The Accelerated Instructional Program Review
Narrative Report
1. College: College of Alameda
Discipline, Department or Program: Geography
Date: 3/24/10
Members of the Accelerated Instructional Program Review Team: Peter Schweikhardt
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2. Narrative Description of the Discipline, Department or Program:
Humans have long pondered their place in the natural world, recognizing both the challenges and
opportunities afforded them by the environment and, more recently, the effects of human
activities in modifying that environment. This interplay of natural systems and human societies
is the subject of the field of geography. Physical geography focuses primarily on the operation
of Earth’s systems upon which humans depend; cultural geography examines how humans live
on the Earth: how we modify the landscape, organize space, move about, use resources, and
create the economies that sustain us.
The College of Alameda Geography program is an integrated study of the many aspects of this
human/physical environment. Opportunities exist to achieve an AA degree and to obtain transfer
credit applicable in baccalaureate institutions.
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3. Curriculum:

Is the curriculum current and effective? Have course outlines been updated within the last
three years? If not, what plans are in place to remedy this? Course outlines were last
completed in 2006 and are therefore in need of update this term. This is currently in
progress.

Has your department conducted a curriculum review of course outlines? If not, what are the
plans to remedy this? A curriculum review of course outlines is incorporated into the present
initiative to update these documents.

What are the department’s plans for curriculum improvement (i.e., courses to be developed,
updated, enhanced, or deactivated)? Have prerequisites, co-requisites, and advisories been
validated? Is the date of validation on the course outline? Existing courses are constantly
being updated and enhanced within the basic framework of the course outlines. A plan to
institute a course in Environmental Change is currently on hold due to the current funding
issues.

What steps has the department taken to incorporate student learning outcomes in the
curriculum? Are outcomes set for each course? If not, which courses do not have outcomes?
Geography courses all incorporate student learning outcomes.

Describe the efforts to develop outcomes at the program level. In which ways do these
outcomes align with the institutional outcomes? No formal document exists for program
outcomes; as only two lecture courses are offered, program outcomes broadly match those of
these two courses. Course SLOs were devised with institutional outcomes in mind and align
closely with them, particularly those related to Foundation Skills, Intercultural Literacy and
Interaction and Critical Thinking and Problem Solving.

Recommendations and priorities.
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4. Instruction:

Describe effective and innovative strategies used by faculty to involve students in the
learning process. How has new technology been used by the department to improve student
learning? Within the constraints of available facilities, extensive use of technology has been
made. Classroom presentations incorporate online resources such as audio and video clips;
annotated images and maps relevant to topics discussed are projected and incorporated into
classroom instruction. These attempts to offer multiple media presentations would be
enhanced by the introduction of more integrated, capable display systems such as Smart
Classroom.

How does the department maintain the integrity and consistency of academic standards
within the discipline? The small size of the department facilitates these goals. Most classes
are taught by one instructor, insuring consistency. This instructor is normally the evaluator
of others teaching in the program, affording the opportunity to maintain the integrity of the
program and consistency of academic standards.

Discuss the enrollment trends of your department. What is the student demand for specific
courses? How do you know? What do you think are the salient trends affecting enrollments?
Total enrollment has been increasing gradually over the period from 2005-2009. As might
be expected, average enrollments per section have been negatively correlated to the number
of sections. For instance, in our primary course, Geography 1, the number of sections has
varied from 5 to 7 over the analysis period. The single semester when 7 sections were
offered produced the lowest average class size but the highest overall course enrollments
(until the anomalous Fall 2009 semester). This effect is particularly clear in the laboratory
sections since class size limits are more restrictive, given the nature of the classes. My
concern is that, in trying to increase productivity (by limiting the number of sections) we may
be losing some students whose schedules conflict with the offerings we have retained.

Are courses scheduled in a manner that meets student needs and demand? How do you
know? Scheduling is constantly subject to review based on enrollments. Recently, a class
previously meeting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday was changed to a Monday, Wednesday
format. Its timing has been modified in hopes of optimizing student access.

Recommendations and priorities. Facilities need to be updated to offer the technology
needed for fully integrated presentations. The Smart Classroom initiative would be a good
example of an environment better suited for this that the present instructional environment.
In addition, I think the scheduling of Geography lab has become a bit too difficult for
students due to the small number of sections and that an additional section should be added to
enhance student access.
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5. Student Success:

Describe student retention and program completion (degrees, certificates, persistence
rates) trends in the department. What initiatives can the department take to improve
retention and completion rates? Retention and persistence rates are slightly higher than those
of the institution overall. I believe that retention is largely a function of student understanding
of the commitment that the study requires. Many students enroll in Geography 1 with little or
no understanding of what the subject is, other than knowledge of the fact that it satisfies a
requirement (science) for graduation. Consequently, many drop the class when it becomes
clear what is actually required. Most of these disappear early in the term, but fail to actually
drop until much later. Had they dropped promptly at the time they ceased to participate, they
would not have been viewed as drops for enrollment purposes and would have been included
in retention data. Instructors constantly strive to describe course expectations clearly, but
some students do not hear them or do not realistically understand their own level of
commitment.

What are the key needs of students that affect their learning? What services are needed for
these students to improve their learning? Describe the department’s efforts to access these
services. What are your department’s instructional support needs? Success is primarily a
function of the student’s individual effort and commitment, but some institutional support
can also be important. In this context, I would mention two issues that might help. (1)
Expand laboratory availability mentioned above. The lab is not only an enhancement to the
lecture course, but also a source of additional work that helps to make the lecture material
clearer. (2) Tutoring. It would be very helpful to some students if tutoring were available for
Geography 1.

Describe the department’s effort to assess student learning at the course level. Describe the
efforts to assess student learning at the program level. In which ways has the department
used student learning assessment results for improvement? The assessment of SLOs has
begun in geography this academic year. Both physical and cultural geography classes are
assessing through the final examination. Since this is the first implementation of this
assessment, no changes have yet been made in the department in response to it.

Recommendations and priorities. Institute tutoring for Geography 1.
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6. Human and Physical Resources (including equipment and facilities)

Describe your current level of staff, including full-time and part-time faculty, classified
staff, and other categories of employment. The geography program currently has one fulltime and 2 part-time faculty.

Describe your current utilization of facilities and equipment. In-person lecture sections meet
in room D222. One lab section meets in L-202E and the other in D114. Occasional face to
face meetings of online sections are arranged in an ad hoc fashion based on space
availability. The lecture room has no installed equipment except a TV monitor/VCR. The
projection screen is defaced and the retraction mechanism fails on occasion. Lab rooms have
projectors capable of displaying computer images. D114 has an overhead projector; L-202E
has a DVD/VCR attached to the projector.

Are the human and physical resources, including equipment and location, adequate for all
the courses offered by your department (or program)? What are your key staffing and
facilities needs for the next three years? Why? Staffing is sufficient for the current minimal
course offerings but will need to be expanded if more classes are to be offered. At present,
we have a supply of quality part time instructors qualified for inclusion in the preferential
hiring pool for future needs provided these individuals remain available in the future. I am
concerned about this since we have been unable to offer work for these instructors recently,
thus risking their not remaining involved at COA in the future. As has been noted above,
superior teaching would be facilitated by better equipment to display computer images and
videos. A new projection screen of suitable size would also be helpful. A fully integrated
technology environment such as Smart Classroom would be preferable.
The lab location needs to be re-thought. In the past, all lab sections were taught in L-202E.
This allowed materials such as globes and atlases to be stored there for use in the lab. This
has proven problematic for two reasons: (1) The library has adopted early closing hours,
making the teaching of evening labs in L-202E impossible; and (2) as fewer lab sections have
been offered, remaining sections have become larger. This development, while favorable for
productivity measures, presses up to a size constraint that seldom caused problems in the past.
Labs are capped at 25 students but only 22 student workstations exist in L-202E.
Furthermore, invariably about 2-3 of these workstations are inoperable at any given time,
leaving about 20 computers for 25 students (if the section is full). Although space for the
“overflow” sometimes exists in the adjacent computer lab, this is inconvenient for staff of the
adjacent lab and precludes optimal oversight of the lab by the lab instructor. In addition,
offering labs in two different locations makes installation of materials such as maps
impossible and requires moving necessary materials between the two sites. Finally, many
computer problems crop up with regularity that make teaching labs very difficult. As noted,
several workstations are normally inoperable. In other cases, software needed specifically for
lab work is not installed properly. Requests to fix these and other problems are often not
responded to in a timely manner.

Recommendations and priorities. In order to respond to the problems noted above, I
propose:
1. All labs be scheduled in the same location, at least for a given semester.
2. Labs be capped at a maximum of 25 (as is true now) or the actual workstation capacity of
the assigned room, whichever is smaller.
3. Lab instructors be granted sufficient computer administration privileges to maintain the
software environments of the computers in the designated lab.
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7. Community Outreach and Articulation
For vocational programs:

Describe the department’s connection with industry. Is there an Advisory Board or Advisory
Committee for the program? If so, how often does it meet? Is the program adequately
preparing students for careers in the field? How do you know?

Have students completing the program attained a foundation of technical and career skills?
How do you know? What are the completion rates in your program?

What are the employment placement rates? Include a description of job titles and salaries.
What is the relationship between completion rates and employment rates?

What industry trends are most critical for the future viability of the program? How do you
know? What are the implications of these trends for curriculum development and
improvement?
For transfer programs:

Describe the department’s efforts in meeting with and collaborating with local 4-year
institutions. Is the program adequately preparing students for upper division course work?
How do you know? Although no formal collaboration exists with local institutions, we are
extremely familiar with courses and expectations at the baccalaureate level. The department
chair has completed recent coursework there himself and still maintains close ties through
ongoing research and frequent contact with both faculty and undergraduates involved in this
research. On this basis, we judge that program is adequately preparing students for upper
division course work.
For all instructional programs:

Describe the department’s effort to ensure that the curriculum responds to the needs of the
constituencies that it serves. Instructors discuss student priorities and motives for taking
courses and also discuss prospective courses students might find desirable. This is how a
proposed course in global change was identified as a possible addition curriculum and how a
proposal that face to face cultural geography be offered came to be made. Unfortunately,
funding shortfalls have, until this point, precluded adoption of these ideas.

Recommendations and priorities. When resources permit, we should finish investigation of
instituting global change.