reading passages were employed. The first passage was evaluated according to the
MTEL rubric, and the second was assessed by the Adapted CATW. These scores were utilized to establish separate baseline
data to compare and contrast the students’ summary writing skills at the end of the semester.
At the end of the term, the lesson was repeated, and students’ summarizing skills were once again measured with the
MTEL and the Adapted CATW; however new reading passages were provided for the lesson and exams. On the MTEL
scoring rubric (See Table 1), the passing score was “3” for summary writing. Data analyses indicate that the average score was
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
below “2” on the midterm summaries for all sections. The average score remained below “2” on the final summaries for all
sections. While a small increased percentage of change resulted between assessments in Sections B, C, and D, a decreased
percentage occurred in Section A. Section D had the highest rate of improvement at 47%, but the average score was still
below the passing score of “3.”
Table 1: Assessment Results for First Evaluation Instrument- MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric
BE201
Mid-term
Summary n
A
B
C
D
Total
9
21
22
17
69
Mid-term
Summary
Average Score
1.94
1.67
1.59
1.29
1.59
Final
Summary n
Final Summary
Average Score
9
21
22
19
69
1.78
1.95
1.95
1.89
1.92
Percentage of
change between
assessments
- 8%
+17%
+23%
+47%
+21%
Table 2: Assessment Results for Second Evaluation Instrument for the Adapted CATW Rubric
BE201
A
B
C
D
Total
Mid-term
CATW
Summary n
9
21
23
17
71
Mid-term
CATW
Average
1.89
1.67
2.14
1.76
1.87
Final CATW n
Final CATW
Average
8
22
18
18
66
2.25
2.23
3.22
2.50
2.58
Percentage of
change between
assessments
+19%
+34%
+50%
+42%
+38%
Next, the Adapted CATW Rubric was utilized to evaluate students’ ability to summarize. (See Table 2). On
the midterm assessment, the Adapted CATW average was below “2” for Sections A, B, and D. However, it was
above “2” for Section C. The percentage of change between the Adapted CATW midterm assessment and Adapted
CATW final assessment was higher than for the MTEL Rubric. It should also be noted that although Section A
decreased in the percentage of change between MTEL assessments (See Table 1.), this section increased on the
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Queensborough Community College
Year: 2013- 2014
Adapted CATW final assessment. Furthermore, Sections B, C, and D achieved even greater increased percentages of
change between midterm and final assessments. Section C had the highest increase with a +50% improvement in
scores, and thus, became the only section to have an average score above “3.” More analysis with regard to specific
classroom methodology and instruction might be necessary to determine why such variability occurred among scores.
Additional Statistical Analyses of the MTEL and CATW Rubrics
Table 3: Comparison of Means for the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric
n
Mean
Standard. Deviation
Midterm Score
68
1.5956 *
.57470
Final Score
70
1.9143 *
.64814

p < .001
According to Table 3, a t-test of dependent means examined the difference between midterm and final scores when the
MTEL Summary Rubric was utilized, and it revealed a statistically significant increase in scores. After the first lesson, the
students’ scores evidenced a mean of 1.5956, whereas after the final, their scores were 1.9143.
Table 4 Comparison of Means for CATW Rubric
n
Mean
Standard Deviation
Midterm Score
68
1.8676 *
.62065
Final Score
65
2.5792 *
.82858

p < .001
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Year: 2013- 2014
In Table 4, a t-test of dependent means also revealed a significant increase in scores between the midterm and final exams when the
CATW rubric was used (p < .001). Thus, both of the instruments used, the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric and the Adapted CATW
Rubric, both exhibited a statistical improvement in the participants’ ability to summarize as a result of repeated lessons, practice and
exams.
Table 5 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) among Four Classes
df
f
Significance
Midterm Score
3
2.698
.053
Final Score
3
.188
.904
Midterm CATW Score
3
2.454
.071
Final CATW Score
3
6.980
.000*

p < .001
According to Table 5, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) indicated a statistically significant difference among the four different
classes that participated in this assessment. To determine where the differences occurred, a Tukey Post Hoc test was completed, and it
indicated that when the mean scores were examined using the Adapted CATW Rubric on the final exam in one specific class, the scores
were significantly higher than in the other three classes (p < .001). That is in one class the Final CATW average score was 3.22 whereas
the other three classes had scores that ranged from 2.25 to 2.50. Although it challenging to infer why one class performed so much better
than the other three, some possible explanations could include the teacher effect or students’ self-selection when they register for a specific
course.
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Discussion of Assessment Results of BE201
The results of this analysis suggest that the students entered this class with weak summarizing skills because even after one lesson, on
their first assessment that was measured by the MTEL Summary Rubric, students’ scores only averaged 1.59. However, these students
made a moderate improvement by the time of the final assessment, which also utilized the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric. On, their
overall average was 1.92, which is a 21% increase between the two MTEL assessments. These results suggest that the assignment, which
was designed by a team of experts who have taught ESL reading and writing for many years, worked well in that it used a repeated or
spiral approach to teaching the same concept. These results also infer that these students could have increased their scores more between
the two assessments if they had benefited from more time on task, exposure to the target language, and additional repeated lessons focused
on summary writing.
With regard to the second major assessment which utilized instrument two: the Adapted CATW assessment, the students exhibited
stronger summarizing skills. On the adapted CATW mid-term assessment, the students scored an average of 1.87, which is well below
passing. However, by the end of the semester, with the repeated custom-designed assessment lessons, this average score rose to 2.58,
which is a significant increase.
These two measures, the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric and the Adapted CATW Rubric, both evidenced a statistical improvement in
the participants’ ability to summarize as a result of repeated lessons, practice, and exams (See Tables 3 and 4). However, the scores were
higher when the students were assessed according to the Adapted CATW rubric. These results suggest that if these students were taught
with a traditional method, which included a) one lesson of instruction, b) in class group practice, c) in class individual practice, d)
homework practice, and e) an exam, they would not have been able to improve their mastery of this skill. However, when the teachers used
a spiral pedagogy and revisited the instruction and practice of this topic, the students increased their scores significantly.
Although the improvement on this assessment yielded significant results, it should be noted that the subjects’ average score for the
Adapted CATW Rubric was only 2.58, which is well below the minimum score of 4 which is needed to earn a passing score in this domain
of the CATW. Therefore, these results suggest that most of these BE201 students will continue to need exposure to summarizing lessons,
practice and exams as they advance through BE203 and BE205. In addition, since summarizing is only one of many skills required to pass
the CATW, it is suggested that each time instructors in the lower-level ESL classes introduce a new writing technique, they be prepared to
revisit these new skills with supplemental lessons, exercises, homework and exams throughout the semester to ensure that the students can
utilize the new skill effectively since “one shot” lessons are not sufficient because our ESL learners arrive with both linguistic and
academic deficiencies.
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Year: 2013- 2014
Resulting action plan:
Modest gains were achieved using the first instrument, the MTEL, to measure summary skills. A stronger improvement was evidenced
through the utilization of the second assessment instrument, the Adapted CATW assessment. Although the two instruments used were
entirely separate and in no way compared directly, they both measured how well a student comprehended a passage and was able to
summarize it in his or her own words effectively. The results from both assessments revealed that the students’ ability to summarize
improved over time significantly. However, the improvement was not sufficient to pass the summarizing component of CATW exam.
This assessment insinuates that explicit repeated teaching of a) differentiating the main idea of a passage from extraneous minor details,
b) paraphrasing, c) using transitions, and d) organizing a well-organized cohesive summary, leads to enhanced ability to write effective
summaries, and since summary writing is an essential skill on the CATW, BE201 faculty will be encouraged to use this spiral teaching,
writing, and testing method as they fine tune their courses.
Since our low-level ESL writing students arrive with weak linguistic and academic skills, they require much more exposure to the target
language. Moreover, since our Department only provides four ESL writing instructional hours per week, compared to similar departments
throughout CUNY that average 6-8 hours for the same type of course and level, they are at a disadvantage. Therefore, instructors need to
compensate for the lost time by including more intensive instruction. This can consist of additional repeated lessons, challenging academic
material, and consistent review of the skills necessary to write an effective summary.
To enhance this lesson further, instructors can be encouraged to develop model summaries that directly correspond to the criteria of the
rubric being utilized. For instance, students can be provided with sample summaries that have received the score of a 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the
rubric. The samples can be distributed to the students without their corresponding scores and then the students can work in groups to
assess each summary. The classroom instructor can then lead the students through a discussion/analysis of the scores that each summary
should have received and the rationale behind each decision so that the students view summarizing from the teacher’s perspective. After
this review, the students should score each other’s summaries to enhance their understanding of this skill by analyzing and discussing their
summaries along with the rubric.
Likewise, all BE201 instructors should participate in norming sessions during which they utilize these model summaries along with
their corresponding rubrics to ensure consistency and accuracy in their grading. These sessions will also permit teachers to glean ideas
from one another to enhance their summary teaching even more. This will be especially helpful in that it will increase the likelihood of
fewer discrepancies among BE201 sections because the instructors will be exposed to increased support from their peers.
If, by the end of the semester, students in BE201 remain at a low level, then it is important that instructors not pass them into BE203
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Year: 2013- 2014
because they are unprepared to meet the demands of the criteria of that higher level. This will prevent these students from becoming
multiple repeaters, and thereby reduce the multiple-repeaters issue in our Department.
BE122 Assessment Spring 2014
In the Spring 14, the Academic Literacy Assessment Committee has been assessing BE122. We have been assessing how well six sections
of BE122 have written academic summaries. So far, our committee has met four times. The first meeting was held early in the semester to
plan the type of assessment we would use, the specific instrument that we would utilize, and the materials that we would need. The three
subsequent meetings have consisted of norming sessions to differentiate “passing” from “failing” summaries by using the MTEL Summary
Scoring Rubric and the actual reading as the two primary tools.
Since BE122 is an upper-level reading course, for Native speakers that requires students to pass a Department-wide summary assessment,
we decided that it would be practical to use the official rubric already in use, the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric to evaluate the students’
summaries. Our Committee felt that it would be productive to conduct a baseline summary assessment early on in the semester to evaluate
what the students could achieve without much specific instruction, and then evaluate again after the instructors had been provided with a
specific lesson on summary skills prior to the mid-part of the semester and then again at the end of the semester. For each assessment that
was conducted, the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric was implemented. The students have just completed the final summary assessment,
and the Committee is still in the process of evaluating the summaries.
Assessment of BE122 Spring 2014
TABLE 1. EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT
BE 122 is an intensive reading course for students requiring the development of reading skills and the transfer of those skills directly
to their content courses. Emphasis is placed on improving general comprehension and interpretation, organizing ideas for study,
developing general and course specific vocabulary, and applying test-taking strategies. The objective is to develop comprehension,
vocabulary, and study techniques that will enable students to deal successfully with college-level reading, lectures and examinations.
TABLE 2. Curricular Objectives
Note: Include in this table curriculum-specific objectives that meet Educational Goals 1 and 2:
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Year: 2013- 2014
Curricular objectives addressed by this course:
Upon completing the course, students should be able to demonstrate the ability to:
BE 122/226 Curricular Objectives:
1). Students will be able to recognize the main idea by differentiating major and minor details in various reading
passages.
2) Students will demonstrate their ability to compare/contrast two readings on the same topic.
3) Students will paraphrase and summarize reading passages, both in oral and written form.
4) Students will identify and write topic sentences using various reading passages
5)Students will recognize both an author’s purpose and point of view/bias.
5) Students will annotate texts using multiple techniques (e.g.. highlighting, marginalia, etc).
6) Students will distinguish between an inference and a stated claim.
7) Students will identify the writer’s tone.
8) Students will identify the organizational patterns of information in a reading.
9) Students will demonstrate effective group work skills through team project work and class reading groups.
10) Students will use context clues, dictionaries and root/prefix/suffix knowledge to understand unfamiliar words.
11) Students will utilize re-reading skills to answer comprehension questions during class, in the computer lab, at
home, and during exams.
12) Students will improve multiple-choice test taking ability through a heavy focus on test strategies and question
type identification.
13) Students will organize their ideas using appropriate transitional devices.
TABLE 3. General Education Objectives, based on draft Distributed at the January 2010 Praxis Workshops
To achieve these goals, students graduating with an Associate degree will:
1.
Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking.
2.
Use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems and evaluate evidence in order to make informed decisions.
3.
Reason quantitatively and mathematically as required in their field of interest and in everyday life.
4.
Use information management and technology skills effectively for academic research and lifelong learning.
5.
Integrate knowledge and skills in their program of study.
6.
Differentiate and make informed decisions about issues based on multiple value systems.
7.
Work collaboratively in diverse groups directed at accomplishing learning objectives.
8.
Use historical or social sciences perspectives to examine formation of ideas, human behavior, social institutions, or social
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processes.
9.
Employ concepts and methods of the natural and physical sciences to make informed judgments.
10.
Apply aesthetic and intellectual criteria in the evaluation or creation of works in the humanities or the arts.
Gen Ed
objective’s ID
number from list
(1-10)
General educational objectives addressed by this course: Select from preceding list.
1.
Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking.
2.
Use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems and evaluate evidence in order to
make informed decisions.
7.
Work collaboratively in diverse groups directed at accomplishing learning objectives.
PART ii. Assignment Design: Aligning outcomes, activities, and assessment tools
For the assessment project, you will be designing one course assignment, which will address at least one general educational objective,
one curricular objective (if applicable), and one or more of the course objectives. Please identify these in the following table:
TABLE 5: OBJECTIVES ADDRESSED IN ASSESSMENT ASSIGNMENT
Course Objective(s) selected for assessment: (select from Table 4)
3. Paraphrase and summarize reading passages, both in oral and written form.
Curricular Objective(s) selected for assessment: (select from Table 2)
1. Students will be able to recognize the main idea by differentiating major and minor details in various reading
passages.
3. Students will paraphrase and summarize reading passages, both in oral and written form.
4. Students will identify and write topic sentences using various reading passages
13. Students will organize their ideas using appropriate transitional devices.
9. Students will demonstrate effective group work skills through team project work and class reading groups.
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General Education Objective(s) addressed in this assessment: (select from Table 3)
3. Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Reading: Students will read various passages and summarize them.
Writing: Students will write summaries.
Listening and speaking: Students will discuss key components of main ideas in
passages and summary writing in pairs, groups and as a class.
4.
Students will use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems and evaluate evidence in order
to make informed decisions.
Students will make informed decisions about which ideas are most important to include in their
summaries.
8. Students will work collaboratively in diverse groups directed at accomplishing
learning objectives.
Student Learning Outcomes:
4. Students will differentiate between major and minor details in reading passages.
5. Students will organize their ideas using appropriate transitional devices.
6. Students will write effective summaries on various reading passages.
TABLE 6: Assignment, Outcomes, Activities, and Assessment Tools
Briefly describe the assignment that will be assessed:
Students will be taught to read a short passage and summarize it effectively.
Desired student learning outcomes for the
Briefly describe the range of activities
assignment
student will engage in for this
(Students will…)
assignment.
List in parentheses the Curricular
Objective(s) and/or General Education
Objective(s) (1-10) associated with these
desired learning outcomes for the assignment.
Students will be able to recognize the main
Baseline Assessment
What assessment tools will be used to
measure how well students have met
each learning outcome? (Note: a single
assessment tool may be used to measure
multiple learning outcomes; some
learning outcomes may be measured
using multiple assessment tools.)
1. Instrument Used: A Summary
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idea by differentiating major and minor details
in various reading passages.(Curricular
Objective #1)
Students will identify and write topic
sentences using various reading
passages.(Curricular Objective #4)
Students will summarize reading passages by
identifying main ideas, organizing these ideas
effectively, using appropriate transitional
devices, and producing their summaries by
using their own words.(Curricular Objective
#3)
Students will communicate effectively
through reading, writing, listening and
speaking. (General Education Objective#1)
Students will use analytical reasoning to
identify issues or problems and evaluate
evidence in order to make informed decisions.
(General Education Objective #2)
Students will work collaboratively in diverse
groups directed at accomplishing learning
objectives. (General Education Objective
#7)
Year-end Report – Teaching Department
In early February 2014, to form baseline
data the instructors were asked to assess
their students’ summarizing skills.
Students were given a reading entitled,
“Why Losing is Good for You” (See
Attachment.) to read and summarize. The
MTEL Rubric was used to evaluate their
performance. (See Attachment.)
Preparation for Mid-term Assessment:
In late February, instructors were given a
specific lesson on summary writing to
assist their students in learning this skill.
Day of the Lesson:
After teachers taught their students how to
write a summary, which took
approximately forty minutes, they gave
students the passage on “Why Obesity
Year: 2013- 2014
Scoring Rubric derived from the
(MTEL) Communication and Literacy
Skills Test (01) –
The baseline, mid-term, and final
summary results were examined using
the MTEL rubric. (See Attachment.)
Improvements between assessments
were evaluated across sections and
assessments to determine the
improvement in students’ ability to write
cohesive, accurate, and well-written
summaries.
Among 5 Year Olds Is So
Dangerous”
“to read. (See
Attachment.) This task took
approximately twenty-minutes. Once the
students had finished reading it, they
worked in pairs to write a summary of it.
This task took approximately twenty to
twenty-five minutes. Once the students
finished writing their summaries, the
teachers noted the keys ideas of the
passage on the board and asked students to
verify whether or not they included these
ideas. If they hadn’t, they were instructed
to jot down notes below their summaries
and, revise their summaries at home.
Finally, the teacher gave students the
second article, entitled, “Premature
Babies: Talking to Them Improves
their Language Development” and
asked them to summarize it for homework.
During the following class the teachers
asked learners to submit homework
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summaries and revised in-class
summaries. At the beginning of class,
teachers discussed the key points of the
homework reading/summary. This took
approximately fifteen minutes to twenty
minutes.
Mid-term Assessment:
Several classes later, the students
participated in the Department’s Mid-term
Assessment of summary skill writing,
which was measured with the MTEL. It
should be noted that it is a departmental
practice for all reading students to
participate in this midterm summary
assessment. This task required an entire
class period. The mid-term reading “The
Road to Ivory is Stained with Blood”.
Once the students finished writing their
summaries, teachers placed them in the
Dr. Julia Carroll’s (Chairperson of the
Department’s Assessment Committee)
mailbox labeled with the teacher’s name
and class sections on them.
The Assessment Committee then
evaluated the summaries according to the
MTEL rubric and recorded the scores on a
separate file. Finally, the summaries were
returned to the teachers.
Preparation for the Final Assessment:
At the end of the semester, the students
participated in the Department Final
Summary Assessment. Like the Mid-term,
this assessment was a Department-wide
Assessment, which all reading students
were obligated to take.
Prior to this assessment, teachers repeated
the summary lesson with their own
readings passages. By revisiting this
lesson, the teachers employed a spiral
pedagogical approach whereby the same
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or very similar lesson was repeated on
several occasions to reinforce learning.
Day of the Actual Final
Assessment
The teachers administered the Final Exam,
which included a summary. The passage
that the students read and summarized was
entitled “Paying a Price for Loving Red
Meat”. The students were given the entire
class period to complete the exam. Once
again, teachers placed the materials in Dr.
Carroll’s mailbox and the Assessment
Committee evaluated them and recorded
the scores on a separate roster, which was
held on file.
Table 7: Assessment Standards (Rubrics)
Describe the standards or rubrics for measuring student achievement of each outcome in the assignment:
This assessment used the (MTEL) Communication and Literacy Skills Test (01) during the spring semester of 2014 to evaluate the
summary skills of six sections of BE122 students on three separate occasions during the semester. The first summary was used as a
baseline assessment to ascertain how well students performed before receiving instruction. The next assessment was performed at the
midterm after the students had experienced a specific summary lesson and practice activities. Finally, the last summary assessment was
utilized at the end of the semester to measure the improvement across all three assessments.
Instrument Used: A Summary Scoring Rubric derived from the (MTEL) Communication and Literacy Skills Test (01) –
Background:
The MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric was developed by Department of Education of Massachusetts and Pearson Education. It is a
combined reading and writing test that incorporates the comprehension and analysis of readings as well as outlining and summarizing. It
was first copyrighted in 2008 through Pearson Education.
The Department of Academic Literacy at QCC utilizes this rubric to assess summary writing at midterms and finals across all reading
courses. In addition, many writing instructors use it as well as a tool to assist their students with summary writing as part of their CATW
assessment preparation. Since this rubric has been successfully used as the official rubric to assess summary writing throughout the
Department, the members of the Assessment Committee concluded that it was an appropriate evaluation tool for the task of summary
writing. This rubric consists of a four-point scale. The score of one represents the lowest score and is not passing. Two is approaching a
passing level. Three is passing, and four is higher than passing. Some of the most important criteria that these scores are based on include:
the extent to which the student understood the main idea of the article, how well the student organized his or her own ideas, the degree to
which the student used his or her own words, and how clearly the summary was written. This rubric was provided to the BE122 instructors
before they taught their lessons. Before their students participated in the assessments, the instructors discussed the criteria of the rubric so
that the students would clearly understand how they were to be evaluated.
Score Point Description
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4




3




2




1

Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
The response accurately and clearly conveys all of the main ideas and significant details of the original
passage. It does not introduce information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original. Relationships
among ideas are preserved.
The response is concise while providing enough statements of appropriate depth and specificity to convey
the main ideas and significant details of the original passage.
The response is written in the candidate's own words, clearly and coherently conveying main ideas and
significant details.
The response shows excellent control of grammar and conventions. Sentence structure, word choice, and
usage are precise and effective. Mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) conform to the
standard conventions of written English.
The response conveys most of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage, and is generally
accurate and clear. It introduces very little or no information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original.
Relationships among ideas are generally maintained.
The response may be too long or too short, but generally provides enough statements of appropriate depth
and specificity to convey most of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage.
The response is generally written in the candidate's own words, conveying main ideas and significant details
in a generally clear and coherent manner.
The response shows general control of grammar and conventions. Some minor errors in sentence structure,
word choice, usage and mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) may be present.
The response conveys only some of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage.
Information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original passage may substitute for some of the original
ideas. Relationships among ideas may be unclear.
The response either includes or excludes too much of the content of the original passage. It is too long or too
short. It may take the form of a list or an outline.
The response may be written only partially in the candidate's own words while conveying main ideas and
significant details. Language not from the passage may be unclear and/or disjointed.
The response shows limited control of grammar and conventions. Errors in sentence structure, word choice,
usage, and/or mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) are distracting.
The response fails to convey the main ideas and details of the original passage. It may consist mostly of
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


U
B

Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original.
The response is not concise. It either includes or excludes almost all the content of the original passage.
The response is written almost entirely of language from the original passage or is written in the candidate's
own words and is confused and/or incoherent.
The response fails to show control of grammar and conventions. Serious errors in sentence structure, word
choice, usage, and/or mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) impede communication.
The response is unrelated to the assigned topic, illegible, primarily in a language otherthan English, not of
sufficient length to score, or merely a repetition of the assignment.
There is no response to the assignment.
How the MTEL Rubric Measured Curricular and General Educational Objectives for this
Assessment:
This rubric measured both Curricular Outcomes and General Education Outcomes.
Curricular Objectives:
1. Students will be able to recognize the main idea by differentiating major and minor details in various reading passages.(Curricular
Objective #1)- This curricular objective is included the in the MTEL because it examines how well students are able to locate an article’s
most important ideas.
2. Students will identify and write topic sentences within various reading passages.(Curricular Objective #4). In order for the students to
develop the ability to convey the main ideas of an article, the students were required to write clear and focused topic sentences.
3. Students will summarize reading passages by identifying main ideas, organizing these ideas effectively, using appropriate transitional
devices, and producing their summary by using their own words.(Curricular Objective #3). All of these components above are included
in the MTEL rubric.
General Educational Objectives:
1. Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking. (General Education Objective#1). The rubric measured
how well the students read and understood reading passages as well as their ability to write an effective summary.
TABLE 8: Summary of Assessment Results (Part of TABLE 9’s focus is subsumed in this section.)
The committee started with the assumption that scores would increase as a result of (a) the lesson, and (b) multiple exposures to the new
skill in a variety of situations (solo, group, and class-wide experiences). However, no specific expectations about the degree of
improvement were hypothesized. Thus, the generally positive results seem to indicate a highly successful unit.
Student achievement: Describe the group achievement of each desired outcome and the knowledge and cognitive processes
demonstrated:
The lesson had one desired outcome: to improve students’ ability to write effective summaries. The following analysis indicates a
improvement from the baseline assessment to the final assessment and from the midterm and to the final (See Table 1).
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Table 1: Assessment Results for- MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric
BE122
Baseline
Summary n
Baseline
Average
Score
Mid-term
Summary n
A
B
C
D
E
F
Total
21
18
15
20
23
20
117
2.4
1.8
2.3
2.1
2.3
1.9
2.13
(average
score)
21
15
15
18
18
19
106
Mid-Term
Summary
Average
Score
2.1
2.1
2.5
2.4
2.2
2.2
2.25
Final
Summary
n
Final
Summary
Average
20
12
17
15
21
20
105
2.7
2.8
2.7
2.9
2.5
2.8
2.73
Discussion of Results Related to Average Score on Assessment:
On the MTEL scoring rubric (Table 1), the passing score is “3” for summary writing. Data indicates that the average
score was above “2” in four of the six sections on the baseline summaries before instruction. The average score was above
“2” for all six sections on the mid-term after the students had received a specific lesson on summary writing, and by the final
assessment the average score was significantly above “2” for all six sections. Sections B, D, and F average scores were within
two points from an overall passing score on the final assessment
The average score on the final assessment for all six sections was 2.73, which is a +29.3% increase in overall
improvement. Even though a 2.73 is not quite a “3” which is considered a “passing” score, a considerable number of
students received at least a three or higher. In fact, in the baseline assessment, only 29 students scored a 3 or higher. On the
midterm assessment, 36 students scored a 3 or higher; however, on the final assessment 72 students earned a score of 3 or
higher (See Figure 1.).
Table 2: Assessment Results for Percentage of Change between Assessments- Using the MTEL Rubric
BE122
Percentage of
change between
the Baseline
and the Midterm
Percentage of
change between
the Mid-term
and the Final
Percentage of
change between
the Baseline
and the Final
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A
B
C
D
E
F
Total
-12.50%
16.67%
8.70%
14.29%
-4.35%
15.79%
6.43%
28.57%
33.33%
8.00%
20.83%
13.64%
27.27%
21.94%
Year: 2013- 2014
12.50%
55.56%
17.39%
38.10%
8.70%
47.37%
29.93%
Discussion of Results Related to Percentage of Change:
Percentage of Change between the Baseline and the Mid-term:
In four sections of the six, B, C, D, and F, respectively, that were assessed, a positive change resulted between the baseline and the midterm, with section B scoring the highest +16.67%. The two sections with the weakest performance were section A, which had a -12.5%
percentage change and section E, which had a -4.35% change. This may have been because the Department mid-term assessment occurred
directly after spring break, and some students may have had some difficulty transitioning. However, overall students in four sections out
of the six showed general improvement.
Percentage of Change between the Mid-term and the Final:
Between the mid-term and the final assessments, the results evidenced a positive change in all six sections, with section B presenting the
highest rate of improvement at 33.33%. Sections A and F also demonstrated notable improvement, with scores of +28.57% and +27.27%
respectively. Students in Section A made considerable progress moving from an average score of a 2.1 to a 2.7. Students in section F
moved from 2.2 to 2.8. Each of these sections had an average final assessment score of 2.73, which is close to the passing score of a “3”.
Although the average is below “3”, many students overall did achieve the score of a three as will be illustrated in Figure #1.
Percentage of Change between the Baseline and the Final:
Between the beginning and the end of the semester, all six sections of BE122 demonstrated improvements in their ability to write a wellorganized, cohesive, academic summary. The analysis and comparison of the original scores on the baseline assessment to the final
assessment indicate improvement over time. All six sections demonstrated a positive change between assessments with sections B and F
scoring the highest at +55.56% and +47.37%.
Students Scoring “3” or Higher on Assessment:
The previous two data tables reveal that over time students in all six sections of BE122 improved their ability to
write a well-written academic summary. However, it still must be noted that even by the end of the semester, the
average score on the final assessment, 2.73, was under a “3” which is considered to be the lowest passing score
using the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric. Nevertheless, as can be noted from the bar graph below, as the
semester progressed an increased number of students were able to pass the assessment.
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Figure 1
Percentage of Students Scoring at least a 3 on Assessments
Baseline Assessment
Out of 117 students, 29 students
scored a “ 3” or higher or 25%
Mid-term Assessment
Out of 106 students, 36 students
scored “3” or higher or 34%
Final Assessment
Out of 105 students 72 were able to
score “3” or higher on the final
assessment or 69%
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Table 3: Comparison of Means for the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric
n
Mean
SD
Baseline Score
114
2.13*
.65956
Midterm Score
104
2.25*
.63090
Final Score
105
2.73*
.52314

p < .0001
In Table 3, a t-test of dependent means also revealed a statistically significant increase in scores between a) the baseline assessment
and the midterm, b) the midterm assessment and the final, and c) the Baseline assessment and the final (p < .0001). These analyses suggest
that teaching the students’ summary writing skills at the beginning of the term improved their ability to compose summaries significantly;
however, repeating the lesson and offering additional opportunities to write more summaries improved their performance even more. Thus,
these results suggest that when teachers engage in a spiral approach to teaching new skills to their developmental reading students, their
learners reap the benefit of repeated lessons and practice because this repetition advances their summary writing scores.
As Table 4 indicates an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and a Tukey HSD revealed a statistically significant
difference (p < .05) between groups 1 and 2 during the baseline assessment. However, after the midterm and final
assessments, no statistical differences were evidenced among any of the classes. These results suggest that student
population was similar, and the summary lesson and instruction in all six classes was consistent and similar since no
significant differences were demonstrated.
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Table 4 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) among Six Classes

Baseline Score
Df
5
f
2.403
Significance
.042*
Midterm Score
5
.925
.468
Final Score
5
.828
.533*
p < .05
Correlation Analyses of the Data
To examine the relationships among the summary tasks and the ACT Reading scores, the following correlations were conducted.
Table 5
Correlation of Summary Scores to ACT Reading Scores
Summary
Base Line
Base Line

Midterm
Final
ACT Reading
Score
.246*
.070
.180
.321**
.266*
Midterm
.246*
Final
.070
.321**
ACT Reading
Score
.180
.266*
.373**
.373**
p < .05
** p < .01
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Correlational analyses revealed:
1.
a weak positive correlation (.246) between the baseline summary scores and the midterm summary scores (p < .05);
2. a moderate positive correlation (.321) between midterm summary scores and the final summary scores (p < .01);
3. a weak positive relationship between the midterm summary scores and the ACT Reading scores; and
4. a moderate positive correlation between the final summary scores and the ACT Reading scores.
A weak positive correlation between the baseline summary scores and the midterm summary scores (.246) suggests that although
the students had received specific instruction and practice in summarizing, their performance on the midterm still evidenced a weak
relationship with their baseline scores. However, after the students received additional instruction and practice in summarizing, their final
scores moderately correlated with their ACT Reading scores. Thus, these correlations suggest that as the students enhance their ability to
summarize, they also advance their ACT Reading scores. This is an important finding because the level at which a student can compose a
summary is related to his/her ability to perform on the ACT Reading exam and thereby provides another assessment tool to the teachers
when they are trying to understand why certain students fail the ACT Reading while others succeed. It also implies that remedial reading
students require multiple learning experiences before they comprehend new topics.
TABLE 9. Resulting Action Plan
A. Analysis and interpretation of assessment results:
See section 8 above.
B. Evaluation of the assessment process:
What do the results suggest about how well the assignment and the assessment process worked both to help students learn and to show
what they have learned?
Judging by the increase in the students’ average scores across all three implementations of the assessment, it appears that both the
assignment and the assessment process yielded significant outcomes. The students’ average score on the baseline assessment was 2.13.
After the first lesson and the mid-term assessment, the scores increased to 2.25, and after the final spiral lesson and assessment it
increased again to 2.73. From the original baseline to final assessment, this is an increase of 29.93%.
In section E, there was a slight dip between the baseline, an average score of 2.3 to the mid-term to 2.2; however, by the final
assessment, the students had increased their overall average to 2.5, which is still moderately higher than their baseline score of 2.3,
which was achieved early in the semester. This variation could have resulted from the students’ self-selection when they registered for
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specific sections of BE122.
In addition, a large number of students that participated in the study, 72 out of 106, had achieved passing scores of least a 3 by the final
assessment. These results again demonstrate the effectiveness of both the assignment and the assessment process itself.
C. Resulting action plan:
Based on A and B, what changes, if any, do you anticipate making?
Modest to gains were achieved using, the MTEL, to measure summary skills across the three implementations of the assessment
instrument from the baseline to the mid-term to the final assessment. The results from this assessment revealed that the students’ ability
to summarize improved over time with repeated lessons and practice.
This assessment insinuates that explicit repeated teaching of a) differentiating the main idea of a passage from extraneous minor details,
b) paraphrasing , c) using transitions, and d) organizing a well-organized cohesive summary, leads to enhanced ability to write effective
summaries. Since summary writing is an essential skill on Department Summary Reading Test, the BE122 faculty will be encouraged
to use this repeated-teaching and testing method as they fine tune their courses.
Since most remedial students arrive with weak academic skills, they require as much exposure to academic language and repeated
specific instructions as possible. This can consist of additional repeated lessons, challenging academic material, and consistent review of
the skills necessary to write an effective summary.
As BE122 students are in the highest level of our reading program, it is also recommended that instructors require their students to read
two novels instead of one. These books should be at a challenging level to ensure that they are academically prepared for the creditbearing courses that they will need to complete once they leave our department because credit-bearing courses often consist of a
rigorous curriculum that includes extensive reading. Therefore, our students need to increase their reading speed, overall reading
comprehension levels, as well as general language acquisition. This can be accomplished when they are expected to read and write
prolifically at high reading levels. Instructors can then be encouraged to require their students to summarize various chapters of these
novels to progress their overall summary writing skill, which will also be needed in their credit-bearing classes.
To enhance this summary writing lesson further, instructors can be encouraged to develop model summaries that directly correspond to
the criteria of the rubric being utilized. For instance, students can be provided with model summaries that have received the score of a 1,
2, 3, or 4 on the rubric. The models can be distributed to the students without their corresponding scores and then the students can work
in groups to assess each summary. The classroom instructor can then lead the students through a discussion/analysis of the scores that
each summary should have received and the rationale behind each decision so that the students view summarizing from the teacher’s
perspective. After this review, the students should score each other’s summaries to enhance their understanding of this skill by
analyzing and discussing their summaries along with the rubric.
Likewise, all BE122 instructors should participate in departmental norming sessions during which they utilize these model summaries
along with their corresponding rubrics to ensure consistency and accuracy in their grading. These sessions will also permit teachers to
glean ideas from one another to enhance their summary teaching and evaluation skills even more. This will be especially helpful in that
it will increase the likelihood of fewer discrepancies among sections because the instructors will be exposed to increased support among
peers and other professionals in their fields.
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Addendum:
These documents were included in the instructor’s packet for the Spring 2014 Assessment of BE 122. They
include: a) the lesson plan, b) reading passages and c.) the rubric
The reading passages and MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric referred to in the lesson are attached to the end of this
section.
Overview of the Lesson for Session #1
The focus of this lesson is finding the key ideas in a reading passage and writing a summary about those key ideas.
The focus of the lesson will be the following:

Review the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric with particular focus on a score of “3” as a passing summary.

Read the passage

Identify the overall topic, main idea, and key ideas within the passage.

Draft a summary.

Include transition words that indicate an additional idea.

Edit for simple sentence structure and main idea/key ideas (time permitting)
The Summary Rubric
The Department of Academic Literacy at QCC utilizes the MTEL Summary Scoring Rubric to assess
summary writing at midterms and finals across all reading courses. This rubric consists of a four-point scale. The
score of one represents the lowest score and is not passing. Two is approaching a passing level. Three is passing,
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and four is higher than passing. Some of the most important criteria that these scores are based on include: the
extent to which the student understood the main idea of the article, how well the student organized his or her own
ideas, the degree to which the student used his or her own words, and how clearly the summary was written.
To help students understand the important parts of a summary, you can focus on “3” on the four-point scale
as the target for summary writing because it is considered to be a passing score. We suggest that you and the
students use the attached rubric to carefully examine differences in scores on the scale; such analysis can help
students to understand the differences between a failing and passing summary score. One approach is to focus on
the description of how well main ideas and significant details are conveyed in the summary at the “3” level vs. the
“2” or “1”. For example, going from “3” to “1” on the scale reveals different levels of performance in summary
writing. You can ask the students to examine the first bullet point in score level and underline the words that show
those differences and consider the meaning with regard to scoring:
3
The response conveys most of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage, and is generally
accurate and clear.
2
The response conveys only some of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage.
1
The response fails to convey the main ideas and details of the original passage.
Once students analyze those differences in scoring, you could ask them to consider the “4” vs. “3” level by eliciting
definitions for “accurately” and “clearly” in the context of good summary writing.
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The response accurately and clearly conveys all of the main ideas and significant details of the original
passage.
If time permits further analysis, you and the students can compare other bullet points in scoring levels
(paraphrasing, organization, and clarity).
The Reading Passage #1
The attached reading passage (Why Obesity Among 5 Year Olds Is So Dangerous) will be used to demonstrate how
to find the topic, main idea, and key ideas. We suggest that you and the students work together on the initial part of
this task (finding the topic and main idea) and allow them to work in pairs for the second part of the task (finding
key ideas).
Determining the Topic and Main Idea of Reading Passage #1
1. The topic of a reading passage is usually a few words that express the most general point that is discussed in
the passage. Elicit student responses about the topic of the passage.
2. Next, the main idea of the entire passage usually contains the topic and the author’s opinion or the point
being made. Elicit student responses about the main idea of the passage.
Determining the Key Ideas in the Passage
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After you and the students have reviewed the topic and main idea of the passage, you can ask pairs to find the
key ideas in the passage. It is sometimes challenging for developmental reading students to understand the difference
between general and specific ideas. Therefore, we recommend that you work on this concept with the students before
they participate in pair work. For example, you can write down several examples of general vs. specific ideas on the
board to model this concept and/or elicit examples from the students such as fruit (general) and kinds of fruit
(specific). When you think students are ready to work on their own, ask them to highlight or underline only the key
ideas in this passage. When the pairs have finished, review key ideas with the whole class.
Paraphrasing for the summary
After the topic, main idea, and key ideas have been identified, pairs can work on drafting the summary.
Drafting a passing summary (“3” score) requires paraphrasing, and we suggest you elicit students’ knowledge of
this skill. Depending on student responses about paraphrasing, you may want to say that writing a good summary
means that students should change some of verbs, adjectives, and nouns with synonyms (or words with similar
meanings), and/or sentence structure. Below is one example of changing verbs, adjectives and/or nouns:
Example #1:
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Original sentence: A new report that studied kids throughout childhood found that those who are obese at five
years old are more likely to be heavy later in life.
Revised sentence: A recent longitudinal study of children revealed that overweight five-year-olds were more likely
to be overweight adults.
Below is an example of changing sentence structure from compound to complex:
Example #2:
Original sentence: The study highlights the dynamic between early weight gain and obesity, and the researchers
say future work should focus on understanding what contributes to a child becoming overweight so early in life.
Revised sentence: Since the research shows how gaining weight during childhood is linked to obesity, researchers
believe that other studies should explore contributing factors that lead to early childhood obesity.
Writing the Summary
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Ask students to draft a summary by stating the following:

The title of the passage

The author of the passage

The topic of the passage

The main idea

The key ideas
Adding Transition Words
The next part of drafting a summary is writing with coherence. Again, coherence may be a complex or unknown
term for developmental reading students, so we recommend discussing this aspect as making connections with
words that add ideas. Elicit transition words that help students to add ideas into their writing. Ask students to look
at their summary closely to see where they might be able to add transition words.
The Homework Assignment
For homework, ask students to read the attached passage #2 (Premature Babies: Talking to Them Improves their
Language Development) and draft a summary on their own. Remind them that the summary should include the title,
author’s name, topic, main idea, and key ideas.
Session #2
Review the homework summary as a whole class for content and coherence. After homework review, assign the
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individual in-class assessment activity.
Baseline Reading
Losing Is Good for You
By ASHLEY MERRYMAN
Trophies were once rare things — sterling silver loving cups bought from jewelry stores for truly special occasions. But
in the 1960s, they began to be mass-produced, marketed in catalogs to teachers and coaches, and sold in sporting-goods
stores.
Today, participation trophies and prizes are almost a given, as children are constantly assured that they are winners. One
Maryland summer program gives awards every day — and the “day” is one hour long. In Southern California, a regional
branch of the American Youth Soccer Organization hands out roughly 3,500 awards each season — each player gets
one, while around a third get two. Nationally, A.Y.S.O. local branches typically spend as much as 12 percent of their
yearly budgets on trophies.
It adds up: trophy and award sales are now an estimated $3 billion-a-year industry in the United States and Canada.
By age 4 or 5, children aren’t fooled by all the trophies. They are surprisingly accurate in identifying who excels and
who struggles. Those who are outperformed know it and give up, while those who do well feel cheated when they aren’t
recognized for their accomplishments. They, too, may give up.
It turns out that, once kids have some proficiency in a task, the excitement and uncertainty of real competition may
become the activity’s very appeal.
If children know they will automatically get an award, what is the impetus for improvement? Why bother learning
problem-solving skills, when there are never obstacles to begin with?
If I were a baseball coach, I would announce at the first meeting that there would be only three awards: Best Overall,
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Most Improved and Best Sportsmanship. Then I’d hand the kids a list of things they’d have to do to earn one of those
trophies. They would know from the get-go that excellence, improvement, character and persistence were valued.
One researcher warns that when living rooms are filled with participation trophies, it’s part of a larger cultural message:
to succeed, you just have to show up. In college, those who’ve grown up receiving endless awards do the requisite work,
but don’t see the need to do it well. In the office, they still believe that attendance is all it takes to get a promotion.
However, in life, you’re going to lose more often than you win, even if you’re good at something. You’ve got to get used
to that to keep going.
When children make mistakes, our job should not be to spin those losses into decorated victories. Instead, our job is to
help kids overcome setbacks, to help them see that progress over time is more important than a particular win or loss,
and to help them graciously congratulate the child who succeeded when they failed. To do that, we need to refuse all the
meaningless plastic and tin destined for landfills. We have to stop letting the trophy industry run our children’s lives.
READINGS USED AS PART OF LESSON
Reading Passage #1- (In-Class Practice)
Why Obesity Among 5 Year Olds Is So Dangerous
By Alexandra Sifferlin
A new report that studied kids throughout childhood found that those who are obese at five years old are more
likely to be heavy later in life.
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While other studies have hinted at that trend, those have generally involved what’s known as prevalence of the
condition — or the proportion of a population, at a given time, that is considered obese. Such information doesn’t
suggest the risk of developing obesity, which is revealed by studying a population over specific periods of time. So
in the latest study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists tracked a group of 7738 children,
some of whom were overweight or obese, and some who were normal weight, from 1998 (when they were in
kindergarten) to 2007 (when they were in ninth grade). They found that the 14.9% of five-year-olds who
were overweight at kindergarten were four times more likely to become obese nearly a decade later than five-yearolds of a healthy weight.
During the study, the researchers measured the children’s height and weight seven times, which allowed them to
record the incidence of obesity almost yearly. Overall, since most of the children (6807) were normal weight at the
start of the study, the children’s risk of becoming obese decreased by 5.4% during the kindergarten year and by
1.7% between the fifth and eighth grades. But the five-year-olds who were overweight, defined as having a body
mass index (BMI) within the 85th percentile for their age group were significantly more likely to become obese,
which the scientists defined as a BMI within the 95th percentile of their age group as time went on. Among kids
who became obese between the ages of five and 14, about half had been overweight in the past and 75% were in a
high BMI percentile at the start of the study.
Obesity is connected to a high risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke among adults,
and young children who spend more years overweight or obese may be putting themselves at even higher risk of
these diseases, the scientists say.
The study highlights the dynamic between early weight gain and obesity, and the researchers say future work
should focus on understanding what contributes to a child becoming overweight so early in life. The results suggest
that education about weight gain and obesity prevention efforts may need to start earlier with families of young
children, before youngsters become locked in a condition that’s difficult to change.
Reading Passage #2 – (Homework Assignment Practice Reading)
Premature Babies: Talking to Them Improves their Language Development
By Alice Park – February 10, 2014
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Language and conversation is our lifeblood. And that’s even true, scientists say, if one of the “speakers” may not
have fully developed language skills.
Led by Dr. Betty Vohr, a professor of pediatrics at Brown University, researchers found that premature babies in
the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) benefited when their mothers spoke to them in attempts to engage them in
conversation, compared to if their mothers simply stroked them or if the babies were primarily around nurses who
talked about or around them but didn’t address the babies directly.
Vohr and her team studied 36 preterm infants and made 16-hour recordings when they were 32 weeks and 36 weeks
old. The 32-week-old babies were born eight weeks before their mother’s due date, and the 36-week-old infants
were delivered four weeks shy of their expected birth date. When the infants were 7 and 18 months old, the
researchers tested their cognitive and language skills, including their ability to communicate by receiving and
expressing themselves, first with vocalizations and eventually with their first words.
For every increase in 100 words that adults spoke to the preterm infants, the scientists found a two-point increase in
their language scores at 18 months, and a half-point increase in their expressive communication score.
Previous studies have documented that hearing and responding to speech is critical for normal language
development, and that premature babies are at higher risk of language delays compared to babies born at term..
So the possibility that something as simple as having parents speak to their babies, even in the isolette in a NICU,
can minimize such potential language delays is exciting. The results are intriguing because Vohr and her team were
able to pinpoint what type of communication seemed to make a difference. They found that actually engaging the
baby by addressing the infant – ‘Hi Joshua, mommy’s here’ – did better at 18 months than those whose mothers
held them, but didn’t speak as much, or those who were cared for by nurses who talked mostly about their vital
signs and other medical issues to other health care personnel.
Vohr says that although preterm babies can’t communicate with language, they do respond to attempts to engage
them with vocalizations. Studies also showed that they turn instinctively to their mother’s voice after they are born,
which presumably is familiar from their time in the womb. “Our conclusion is that it’s really important for moms to
come into the NICU, and for them to talk to their babies,” says Vohr.
What’s more exciting, she says, is that while most of NICU care involves the latest technology and expensive
equipment, having mom or dad talk to their babies doesn’t cost anything. “This just really involves talking to moms
and informing them that you have an important role here, and you can make a big difference for your baby,” says
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Vohr.
Departmental Mid-Term Assessment
The Road to Ivory is Stained with Blood
By Michael Dobie
The ongoing slaughter of African elephants, in service to the worldwide trade in illegal ivory, is shameful and
heartbreaking. However, a series of recent events here and abroad is creating optimism that progress can be made in
the fight to stop the killing.
The United States has banned nearly all trading of ivory and crushed six tons of seized ivory last year, prompting
China and France to do the same. The United States also was one of 46 nations at a London conference earlier this
month that called for a global crackdown on wildlife trafficking that kills tens of thousands of elephants, rhinos and
other endangered species every year.
Time will tell whether those words lead to actions that help solve this serious problem, because the notion of doing
nothing is unacceptable. Elephant tusks can be used in jewelry and carvings. As such, an estimated 35,000 African
elephants are killed yearly by poachers; once numbering in the millions, the population now is about 400,000. One
species, the African forest elephant, has declined 76 percent since 2002 and could be extinct in a decade. And it's
not just elephants at risk. Hundreds of African park rangers have been killed in the last few years.
As consumers, we play a role in this. New York City's ivory market is the largest in the nation, and the United
States is one of world's prime destinations for ivory, behind only China in some estimates. Elephant ivory trade was
banned worldwide by treaty in 1989, which temporarily slowed the killing, but the bloody business is back in full
swing. Terrorist organizations and rebel groups are now raising funds via the illegal harvest of ivory. The United
Nations estimates the global trade at more than $30 million a year.
The 1989 action and the new U.S. ban were well-intentioned, but problems with both limit their effectiveness. The
first ban exempted ivory harvested from elephants killed before 1989, an exemption partially continued under the
U.S. ban. But determining the age of old ivory is notoriously difficult; often it comes down to the seller's word.
Some sellers stain ivory to make it look older. Allowing some legal trade of ivory has masked the illegal trade and
allowed it to flourish. As for the U.S. ban, it came via executive action by President Barack Obama, not legislation,
and can be undone by the next chief executive.
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These problems are addressed by state legislation being offered by New York congressman Robert Sweeney. It
calls for a complete ban on ivory sales and tough penalties to match. Given the size of the New York market, its
effect could be dramatic. It's a strong complement to the already existing federal ban on ivory and deserves legal
passage. And it could serve as a model for other states. Wildlife Conservation Society officials say groups in eight
other states -- including California and Florida -- are interested in supporting similar legislation.
The good news appears to be that the world finally is waking up to the magnitude of this crisis. But saving
elephants is not just a matter of government action. That's where we as individuals come in. We need to understand
that when we buy ivory, we're helping to make extinct the largest and most majestic land animal on earth. So it's
time to ask yourself about stopping the harvesting of ivory from our planet’s precious wildlife: Do you care?
FINAL ASSESSMENT READING (Department Reading Summary Final Reading)
Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat
By JANE E. BRODY
There was a time when red meat was a luxury for ordinary Americans, or was at least something special: cooking a roast for
Sunday dinner, ordering a steak at a restaurant. Not anymore. Meat consumption has more than doubled in the United States
in the last 50 years. Now a new study of more than 500,000 Americans has provided the best evidence yet that our affinity for
red meat has exacted a hefty price on our health and limited our longevity.
The study found that, other things being equal, the men and women who consumed the most red and processed meat were
likely to die sooner, especially from one of our two leading killers, heart disease and cancer, than people who consumed much
smaller amounts of these foods. Results of the decade-long study were published in the March 23 issue of The Archives of
Internal Medicine. The study, directed by Rashmi Sinha, a nutritional doctor at the National Cancer Institute, involved
322,263 men and 223,390 women ages 50 to 71 who participated in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health
Study. Each participant completed detailed questionnaires about diet and other habits and characteristics, including smoking,
exercise, alcohol consumption, education, use of supplements, weight and family history of cancer.
During the decade, 47,976 men and 23,276 women died, and the researchers kept track of the timing and reasons for each
death. Red meat consumption ranged from a low of less than an ounce a day, on average, to a high of four ounces a day, and
processed meat consumption ranged from at most once a week to an average of one and a half ounces a day. The increase in
mortality risk tied to the higher levels of meat consumption was described as “modest,” ranging from about 20 percent to
nearly 40 percent. But the number of excess deaths that could be attributed to high meat consumption is quite large given the
size of the American population.
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The new findings suggest that over the course of a decade, the deaths of one million men and perhaps half a million women
could be prevented just by eating less red and processed meats, according to estimates prepared by Dr. Barry Popkin, who
wrote an editorial accompanying the report. To prevent premature deaths related to red and processed meats, Dr. Popkin
suggested in an interview that people should eat a hamburger only once or twice a week instead of every day, a small steak
once a week instead of every other day, and a hot dog every month and a half instead of once a week.
In place of red meat, non-vegetarians might consider poultry and fish. In the study, the largest consumers of “white” meat
from poultry and fish had a slight survival advantage. Likewise, those who ate the most fruits and vegetables also tended to live
longer.
A question that arises from observational studies like this one is whether meat is in fact a hazard or whether other factors
associated with meat-eating are the real culprits in raising death rates. The subjects in the study who ate the most red meat
had other less-than-healthful habits. They were more likely to smoke, weigh more for their height, and consume more calories
and more total fat and saturated fat. They also ate less fruits, vegetables and fiber; took fewer vitamin supplements; and were
less physically active.
Poultry and fish contain less saturated fat than red meat, and fish contains omega-3 fatty acids that have been linked in several
large studies to heart benefits. For example, men who consume two servings of fatty fish a week were found to have a 50
percent lower risk of cardiac deaths, and in the Nurses’ Health Study of 84,688 women, those who ate fish and foods rich in
omega-3 fatty acids at least once a week cut their coronary risk by more than 20 percent.
SCORING RUBRICS FOR COMMUNICATION AND LITERACY SKILLS:
WRITTEN SUMMARY EXERCISE (MTEL) Summary Scoring Rubric
Score Point Description
4




The response accurately and clearly conveys all of the main ideas and significant details of the original
passage. It does not introduce information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original. Relationships
among ideas are preserved.
The response is concise while providing enough statements of appropriate depth and specificity to convey
the main ideas and significant details of the original passage.
The response is written in the candidate's own words, clearly and coherently conveying main ideas and
significant details.
The response shows excellent control of grammar and conventions. Sentence structure, word choice, and
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usage are precise and effective. Mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) conform to the
standard conventions of written English.
3




2




1




U

The response conveys most of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage, and is generally
accurate and clear. It introduces very little or no information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original.
Relationships among ideas are generally maintained.
The response may be too long or too short, but generally provides enough statements of appropriate depth
and specificity to convey most of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage.
The response is generally written in the candidate's own words, conveying main ideas and significant details
in a generally clear and coherent manner.
The response shows general control of grammar and conventions. Some minor errors in sentence structure,
word choice, usage and mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) may be present.
The response conveys only some of the main ideas and significant details of the original passage.
Information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original passage may substitute for some of the original
ideas. Relationships among ideas may be unclear.
The response either includes or excludes too much of the content of the original passage. It is too long or too
short. It may take the form of a list or an outline.
The response may be written only partially in the candidate's own words while conveying main ideas and
significant details. Language not from the passage may be unclear and/or disjointed.
The response shows limited control of grammar and conventions. Errors in sentence structure, word choice,
usage, and/or mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) are distracting.
The response fails to convey the main ideas and details of the original passage. It may consist mostly of
information, opinion, or analysis not found in the original.
The response is not concise. It either includes or excludes almost all the content of the original passage.
The response is written almost entirely of language from the original passage or is written in the candidate's
own words and is confused and/or incoherent.
The response fails to show control of grammar and conventions. Serious errors in sentence structure, word
choice, usage, and/or mechanics (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization) impede communication.
The response is unrelated to the assigned topic, illegible, primarily in a language otherthan English, not of
sufficient length to score, or merely a repetition of the assignment.
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B

2a.
There is no response to the assignment.
Departmental participation in self-study/program review during 2013-2014, if applicable
Program(s) reviewed: [GIVE FULL TITLE, i.e., A.A.S. in Digital Art and Design]
External Agency or Reviewers: [GIVE NAME OF AGENCY OR NAME OF
REVIEWER(S)]
Date of site visit:
Major conclusions of self-study
n/a
Major conclusions of external reviewers
Resulting action plan
2b.
Program review follow-up (from 2012-13 to 2013-14)
Action item from program review
Timeline for
completion
Accomplishments during current year
n/a
Note: If your department was involved in a program review in the previous academic year, the table above must be
filled in.
3a.
Course assessment follow-up (from 2012-13 to 2013-14)
Course(s)
assessed from
previous year
Action plan from previous year
Evaluation of Results
Follow-up
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BE203 in the
spring 2013
one member who is part of the
Assessment Committee and
who is teaching the course
(BE203) will train BE203
teachers in how to conduct a
norming session whereby the
rubric will be used both at midterm and then again at finals as
a basis to help instructors
formally decide which students
are ready to be promoted to the
next level. In addition, this
Committee will select model
essays from a collection of
sample essays that are ranked as
“high” passing, “passing”,
“weak passing”, and “failing”.
These papers will be used to
help instructors fully understand
the criteria of a “passing midterm” and “passing final.”
BE225
The Assessment Committee
determined that the students’
midterm and final summaries
should be compared in order to
determine how much the
students have learned and
retained and progressed by the
end of the semester. At this
point, if the students have not
As a result of the assessment, the
Department’s Best Practices
offered several norming sessions
for all writing classes so that the
teachers would use the same
rubric and standards to access
their students’ progress. In
addition, the Department has now
agreed that each writing course
(BE201, 203, 205, 111, 112)
teacher will no longer grade
his/her own students’
compositions during the midterm
and final exams. Instead, each
teacher will exchange their
students’ compositions with two
other faculty members who will
score the midterms and finals. If a
teacher disagrees with the other
two teachers’ scores, he/she can
appeal by providing a portfolio of
student work to the Department’s
newly created Appeals
Committee.
This semester the teachers were
asked to examine their students’
improvement in summary writing
from the midterm to final exams.
If the student did not improve
his/her skills sufficiently to earn a
passing score on the rubric and/or
did not demonstrate a remarkable
improvement in their summary
Year: 2013- 2014
The chairperson and
deputy chairperson
will monitor the
grading process and
make adjustments
as they encounter
issues.
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made considerable progress by
the end of the semester, BE225
instructors should be advised to
not allow weak students who
have NOT obtained the ability
to write a well-written summary
to advance to the next level,
BE226.
3b.
Year: 2013- 2014
writing, the teachers have been
asked not to pass these learners
into BE226 since it is unlikely
such learners will advance their
skills enough to pass the ACT
Reading Compass exam at the
end of the course. In addition,
since a new policy that was voted
in by the Academic Senate only
permits students to take BE226
two times, the instructors realize
that passing a weak student may
set this learner up for becoming a
multiple repeater. Therefore the
teachers are aware of the risk that
would be created for a student by
promoting him/her prematurely
from BE225 into BE226.
Course assessment: current year
Course(s)
assessed (list
individually)
Relevant General
Educational
Outcomes
Relevant Curricular
Outcomes
Evaluation of
Assessment Results
Action plan
BE205
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
See a Section E
Department
Assessment
BE201
BE122
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4.
Results of certification examinations, employer and alumni surveys, student surveys, advisory
board recommendations (if applicable, please use the table below) NA
5.
Other assessment activity (if applicable)
Year: 2013- 2014
F. DEPARTMENT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
1.
Goals/objectives for 2013-2014
(Please indicate [Yes or No] if the objectives were part of the College’s Strategic Plan for 20132014.)
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Departmental goals/objectives 2013/2014
Work with English Department to propose
an Accelerated learning program (ALP)
that meets the needs of both departments.
Strategic Plan
Y/N
Y
Increase use of Service Learning,
especially in the KHRCA
Year: 2013- 2014
Evaluation of achievement
Resulting action plan
Increase exit from remediation
Two ALP classes were offered in the Spring
2014 and another eight will be offered in the
Fall 2014. The results from the two Spring 14
ALP sections demonstrated that 70% of the
students passed the CATW exam.
Increase the use of Service Learning and the
KHRCA in the Spring semester.
In the Fall 2013, Academic Literacy
classes participated in Service Learning
and four used the KHRCA as a
resource.
In the spring, five classes participated
in Service Learning and four used the
KHRCA as a resource.
Improve exit from remediation by
permitting more remedial faculty to use
technology in their classes.
Work with architect to design and
implement hardware and software in room
H339 (the new academic literacy smart
room);
Y
H339 has been renovated and is operational.
The Academic Literacy CLT, Sami Baig, has
installed all of the ALLC software and is
maintaining this room routinely.
The Department Tech Committee will
work with the Best Practices Committee
to develop effective pedagogical uses of
the new ALLC website, as well as other
instructional technologies;
Procure software and hardware which will
specifically assist English language
learners’ academic literacy needs;
Y
Improve exit from remediation
Query faculty as to how much they have used
ALLC website.
Y
Improve exit from remediation
Renewed Comfit license and will continue to
search for new software.
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Pursue the procurement of instructional
technology in each and every classroom in
the Department of Academic Literacy.
Y
Improve exit from remediation
Increase the use of technology in the
classroom
Y
Improve exit from remediation
2.
Year: 2013- 2014
The Department received its Computer Literacy
classroom and it is used whenever AL classes
are in session. In fact, since this classroom was
created, this room was utilized from 8 AM until
8 PM each day, Monday through Thursday. It
has also been used on Fridays for Multiple
Repeater workshops and Adult Literacy faculty
development. In fact, it was used for the ALP
which yielded a 70% pass rate. Because this
room is in such demand, it has become
necessary to set up alternate schedules so that
the teachers will share this room because it is in
such demand.
The AL faculty constantly requests the use of
H339 and the classrooms with podia. In fact, the
demand is greater than the supply of
instructional technology. Many teachers use this
facility to have their students engage in research
to supplement their readings, to compose
essays, to use ALLC software to develop newly
learned skills. Thus the Department has
requested three more podia for the AL
classrooms.
Goals/objectives for 2014-2015
(Explain how these goals/objectives align with the College’s goals and Strategic Plan for 2014-2015)
Departmental goals/objectives 2014-2015
Analyze data from the Multiple Repeaters (MR) policy
to determine the most effective number of workshops
that should be offered.
Ask to the College Curriculum Committee to approve a
limit on MR Workshops and to get approval to establish
Mission/
Strategic
Plan
Y
Planned method of evaluation
Determine if a new MR policy has been approved by the
Department, the College Curriculum Committee and
Academic Senate?
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a Continuing Education class that will provide ACT
Reading and CATW writing sessions to students who
are no longer eligible for our exit exams and workshops.
Increase the number of ALP sessions offered in the AL
Department and determine how successful this program
is.
Y
Continue to engage in Norming Sessions in all the
writing courses so that students are only advanced into
the upper levels when they are prepared for the demands
of the exit courses and so that students receive an
unbiased assessment of their work by CATW readers.
Improve pass rates on the ACT Reading and the CATW
writing exams.
Y
Y
Compare number of sections offered in 2013/2014 to
2014/2015.
Assess the effectiveness of the program by examining the
CATW pass rate, the students grades in English 101 and 102
and their GPAs. .
Compare exit numbers for low level writing classes to
determine what percentage of the students are being passed.
Examine exit course statistics to determine the pass rate.
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
ATTACHMENT A
Accelerated Learning Program
Spring 2014 Pilot Report
Program Coordinators: Leah Anderst (English) and Jennifer Maloy (Academic Literacy)
Committee Members: David Humphries, Regina Rochford, Jed Shahar, Cheryl Comeau-Kirschner, Beth Counihan, Ben Miller, Danielle
Izzo, Trikartikaningsih Byas
Description of the Program and our Pilot
The Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) is an initiative in developmental writing created by the Community College of Baltimore
County which has been successfully adopted and adapted by a variety of community colleges including LaGuardia Community College,
CUNY and the California State Community College System. The ALP model allows developmental writing students to enroll in a creditbearing, first semester freshman writing course while also taking an additional developmental course with their English 101 professor.
ALP allows students to complete in one semester what would normally take two or more semesters. In the ALP model as we piloted it in
the Spring 2014 semester here at QCC, students enrolled in an upper level developmental writing course (BE112) and concurrently in a
linked section of English 101 that also included ten non-developmental students. Our pilot semester consisted of two ALP sections, taught
by the program co-coodinators: Leah Anderst and Jennifer Maloy. In our pilot semester, we aimed for the following enrollment numbers:
24 students in English 101, with 14 seats reserved for developmental students and 10 for students who were traditionally eligible for
English 101, and 14 in our BE112 courses. Here are the specific numbers for the two spring sections:


AM Section: EN101 (10:10-12pm) 26 students (16 BE students and 10 EN-only students) + BE112 (12:10-2pm) 16 students
PM Section: BE112 (12:10-2pm) 13 students + EN101 (2:10-4pm) 26 students (13 BE students and 13 EN-only students) 1
Students
For our pilot semester, we communicated the particulars of the program to Academic Literacy faculty teaching fall 2013 courses that
immediately precede BE112 in the sequences of developmental writing courses (BE111 and BE203). We asked faculty to recommend the
program to eligible students who would then put together an application. Interested students submitted writing samples and their faculty
recommendations. We received more than 60 applications late in the fall semester, and we chose 30 students to enroll in the pilot semester.
We did not distinguish between ESL and NES (Native English Speaking) students. The ten spots in each English 101 course were filled
with students who enrolled themselves or were enrolled by their advisors.
Course Structure and Shared Curriculum
We created a fully articulated curriculum so that the readings, assignments, and class work would together meet the different objectives
Two students in the PM section withdrew from their classes for personal reasons. Our results analysis does not
include these two students; therefore, we assessed this program for the 27 students who remained active in
their ALP classes through the entirety of the semester.
1
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Year: 2013- 2014
across the two traditionally distinct courses. Both sections featured nearly identical assignments, readings, and classroom activities, and
the coordinators met and talked regularly to share ideas and concerns. We scheduled class meeting times so that the BE and EN courses in
each section would meet back to back, with only one difference between the two sections: the AM section began with EN which was
followed by BE, while the PM section began with BE followed by EN.
In both ALP sections of English 101, students wrote a total of four essays over the course of the semester. The sequence of writing
assignments followed a model suggested by the English Department’s Composition Committee: the first assignment was narrative based,
and the subsequent assignments became increasingly complex as they required students to develop arguments using evidence from sources
as well as their own experience and to practice academic research using library databases.
In the ALP BE112 sections, the instructors explained how the English 101 assignments connected to the CATW exam and scaffolded
shorter reading and writing assignments to support students’ reading comprehension and their ability to develop ideas in coherent wellstructured prose.
A key feature of our ALP model is the timing of the CATW. Traditionally, developmental writing students take the CATW only at the end
of their semester, but in ALP students take the CATW mid to late in the semester (the date in our pilot fell just before spring break, April
10) and then again at the end of the semester if they did not pass it the first time (this is consistent with the model at LaGuardia
Community College). A good number of our students passed the CATW on the first attempt (11 out of 27), and those who did not had
ample time to prepare for it again at the semester’s end.
Results
ALP has been shown to be highly successful in the many community colleges that have adopted it, and in this one pilot semester, that has
been the case here at QCC as well. Here are the results from our pilot (See Appendix for more complete data, broken down by AM and
PM sections, by NES and ESL students, as well as by first and second attempt at the CATW).



Out of 27 developmental students enrolled in our two BE112 courses, 19 passed the CATW (70%).
Of those 19 students who passed the CATW, 17 earned passing grades in English 101 (93%).2
A total of 12 students in our pilot came from a lower-level ESL writing class (BE 203). 8 out of 12 of these ESL students passed
the CATW (67%).
Assessing the Pilot Semester
Students who have not passed the CATW were given an INC in English 101 regardless of their earned grade in
that class. When they pass the CATW (and, for three of them, the ACT exam), their English 101 grades will be
changed from the INC to their earned letter grades.
2
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This pilot semester has been successful for a number of reasons. Firstly, the high percentage of our developmental students who passed the
CATW exceeds the percentage who generally do so in traditional BE112 and BE205 courses. Secondly, 88% of our developmental
students who have yet to pass the CATW increased their scores from the first to the second attempt of the semester. We anticipate that
many more of these ALP students will pass the exam after completing the summer 2014 workshops offered through the Campus Writing
Center. Thirdly, a high percentage of our developmental students performed well in English 101 with 11 out of 19 who passed the CATW
earning English 101 grades in the B or A range (58%). 93% of students have received (or will receive upon passing the CATW) a passing
grade in English 101. Additionally, these students had increased and intensive time with their BE/EN professor, both within the two
classrooms and during regular office hours, and we have anecdotally observed that the developmental students exhibited equal
engagement or at times even greater engagement in English 101 than their non-developmental peers. These developmental students, by
and large, thrived in English 101.
With these many successes, however, the pilot semester has allowed us to identify some concerns with the program and with its
implementation. One important concern deals with student eligibility. Among our 27 developmental students, four of them still had to pass
the ACT exam in addition to the CATW exam for which our ALP courses sought to prepare them. Although students with developmental
needs in both reading and writing are able to enroll in ALP at other institutions such as LaGuardia Community College, this proved very
challenging for our four students, and only one of them passed both exams to receive the earned letter grade in English 101 by the end of
the semester. While the other three certainly improved their writing and reading skills after such an immersive semester, the intensity of
the classes together with the two high-stakes exams may have been too much for them. For the fall semester, we have decided that
students must have passed one of those two exams in order to be eligible for ALP.
Recruitment and enrollment for the pilot proved to be difficult and labor intensive, and these issues remain major continuing concerns with
the program. For our pilot, we handled the enrollment for the two sections ourselves. We communicated students’ information directly to
registration to manually enroll each developmental student we had accepted from the application process. This was not without flaws as
students were at times inadvertently dropped from English 101 because one or another advisor conducting an audit found them to be
ineligible. Recruitment and enrollment for the Fall 2014 semester has continued to present important and time-consuming challenges.
Even after meetings meant to find solutions to our many enrollment concerns, we continue to need to enroll most students manually into
these courses. The program requires advisors to complete a number of tasks in addition to the basic enrollment process—adding students
to an ALP group and conducting sometimes multiple overrides into classes that are listed on CUNY First as closed—so that many of them
are unable to enroll students into these courses. As our fall semester has tripled in the number of sections from our pilot, though,
enrollment completed largely by the two coordinators becomes very time consuming. We hope that in continuing semesters, we can create
a more streamlined protocol for ALP designated courses so that eligible students, both continuing and incoming, are made aware of and
can easily register for these courses with their academy advisors.
Coordinators’ Shared Duties
The coordinators each had one course release during the pilot semester. The development and implementation of this program has required
a good amount of work, and this release time proved essential in allowing us to dedicate ourselves to the students’ and the program’s
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Year: 2013- 2014
success. The recruitment and enrollment efforts occupy, by far, most of our time and energy. Here below is a semester by semester
breakdown of the coordinators’ activities.
Summer 2013
o Attend ALP Conference in Baltimore - June 2013
o Prepare departmental proposals and timelines for pilot -July 2013
o Meet with Provost Steele and others to discuss ALP across the campus – August 2013
Fall 2013 (50 hours per coordinator)
o Combine departmental ALP proposals, timeline, and materials and agree on a spring 2014 pilot with Provost Steele and ALP
committee members
o Visit courses across English and Academic Literacy departments
 Jennifer Maloy visits two English 101 classes
 Leah Anderst visits three Academic Literacy classes: 111, 112, and 205
o Create ALP informational materials and student application to disseminate to AL faculty
o Receive, read, and categorize 60+ student applications (consisting of multiple writing samples and a faculty recommendation)
o Communicate acceptances to 30 students and waitlist information to 20 students
o Together with the two department chairs, enroll 30 BE students into the pilot sections of BE112 and EN101
o Review textbooks and writing guides and choose texts and major curricular elements for the pilot courses
o Run ALP Committee meeting to discuss: student applications and enrollment, the articulated curriculum design, planning for a
scale-up in the fall, and future research questions
January 2014 (50 hours per coordinator)
o Frequently follow up on student enrollment to troubleshoot many enrollment related concerns: shift ineligible students out of
ALP, re-enroll students who had been inadvertently dropped from the courses, and enroll additional waitlisted students as needed
o Create complete and coordinating syllabi, assignments, and activities for 101 and 112 incorporating the following High Impact
Practices: QCC’s Common Read activities, the QCC Art Gallery programming, and a library information session
Spring 2014 (150 hours per coordinator)
o Pedagogy and Curriculum
 Create and coordinate day-to-day teaching materials (complimentary lesson plans, assignment guidelines, worksheets, sample
paper outlines, grading rubrics, etc.)
 Co-coordinators meet once a week to identify, discuss, and address issues as they arise in the two pilot sections
 Implement norming for grading (101 assignments as well as CATW practice exams)
 Meet with Jean Amaral to plan students’ ethnographic research projects, the library’s website dedicated to the pilot courses,
and research methods
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Lead meeting with ALP Committee - updating on pilot, discussing scale-up and research
Meet off campus with ALP Faculty from LaGuardia Community College to compare and discuss ALP models
Prof. Anderst attends and passes a certification course to become a CATW reader (March 2014)
o
Pedagogical Research and Grants
 Research C3IRG and CETL grants
 Prof. Maloy attends C3IRG grant workshop at QCC
 Prof. Anderst attends CETL pedagogical research workshop
 Research scholarship on ALP and successfully funded projects from the past
 Write and submit two complete grant proposals in collaboration with committee members Jed Shahar and Cheryl ComeauKirshner
 Write and submit panel proposal to the 2015 College Composition and Communication Conference
o
Fall 2014 Recruitment and Enrollment
 Create fall schedule together with EN and AL chairs
 Meet with Advisement as a whole as well as visit each Academy office to plan fall student enrollment
 Meet with Ann Trujillo and others in Registration to problem solve enrollment issues from the pilot semester. This meeting
resulted in the creation of an ALP Student Group in CUNY First
 Create program information to disseminate to various groups around campus (flyers, brochures, website, etc. for students, all
EN/AL faculty, advisors, and academy coordinators)
 Late in spring, email AL faculty to draw continuing students into the fall courses along with incoming students
 Visit selected BE courses to explain the program to interested faculty and their students
 Hold six on-campus, open enrollment days for interested continuing students and to meet and register students recommended
to the program
 Communicate regularly with the registrar’s office to enroll eligible students
 Respond regularly to email questions about ALP enrollment from Academy advisors
o
Plan Summer Faculty Development for Additional Fall Faculty
 Plan 2-3 in person days in August, additional readings and collaborative work to do via Blackboard or another online platform
 Address the following: coordinating syllabus preparation, distinctions and similarities between objectives, assignments, and
instruction methods of 112 and 101, students’ non-cognitive concerns, and CATW information for English faculty in
particular
Summer 2014 (80 hours per coordinator)
o In regards to enrollment, continue to communicate with eligible students via email and during on campus summer open hours
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Queensborough Community College
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
Visit summer USIP courses to make eligible students aware of the program
Regularly audit fall 2014 course rosters to verify eligibility, move ineligible students out of the courses and reach out to eligible
students enrolled in summer AL courses and workshops
Run faculty development in August: in-person and online components
Research software / platforms for maintaining an ALP database and resource for faculty to draw from and contribute to during the
fall semester and beyond
Prepare materials for and attend freshman orientation to meet with new students enrolled in ALP courses
Prepare curriculum and sample syllabi for fall 2014 instructors, including English 101 writing assignment objectives
Create ALP Reading curriculum and syllabus
Design pedagogical study and assessment to begin collecting samples and data for the fall 2014 semester
 Research existing work on ALP models
 Write IRB request
 Write surveys for ALP students to complete and/or interview questions for ALP
Plans for Fall 2014 Semester
In the fall semester, we are offering six ALP sections, and in addition to four writing focused ALP sections where students work to pass
the CATW, we have added two reading focused ALP sections for students who have already passed the CATW but are still working on
the ACT exam. We are particularly excited about this development, as we have not yet seen instances of such a model in other institutions
offering ALP models.
In the fall semester, we have once again drawn from continuing students who have been recommended by their Academic Literacy faculty
member, but we will also reach out to incoming students. We have set the following parameters to determine student eligibility:
Eligible Students for the Writing ALP:
 Incoming students who received a score of 48-55 on the CATW and have successfully completed their reading requirement
 Current students who have completed BE111/203 and have successfully completed their reading requirement (with AL faculty
recommendation)
Eligible Students for the Reading ALP:
 Incoming students who received a score of 60-69 on the ACT and have successfully completed their writing requirement
 Current students who have completed BE121/225 and have successfully completed their writing requirement (with AL faculty
recommendation)
Anticipated Coordinators’ Duties: Fall 2014 (150 hours per coordinator)
o Co-Coordinating the Program / Curriculum and Pedagogy
 Organize and go live with ALP shared database for faculty teaching in the scale up
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Queensborough Community College
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Year-end Report – Teaching Department
Year: 2013- 2014
Share teaching materials developed in spring 2014 for faculty use as needed
Invite ALP faculty to also share successful assignments and classroom activities
Create a message board or blogging function for faculty to reflect on the progress of their courses two or three times over the
semester
 Collect and keep copies of syllabi from all ALP faculty
 Create and distribute common first day of the semester writing diagnostic for ALP EN101 courses and collect copies of
these diagnostic essays from ALP faculty
 Address week-one enrollment concerns as they arise and act as intermediary between new ALP faculty and advisement
should students need to be withdrawn/enrolled/shifted
Consult regularly (formally and informally) with ALP faculty to address any concerns that arise
Invite ALP faculty to observe ours and each other’s courses informally throughout the semester
Organize several norming sessions for grading among faculty (101 assignments as well as CATW practice exams)
Meet weekly to discuss concerns and plans for program
o
Communications
 Create and go live with ALP program website (separate from faculty database) to make available to the QCC community as
well as to share our ALP model with other community colleges across the country
 Continue to create and disseminate program information across the QCC campus
 Contact ALP organizers at the Community College of Baltimore County to create our program’s profile on their website
o
Assessment, Research, and Grants
 Implement assessment and research according to approved IRB protocol
 Collect sample student essays at beginning, middle, and end of semester for assessment
 Distribute pre and post surveys to students
 Collect data of ALP population, BE112/205 population, and mainstream EN101 population for comparative analysis
 Begin brainstorming a session proposal for the annual ALP summer conference in 2015 with ALP faculty teaching in the fall
courses
o
Spring and Future Planning
 Meet with advisement after the second week to learn about enrollment numbers vs. eligible and interested students
 Meet with AL and EN chairs to discuss enrollment, spring scheduling, and future planning
 Reach out to AL faculty (not teaching in ALP) to project spring 2015 student numbers from continuing students
 Review comparable scale-up models at other CUNY schools
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Appendix
Table 1: Overview of ALP Student Results, Spring 2014, AM Class
CATW 4.10
CATW May
56
50
58
BE Final Grade
P
P
57
P
EN101 Grade
B
BB-
63
52
48
59
48
46
40
51
54
61
62
50
54
P
NC
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
NC
F
INC (*B-)
B
BCAB
C+
C+
AF
B
INC (*A-)
52
60
61
56
60
61
62
58
50
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
*Students will receive the letter grade in parentheses upon passing the CATW.
Table 2: Overview of ALP Student Results, Spring 2014, PM Class
CATW 4.10
CATW May
60
54
58
48
48
64
58
BE Final Grade
P
NC
55
W
P
NC
50
NC
53
W
P
P
EN101 Grade
B
INC (*D) ACT pending
W
INC (*D) ACT pending
INC (*B)
INC (*B+)
W
C
B
ESL
ESL
ESL
ESL
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48
52
36
56
NC
NC
R
P
52
54
48
INC (*A-)
INC (*B)
INC (*C-) ACT pending
C+
Year: 2013- 2014
ESL
*Students will receive the letter grade in parentheses upon passing the CATW (and the ACT, in the cases indicated).
Table 3: ALP CATW Pass Rates vs. Traditional BE Courses, Spring 2014
ALP
70%
67%
73%
CATW Pass
CATW Pass ESL
CATW Pas non-ESL
BE Courses
47%
38%
56%
Table 4: ALP CATW Pass Rates April and May 2014
April
May
ESL Students
25%
56%
Non-ESL Students
53%
43%
Total Students
41%
50%
Table 5: English 101 Grades for ALP Students, Spring 2014
Passing EN101 Grade
INC in EN101*
F in EN101 (pass 112)
F in EN101 (R for 112)
16 out of 27 60%
9 out of 27 33%
2 out of 27
7%
0 out of 27
0%
* Students will receive a passing grade in EN101 upon passing the CATW (and the ACT in some cases).
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