Faculty Spotlight
Center for Teaching and Learning
www.chabotcollege.edu/LearningConnection/ctl/news/spotlight.asp
Center for Teaching and Learning
May2012
Volume 4, Issue 1
Chabot Honored for Work in Basic Skills
Chabot College’s Basic Skills Initiative (BSI) was recently honored with a certificate of recognition
by State Senator Ellen Corbett (District 10); Chabot’s Accelerated English program, part of the BSI,
was also awarded a certificate of recognition by State Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi.
In addition, the Accelerated English Course was officially recognized as a “Practice with a Promise”
by the non-profit The Campaign for College Opportunity (collegecampaign.org).
Congratulations to all of our colleagues involved with these
initiatives! It is always a pleasure to see Chabot’s commitment to our students officially recognized and appreciated.
In This Issue:
2
3
Tuning the Voice
Dr. John Parente
Online Retention FIG
5
Faculty Interview: Anita
Wah talks stats
6
Student Research Symposium
DWP Inquiry Project
7
Faculty & Staff
Honors
Title III Gives Students a New “Voice”
Center for Teaching and Learning
by Patricia Shannon and Danielle Maze
On April 26, the film Tuning the Voice was
screened on campus by its Chabot student
videographers and producers to an enthusiastic audience of students, staff, and faculty. The film, a co-production of Chabot College Title lll, Acceleration in Context, and
Mobilize.org, is described by its student
filmmakers as, “The unvarnished and inspiring truth of what it means to become a college student.” Students who attended the
screening were surprised by the film’s depiction of unvarnished reality, noting that they
appreciated that specific elements that
could be viewed as negative, such as issues of
parental involvement and the Occupy riots,
were not edited out.
Miguel, one of eight Chabot freshmen profiled
in the student-made film Tuning the Voice
Center for Teaching and Learning Coordinator and Chabot Biology instructor Jennifer Lange was the
source of inspiration for the project, having observed that in our myriad conversations about students and how they matriculate and attend college, we had never asked students to describe these
experiences from their perspectives. “As faculty and staff, we have ideas about how students navigate our campus, but no matter how much knowledge we have gained through interacting with students, we still don’t really know what it is like to be them. Trailing new students with cameras for
an entire semester shows us, through their eyes, the experience of being a first-time college student at Chabot.” Eight new freshmen students at Chabot College were randomly selected to be
filmed over the course of the semester. A documentary team of Chabot students, guided by Sean
McFarland (English), gained the trust of their eight peers, revealing stories as dramatic as that of
any Hollywood movie.
The film, in an early rough cut, was shown to faculty on our February Flex Day and was very well
received, giving rise to many passionate and continuing discussions on campus. Flex Day evaluations of the film included comments such as, “Best flex day activity in years—thank you!”
In addition to helping produce the film, Lange and the Staff Development Committee designed
a professional development activity for the Fall Flex Day intended to help faculty and staff understand the college experience from the perspective of current Chabot students. A panel of current
students answered both prepared and ad hoc questions about student experience: what they have
learned, what barriers they have had to overcome, and what successes they have achieved. This
event, in combination with the film, was intended to highlight differing student perspectives in
terms of educational and social backgrounds as well as points in their educational careers.
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The film’s producers also wish to thank Tom DeWit (English) for his assistance with many key aspects of the project as well as for his support of Acceleration in Context.
Faculty interested in viewing Tuning the Voice or sharing it with their students can access it online
at http://vimeo.com/36863113 (password: Chabot).
In Memoriam: Dr. John Parente, 1949 - 2012
by Danielle Maze
Among the many ways Parente served the Chabot
community was most recently as the leader of a Faculty Inquiry Group devoted to Assessing the Development of the Whole Person. Those who knew him well
say that this was an apt topic indeed for Parente. FIG
member Kathy Kelley (Early Childhood Development)
says of him, “In everything he did, John tried to build
community at Chabot, to bring us together. He truly
cared about his students, about everyone, and could
always see the whole person.” Parente’s fellow Humanities and Religious Studies instructor Patricia
Shannon comments, “Some instructors change stuJohn Parente reveling in the fullness of life
dents’ heads; John changed students’ hearts. I have
with some of his Chabot students
never known more students to say of an instructor
that ‘His class was the most important I have ever
taken’ or ‘His class changed my life.’ Many of his students became his life-long friends.”
Center for Teaching and Learning
It is with great sadness that the entire Chabot community recalls the recent death of our dear friend,
colleague, and teacher Dr. John Parente. Parente passed away from pancreatic cancer on March 27
aged 63. Holding degrees in Art, Theology and Spirituality, Parente was a nationally-recognized painter in addition to being a highly popular and respected Humanities and Religious Studies instructor.
Among the courses he taught at Chabot, where he was hired as an adjunct instructor in 2004, were
Religions of the World, The Artful Life, and Creativity and the Community. Prior to working at Chabot,
Parente held positions including resident scholar at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research
in Minnesota, Executive Director of The Christine Center in Wisconsin, Director of Campus Ministry at
Seton College in New York, and instructor at Iona and Seton Colleges.
In an email to a friend on March 15, Parente wrote, "In a long hospice meeting today, my team told
me that my pancreatic cancer is accelerating and that they believe I will die in the next few weeks. I
feel a deep abiding peace for I feel I have lived the life that I was meant to live!"
John, to borrow your famous phrase, your friends at Chabot wish you eternal “Peace and Fullness of
Life!” Thank you for all you taught us.
FIG update: Online Retention
by Danielle Maze
Hoffman notes that even the FIG’s meetings reflect online learning methods: “I have structured the
FIG meetings in ways that reflect our hybrid courses: Sometimes we meet synchronously in person or
- Online Retention- continued on next page
Page 3
Members of the Online Retention FIG have been working diligently to learn, implement, and share
with their students and colleagues the best and most innovative ways to improve Chabot’s growing
number of online course offerings, thereby increasing online retention as well. FIG leader Ellie Hoffman (English) wants to be clear, however, that “Despite common beliefs, not all online courses have
higher withdrawal rates than traditional classes, and in fact some have significantly higher retention
rates [than traditional classes]. The reasons are complex.”
- Online Retention, continued from previous page
via CCC Confer, sometimes asynchronously online.” She adds, “The first semester we were tasked
with defining our online/hybrid students. We relied heavily on data from Carolyn Arnold who was
an immense help.”
Center for Teaching and Learning
Discussing the purpose of the FIG, Rae Ann Iannello (Business and English) says, “The online environment demands innovative teaching methods. Instructors must make their online courses easy to
navigate—that is, well-structured and intuitive—and visually appealing. They must set the tone in
the beginning, providing a great deal of encouragement and support to all students, but especially
to those new to technology. They must develop easy-to-understand assignments, provide examples,
and encourage interaction. Some ways an instructor might do this are through peer reviews, discussion boards, and well-known technologies like Skype and YouTube.”
The FIG members have developed a comprehensive list of many other resources and tips for instructors, including existing blogs and websites as well as their own inventive sources, which they
plan to make available online in the near future. Other possible delivery methods being discussed
are teaching forums and video. One example of the FIG members’ efforts is some time-saving tips
for teaching online which they recommend:
“Centralize questions in order to discourage excessive numbers of emails.”
“Develop an FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions] page.”
“Include a General Discussion Board where students can ask questions anonymously.”
“Tell students to use the Discussion Board, not email, for general questions.”
“Don't re-create the wheel—there are many great, free educational videos and other resources
online you can use.”
FIG member and Committee On Online Learning (COOL) Chair Ramona Silver also offers some general advice for retaining students: “It helps to be an annoying, pesky teacher!” she laughs. More
specifically, she suggests the following:
“Send three emails in a day explaining assignments three different ways.”
“Send emails that offer the students encouragement. Tell them how super they are!”
“Send emails that remind them over and over again what is due and when. Many students have
told me this is what kept them on task.”
“Reply very quickly to any e-mails they send you.”
“Put the most important information in the title of any email. For example, I might write,
‘Tuesday March 27, 2012: First Post due tonight for Assignment #1 on Reflecting on 3 Main
ideas in the Book’ or ‘Please start taking notes for your research paper now—do not
wait!’”
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Besides this wealth of ideas, the FIG members have also explored topics such as how to make
online courses more visually interesting for students and general methods to facilitate the online
learning process. However, Iannello perhaps sums up the challenges of retention in online courses
best: “The bottom line is that retention takes a great deal of time and effort—there are no
shortcuts!”
FIG Members Fall 2011/Spring 2012:


Ellie Hoffman - English (FIG Leader)
Lisa Ulibarri—English Faculty & Instructional
Designer
 Minta Winsor—Blackboard Faculty Support
and Online Learning Specialist
 TJ Puckett—English





Catherine Pinkas—Business
Rae Ann Iannello—Business & English
Aldrian Estepa - Psychology
Jan Novak—Business
Ramona Silver - Humanities and English ,
Chair of COOL
The (Stats) Path Less Traveled: An interview with
Anita Wah on New Mathematics Initiatives by Danielle Maze
Professor Wah, can you please tell us how Statway and Quantway have impacted Chabot’s
mathematics “pathway” for non-Math
majors?
“I’ll start with Statway. Our course was
definitely inspired by Statway, but it differs in a respect which I have just recently become aware of. Both Statway and
Quantway seek to take the students who
are eligible for Elementary Algebra
through both the developmental topics
and a transfer-level math course in one
year. This one-year course replaces the
usual three-semester sequence of Elementary Algebra to Intermediate Algebra to a
transfer level course, so on the face of it
there's no difference between [Statway]
and what we are doing at Chabot.
Center for Teaching and Learning
Our colleague Anita Wah (Mathematics) was kind enough to talk with us recently about ongoing issues in Mathematics at Chabot, specifically regarding the new Basic Skills “Pathway,”
still under development, and its relation to the national initiatives Statway and Quantway,
which are sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. After attending a conference about the initiatives in April along with fellow Chabot Math instructors
Ming-Lun Ho and Cindy Stubblebine, Ms. Wah provided Faculty Spotlight with some insights
on how these initiatives have impacted teaching mathematics at Chabot as well as about how
our college’s math offerings differ from them in significant ways.
Math instructor Anita Wah (at right)
However, the crucial difference is that [the Statway program] advocates having this be a single course with the same teacher and students for a full year. Instead of separating the developmental topics into one course—as in our current Math 62—and following it with a semester-long transfer level course—that is, Math 43 [Statistics]—they have a single course which is
really a year-long statistics course; in other words, that course is Statway. The necessary developmental topics are integrated into the course in a just-in-time format.
The alternative to Statway is a liberal arts math course, or Quantway, again with the necessary developmental topics integrated in a just-in-time format.”
Since you say that the pathway course at Chabot was “definitely inspired by Statway,” can
you tell us what the reason or reasons are for not simply adopting that initiative here?
- Stats- continued on next page
Page 5
“We will probably not adopt this model for logistical reasons as well as philosophical
ones. Given that there are always more students who drop during fall semester, it’s probably
not feasible unless we were to have two sections of the fall course feeding into one section
of the spring course with the same teacher. Also, we feel rather strongly that we want to do
something more for our students than just ‘get them through stat.’”
- Stats continued from previous page
Center for Teaching and Learning
The idea persists at some colleges that students just need to “get through stat,” as you put it.
How would you address the apprehension some students, especially those not majoring in Math,
may feel about taking a statistics course?
“To be honest, there is very little math necessary in a first-semester stat course. You need some
arithmetic, a small amount of elementary algebra, and a fearless attitude toward the Greek alphabet. The ability to read, write, and interpret is far more important [than mathematical ability]. Six
years ago, Ming Ho and I created an Intermediate Algebra course, Math 54, as an alternative to
Math 55 for students who were planning to take only statistics. It emphasizes reading, writing, interpreting, and using technology. I prepared many of the materials for the course myself. Students
who took the course were splendidly prepared for statistics
and many said that they didn't know how they would have
made it through statistics without it. In other words, I think
the sometimes negative attitude toward statistics is based in
large part on misinformation or a misunderstanding of what is
really necessary to learn statistics.
[Statway and Quantway] take this idea a step farther and say
that students need only a semester course like this—that is, a
course like our Math 54, but without the Elementary Algebra
prereq—to get them to the point of being able to learn statistics. While I agree, I also advocate more breadth in this preparatory course so that students have enough quantitative
literacy to negotiate their daily lives; all of them will need to
deal at some point with mortgages, taxes, and so on, or are
doing so already. They also require this quantitative literacy
to succeed in their GE science courses. To my knowledge, the
Statway and Quantway initiatives have ignored the fact that
students need math for GE science, so topics that
we include, such as measurement and logarithms, would not
be covered in a Statway or Quantway course. I see our goal
as one of educating students, not ‘getting them
through.’ Ming and I have had many conversations about this,
and he could probably give you a more eloquent expression of
this idea!”
Math instructor Ming-Lun Ho
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Professor Wah, are there any other issues affecting the Mathematics Department’s decision not to
adopt the Statway and Quantway initiatives “as-is”?
“There is another important difference between what we are doing and Quantway and Statway. Like those programs, we have a Pre-Algebra prerequisite, or Elementary Algebra assessment
eligibility, to take Math 62. However, to my knowledge [Statway and Quantway] haven’t addressed the problem of the quality of preparation in Pre-Algebra. We have found that it varies
widely among our students. We are turning our attention to making sure that our students get a
very high-quality and demanding experience in Pre-Algebra so that they can succeed in whatever
form of the Quantway/Statway idea we do end up implementing.”
For more information on the Statway and Quantway initiatives, please visit http://
www.carnegiefoundation.org/statway and http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/quantway.
2012 American Government Student Research Symposium
by Sara Parker and Danielle Maze
By “scaffolding” the paper’s requirements and building library sessions into the course content,
all students will complete minimum ten-page research papers that demonstrate their ability to
design and respond to a research question, write a sophisticated paper, and utilize academic
sources. Some of the stimulating topics Parker’s students are researching this semester include
SuperPACS, the role of the Federal Reserve, an analysis of perceptions about the City of Oakland,
portrayals of the U.S. Military in popular film, and the role of advertising in political campaigns.
Additionally, students are given an option to showcase their work in a Student Research Symposium. At the Symposium, approximately eight students will present their research to a public audience. This year, the Symposium will take place on May 10th from 8:30 am—12:30 pm in room 455.
Light breakfast will be served from 8:30—9:00. The first panel session will take place from 9:00—
10:15 and the second from 10:30—11:45, followed by lunch and the announcement of awards between 11:45—12:30. The panel topics and student presenters will be announced during the first
week of May. For more information on this exciting event, please contact Sara Parker at sparker@chabotcollege.edu or Pedro Reynoso at preynoso@chabotcollege.edu.
Center for Teaching and Learning
For the second year, Chabot students in one section of an Introduction to American Government
course are benefitting from a Basic Skills Initiative that brings information literacy into the classroom in a fundamental way. This semester, Outreach Librarian Pedro Reynoso is “embedded” in
one of Dr. Sara Parker's courses. In this “research-focused” version of Parker’s course, students
develop their research skills, focus on a topic of their choice, and work closely with faculty to
produce a high-quality research paper.
FIG Update: Assessing the Development of the Whole Person
by Danielle Maze
The Assessing the Development of the Whole Person FIG was led from its inception by Dr. John
Parente until his recent death from pancreatic cancer. K Metcalfe (Counseling), who has assumed
leadership of the group, says, “John brought his whole self to this FIG, inspiring us with his impassioned desire to ensure that the students of Chabot College were truly actualized by the academic journey of their choosing.” The goals of the Whole Person FIG are twofold: Members learn
from meetings, discussions, dialogues, and SLO data to assess the development of the whole person; and they explore the effectiveness of the Chabot campus community in “Developing the
Whole Person” across disciplines. Metcalfe notes that the committee will present its final report
in early Fall 2012.






John Parente —Humanities and Religious
Studies (FIG Leader)
K Metcalfe—Counseling (FIG Leader)
Kathy Kelley—Early Childhood Development
TJ Puckett—English
Cristina Moon—Spanish
Ming-Lun Ho—Mathematics







ValJean Dale—Counseling
Patricia Posada - Counseling
Jason Ames—Communication Studies
Tim Dave—Astronomy and Physics
Eric Schultz—Music and Recording Tech.
Yvonne Wu-Craig—Grant Development
Dmitriy Kalyagin—Business
Page 7
FIG Members Fall 2011/Spring 2012:
Chabot College Faculty and Staff Honors, Awards, and Presentations
Center for Teaching and Learning
Laura Alarcón (Counseling), José Alegre (Math), Indrani Chaudhuri (Math), Linda Cline
(Business), Stephanie Cutley (Counseling), Christina Davis (Communications), Matt Davis (Math),
Tom DeWit (English), Chad Mark Glen (Mass Communications), Debbie Green (Counseling), Margo Hall-Calendar (Humanities), William Hanson (Humanities), Dov Hassan (Humanities), Hisako
Hintz (ESL), Carmen Johnston (English), Dmitriy Kalyagin (Business), Marcia Kolb (Math), Naoma
Mize (Counseling), Rebecca Plaza (Counseling), James Ruggiero (Math and Science), Ramona Silver (Humanities), Cynthia Stubblebine (Math), Barbara Transue (Humanities), Felicia Tripp
(Counseling), Zac Walsh (English), christine warda (Communications), and Charlene Wieser
(Math) were faculty members honored by EOPS/CARE and CalWORKs at a Blue Ribbon Faculty and
Staff Appreciation Luncheon in March. All honorees were nominated by students as being staff or
faculty who go “Above and Beyond” to ensure student success.
Change It Now! Faculty: Carmen Johnston (English), Pedro Reynoso (Library), and Felicia Tripp
(Counseling), have been participating in workshops with the MorningStar Center for Transformation to develop stronger communication skills and creative expression.
In her role as Director of the California Acceleration Project (CAP), Katie Hern (English) has given
workshops and presentations on accelerated English and Math to faculty and administrators from
more than 90 California community colleges. Along with Ms. Myra Snell from Los Medanos College,
she also provides in-depth training and coaching to the 31 colleges participating in CAP’s Community of Practice in Acceleration. In 2011-12, Hern was keynote speaker at the conference of the
English Council of California Two-Year Colleges and plenary speaker at a meeting of the National
Association of Latino Elected Officials. She led statewide workshops for community college faculty in Arkansas, Hawaii, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Virginia; and she gave presentations at more
than 13 national conferences. Hern’s article “Acceleration across California” comes out in the
May/June issue of the national magazine Change.
Audio files of poems by Tiffany Higgins (English) are forthcoming on From the Fishouse, an online
archive of work by emerging poets.
christine warda (Communication Studies): "Ask your doctor if _______ is right for you!”—
Presentation as part of panel on “In Treatment: Performing Rituals of Normalcy and Social Control” at Western States Communication Association.
Darvin Wilson (English and PACE) wrote a 75-page book for tech giant PayPal™, PayPal Documentation Style Guide, Version 1.0.
Page 8
Jane Wolford (History): “Multiple Approaches to Contextualizing Basic Skills Instruction in U.S.
History”—Presentation at West Los Angeles College Leadership Retreat; “Our Students Can Read:
Strengthening Students’ Literacy and Learning through 3CSN’s Reading Apprenticeship Community of Practice”—Presentation at LINKS V.
Please see the Center for Teaching and Learning website for more information.
www.chabotcollege.edu/learningconnection/ctl/
Support for the Center for Teaching and Learning is provided by a Federal Title III grant.