President’s Task Force on Learning Communities
Meeting Notes
November 22, 2013
In attendance: Jeanne Wilson; Marcia Corcoran; Tram Vo-Kumamoto; Donna Gibson; Jan Novak; Pedro
Reynoso; William Hanson; Eric Schultz; Dale Wagoner; Patricia Wu; Agnello Braganza; Jeff Drouin,
Yvonne Wu Craig; Christine Warda; Susan Sperling; Wayne Phillips; Kathy Kelley; Cindy Stubblebine;
Doris Hanhan; Jennifer Lange; Ana de Aguila, Deonne Kunkel; Rachael Tupper-Eoff; Becky Plaza; Mireille
Giovanolla; Veronica Martinez; Marie De Leon, Scott Hildreth; Gordon Watt, Nancy Soto; Matt Kritscher;
Carolyn Arnold; Bob Buell, Clara McClean; Michael Thompson
1. Welcome and Objectives – President Susan Sperling
Dr. Sperling expressed her appreciation for the large number of people attending and participating.
Thanked the work of Deonne and Jeanne for focusing the conversation and bringing together the silos.
Dr. Sperling does not know what is best to support our students – she has her own experiences and data
but knows that we need to draw upon the collective wisdom and discourse of the college and this
group’s work. Her own experience with teaching in ISLS was so valuable and one of her best experiences
in teaching.
Introductions were done.
Jeanne stated that today we are not going to resolve any issues but instead the goal today is to build
relationships between people who are working on similar things. Each person will conduct a 5-minute
presentation on his/her program/strategy.
Deonne went over the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) model and asked participants to write down 1) personal
asset you bring to the college and 2) one asset your program brings to the college.
AI is a model that builds on the assets of people and builds on a positive core. It is both a theory and a
practice. What we would like to do is foster relationships and what collaborations we can build across
campus. Not to have one group in a room plan and then roll it out for everyone else.
Jan asked about the “Entry, Engagement, and Achievement” graphic on the wall. Jeanne responded as
we think about our programs and our students and step on our campus that might be considered Entry.
As you listen to other programs on campus, you might categorize that program under one of those
categories.
Participants paired up and shared what they had written.
2. Who We Are…Presentations of Work that Has Been Done or is Under Development
Student Success & Support Program (SSSP) – Becky Plaza
It is a state mandate from the Chancellor’s Office that requires students to do Orientation, Assessment,
abbreviated SEPs, academic counseling, academic probation follow-up, if applicable, and other follow up
services. Much of our funding will come from this in the future. This is the year that we have to clean up
the data because these numbers and how many students complete this updated matriculation process
will to determine how we get funding next year. They don’t want us to create boutique programs and
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expect collaboration. There is a funding formula. Students don’t have to be enrolled in classes to count
as being served, just matriculated. They have to do all the steps or they will drop to the bottom in
priority number. There is no grandfathering in and students with 100 units+ drop to the bottom. It is
important that the word get the word out to students.
There are new deadlines for priority registration, cleaning up MIS data, mandating matriculation, we are
emailing students their W#s and coordinating more with LPC so that we create consistent systems
district-wide. There is a website that you can go to for more information.
http://www.3cmediasolutions.org/services/SSSP13/live
Design It, Build It, Ship It (DBS), a program funded by a Dept. of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Act
Community College Career Training Grant (TAACCCT) – Nancy Soto
Due to the work we did with Project Renew and the work we did with dislocated workers from NUMMI,
we were well-positioned to apply for this regional grant. There are a lot of partners including Contra
Costa CCD and the Career Ladders Project. We were awarded $1.2 million over three years to focus on
the Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering, and Advanced Transportation and Logistics. We are working
with specific programs in these industries at the college. There are 10 different colleges involved
regionally. Chabot is well positioned in the sense that we have a lot of certificate programs compared to
other colleges. One of the objectives is to align the courses better so that students can go to these
programs at other colleges and get credit.
We are also working with Career Ladders on High-Impact Programs where we are mapping credentials
and looking at creating stackable credentials. Donna Gibson and Wayne Phillips have been participating
in doing this mapping for some of their programs. We can leverage this work to see what other career
pathways we can map at the college, for example William Hanson’s Law Pathway. Nancy then showed
several examples of career mapping that were done by other colleges and by faculty at Chabot.
Learning Connection (LC) – Deonne Kunkel
The LC Supports faculty and courses in all over the college. They recently added support for allied health
areas. The LC also means that faculty teach tutors how to tutor in a specific subject. At first we had a
limited model that was one size fits all but really the needs are different between the disciplines. Faculty
needed control over their program and a centralized place to serve students. This year we piloted
support for MESA and EOPS students. We also went over what they cover in tutor training 1a –content,
affect, student skills. Students started volunteering and I saw a large potential for leadership from the
student tutors.
Passion and Purpose Course – Jan Novak
This came out of the strategic plan goal. It is a 1 unit class with a 1 unit lab that helps students find their
passion and purpose. There is a service learning aspect to the class and it was approved by the
Curriculum Committee last week. Three (3) sections are scheduled for spring 2014. Working with a
Faculty Inquiry Group (FIG), 11 students and 8 faculty worked on developing the course. It is being cotaught by two faculty – Jennifer Lange and Tom Dewit. A similar class will be taught at UC Berkeley in a
few weeks by former Chabot students now at UCB. The Chabot and UCB courses, plan to collaborate and
we will evaluate the class. We hope that students persist in the class and at school and that it helps
students feel connected to the community and that they have a place here at Chabot.
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Themed GE Pathway – Christine Warda
What is a thematic GE pathway? A lot of our students are transfer students and they will change their
major at least 3 times. How do you make sure they are getting through a pathway? In this model, the GE
courses fit along a theme. Cal State Northridge and Chico State, for example, have themed course
pathways like social justice, global studies, health and wellness, arts media and society, etc. They have
created a coherent pathway that students can follow even if they don’t know their major yet but still
have a theme that they are interested in. The faculty have worked to map out the GE pattern so that
they are connected to a theme. In the Chabot Change It Now! (CIN) learning community, we’ve been
trying to figure out if this is going to be a closed cohort or open but we have been finding it is difficult to
add on faculty even with stipends if we want to expand this. We have some of the infrastructure but are
having a hard time to expand. This is a strategy that we have used and maybe we can look at it and see if
it could work to organize our work at Chabot. It can also help with scheduling so they’re not taking the
classes at the same time.
Deonne commented that some colleges color coordinate their schedules according to these themed
pathways so students can see what they need to take.
Interest-Area Pathways or “House” – Donna Gibson
We had a retreat to discuss how we could build a STEM house and identified some issues we want to
address. We presented it to the faculty in the area. It was eye-opening when we presented it to the
faculty. We identified intake as an issue and identified some program elements that would address
those issues.
When I have spoken with faculty, many say that they like all the pieces but why would you need a
house? To reach a large number of students. How do serve all of them? Some say that we can do that on
our own. We need to have a larger organized infrastructure for 1800 students. In the Sciences, we have
very sequenced course so because of scheduling if they fail a class they might have to wait a year to take
it again. You also need a community to keep students engaged and have some initial exploration before
they choose a house. Cañada College has a STEM Center program and when STEM students come in,
they are already enrolled in it. It’s seamless to the students and the college has many different funding
sources feeding it. https://www.canadacollege.edu/stemcenter/
Programs and Interventions that Work (Summary of Work 1999-2013) - Carolyn Arnold
Carolyn reviewed a handout of a summary of programs that IR has studied over the past 10+ years –
academic and student service programs. These programs have demonstrated higher student outcomes
than students not participating in these programs. This is what works we have found works. The other
sheet is how many students this is affecting. Many of the programs are small. Puente and Daraja
students who take 102 succeed at a much higher rate than those in 1A.
Marie De Leon – Hayward Promise Neighborhood
This is a $25 million grant with CSUEB as our lead agency and several other funded partners come
together to improve academic outcomes in a specific neighborhood. Chabot’s focus, as mandated in the
grant, is to have students complete a degree/certificate within three years and to enter Chabot without
the need for remediation. A lot of the Chabot strategies in middle and high school, called “College
Bound” borrows from the Educational Talent Search (ETS) and AVID models. We are also looking at
curriculum alignment with the school district and the math and English departments are working on the
CSU Early Assessment Program and whether or not we want to accept those scores. English is reviewing
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it. Math has accepted it. We have also been having conversations about Expanding Early Decision the
early decision program and working with Katrin Field and the counseling division to do that in the high
schools. We want to have a First-Year Experience-type program and would like to do a summer bridge
program that starts students off in a “homeroom” course. We are piloting a PSCN 20 course as
homeroom but it is still under development. All of this is happening simultaneously. We are also putting
together a 3-day winter retreat to showcase the college program and provide a robust orientation to the
HPN learning community.
Yvonne commented that how this differs from the current learning communities is that there is not any
eligibility requirements except that they live in the neighborhood or attended Hayward or Tennyson
high schools. This has allowed for a “random” group of students that we would serve any ways and that
this could provide an opportunity or testing ground to see how we would scale up some of these
initiatives for just the general student population that comes to Chabot every semester.
Reading Apprenticeship – Patricia Wu
Reading Apprenticeship training helps faculty engage students in conversations about the thinking
processes students and teachers engage in as they read. It have tried this in my physiology class and
although it is difficult to do a qualitative assessment, I looked at the midterms and when I used it ,
students were hold their own throughout the semester when they their test scores would typically start
dropping after the midterm. Student results stabilized over the semester instead of going down.
Habits of Mind – Mireille Giavanola
We have a FIG working on the Habits of Mind. These are habits that are used by people who are skillful
and mindful. They have been boiled down to 16 habits of skills necessary to operate in society. We also
worked on a resource guide that was distributed across the campus. There were so many resources
across campus and we wanted to let faculty to know what resources are available. We have been finding
through our surveys and found that when faculty personally connect with students and reach out to
them individually that it helps them. Library and study space resources are sorely needed. Tutoring was
also very highly needed. Then there are other factors off campus that affect students.
River Flow Model – Becky Plaza
We presented this at Flex Day and it was well-received but needed some refinement. We have been
working on it and it incorporates what we need to do in SSSP as well. Based on feedback, we flipped
Orientation and Assessment and had now have Orientation listed first because it should be done before
assessment. We based the student groups by the student groups used in IR. The idea is that students
could flow through the model depending on their educational goal – similar to Nancy’s Career Ladders
work. We are piloting this model with Hayward Promise Neighborhood for Spring 2014.
Questions:
Agnello Braganza commented that we are really talking about limited resources – the whole house
applies to the whole campus. Some of us might be coming up with new classes but how will they mesh
with other classes. For example, the passion project class and Jennifer came up with a biology tutors
class. How do we do this with what we have?
Jeanne – we need to figure out the next steps and some people are duplicating other services but some
things are very similar. Where do projects overlap?
Complete the next steps survey. What are the options for next steps?
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Hear more projects? Put together a presentation that presents potential models – eg. FYE – pathways
and what are people across the state doing in these areas? Focus on the questions to consider listed on
the agenda? Mini meetings focused on one “constellation”? Organize work groups/sub-groups?
Another person made a comment that according to Carolyn’s research, completion is difficult - there are
not a lot of programs or strategies that we have that affect it.
Another comment - It would be good to see that in one way (flow chart, etc) all of the things going
across campus – I am completely overwhelmed by what everyone is doing but don’t know how what I’m
doing is linked to everyone else.
Another comment was to use flex days. Kathy Kelley commented that also have ongoing discussions
about what we are doing is useful. Use college hours to describe what we are doing and have regular
and predictable times for staff development activities.
Nancy commented that we should also look at contextualized learning and how to institute and support
that.
Bob Buell asked how do we organize it? There are technology limits as well. We don’t have a way for
searching for something on the college website to find out what is going on. How do we create an
interface for others to connect to it or only the people in this room know what is going on?
Agnello – how do we leverage this – whatever we’re doing. – we’re really going out to the community
and disseminating it to the community – what is available here.
Jeanne - We in this room have to get the word out there – we can’t rely on others to do it for us.
Deonne proposed that a possible next step is that we can create a map based upon the programs that
people listed here – the “Entry, Engagement, and Achievement” graphic on the wall - but we don’t want
to presume where it fits on the map. Could Jeanne and I take a stab at putting together a map? There
was consensus that Deonne and Jeanne would do that.
Next Meeting: Friday, December 13, 2013
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