Developmental Studies Advisory Committee
Annual Report
2014-2015
Diane M. Bosco, Chair
Developmental Studies affect a large percentage of SCCC students. With the SUNY initiative to
reduce these numbers and the work of the SUNY Taskforce on Remediation, developmental
studies continues to be an area of concern at the local, state and national level. The goal of the
Developmental Studies Advisory Committee is to be actively involved in coordinating and
assessing policies and procedures that impact these students.
The Developmental Studies Advisory Committee (DSAC) is composed of representatives from
each campus for reading, mathematics and English as well as representatives from ESL,
Advising and Testing, Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Governance. There were several
changes in committee membership. Governance assigned a representative from each campus.
When Dr. Jeffrey Pedersen, the ex-officio member, assumed the position of Vice President for
Planning and Institutional Effectiveness, Dr. Iaroslava Babenchuk was temporarily assigned as
the ex-officio member. As the college realigned responsibilities for 2014-2015 and conducted
searches to fill several key administrative positions, DSAC reported ultimately to Dr. Maria De
Longoria. Joining SCCC as the College Dean of Instruction in 2015, Dr. Paul Beaudin replaced
Dr. Babenchuk, bringing his unique perspective to the committee as a literacy educator and as a
former principal in Harlem and upstate New York and superintendent in the Bronx. Kathleen
Cash-McConnell, ESL representative, retired. Bernadette Garcia joined DSAC as the ESL
representative. Governance representation remained the same: Tat Sang So, Grant, Michelle
Fowler, Ammerman and Erikka Mendez, East. Plans to add a member from Disability services
and an East campus Student Support representative are in place for the 2015-2016 year.
Three full in-person committee meetings and one full committee electronic meeting were held
for the 14-15 academic year, in addition to multiple subcommittee meetings for assessment and
special projects. Minutes were taken by committee member Erikka Mendez and posted to the
Governance web site. Discussions of assessment guidelines, retesting policies, placement and
national trends such as Complete College America, performance based funding and ALS
(Accelerated Learning) were among the topics covered.
Tri-campus subcommittees for area specific issues and assessment are well established. These
committees led by Erikka Mendez for developmental mathematics, Meredith Leo for
developmental English and Dawn Tracy-Hanley and Diane Bosco for developmental reading,
meet regularly and give periodic reports to DSAC. Several members of DSAC are also members
of the college-wide Student Engagement Committee, adding a developmental student perspective
to the discussions.
DSAC expanded its annual workshop Improving Teaching and Learning in Developmental
Education to include three breakout sessions and thirteen workshops. This year the success of
this project was facilitated by the Office of Professional Development. Their help with
budgeting, supplies and advertisement was invaluable. Attendees continue to provide very
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positive feedback. Certificates of attendance were issued to aid instructors in verifying
participation.
DSAC reports the following committee activity for 2014-2015:
Assessment
 In the fall of 2014, a course based assessment subcommittee of the AAC was responsible
for reviewing assessments in non-programmatic and developmental courses.
 Dr. Lauren Tacke-Cushing, College Dean of Instruction for assessment, addressed DSAC
in April 2015. She reviewed the protocol for assessment cycles and the need to document
assessment activities, particularly in light of the Middle States report. Assessment should
be an ongoing activity which should be purposeful.
 Dr. Tacke-Cushing shared the kinds of questions that are relevant to assessment
activities.
Do the assessment tools help?
Are the members of your department better in the classroom through assessment
activities?
Are the students getting more because we are reflective practitioners?
 An assessment cycle for formative assessment should be in place through each
department. Developmental courses are not part of a program. Course assessments should
be used.
 Dr. Tacke-Cushing is available for information and support.
 Assessment Tuesdays were held to share information with faculty about individual
projects.
.
Placement
 There is a retesting policy for students whose placement is inconsistent with high school
scores. This policy needs to be consistently applied across all three campuses.
SCCC is using multiple measures to place students to avoid misplacement.
 The pilot program to use of a score of 85 on the state Regents exam in Global Studies to
waive students from the reading portion of the CPT has become part of the placement
guidelines.
 Mathematics worked with Advising and Testing to further refine placement guidelines.
 English continued to work on a program to reassess developmental writing students on
the Grant campus. The Grant English Department offered students who scored between
70-79 on the CPT the option to complete a writing assignment. Over 50% of the students
who took the essay option placed out of developmental English into ENG 101. Faculty
are tracking students to get a better sense of the cut off scores.
Governance
 Governance placed representatives from each campus on DSAC. These representatives
report to their respective groups.
 Governance maintains the web site for DSAC for membership, agendas, meeting dates
and minutes.
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Area Specific Reports
Mathematics
 Eastern campus Mathematics faculty reviewed departmentalizing the final exams for
MAT001.
 Tri-campus Math faculty are deliberating the merits of an algebra course as part of an
associate’s degree program.
 Quantway and Statway were reviewed as alternate approaches to developmental
mathematics. Quantway was chosen as a pilot for Fall 2015. Four sections of MAT095Mathematical Literacy will be offered.
 Mathematical Literacy is a “Quantway” course. SCCC is offering this course in
partnership with the Carnegie Foundation. This course is an application driven course
that will serve as alternative to MAT007 here at SCCC for NON-STEM students. The
course will involve daily in-class collaborative learning through discussion of problem
situations explicitly connected to real world issues such as health, finance, and
citizenship.
 To be eligible for this pilot course students must meet the following criteria:
Need but have never taken MAT007 or MAT007L
Have completed or never needed Developmental Reading or English.
Are not perusing a program of study that will require MAT111 or higher (majors
excluded: any science, math, engineering, business, accounting, automotive)
 Successful completion of MAT095 will allow students to take MAT101, 102, or 103.
English
 Work on the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) has been in progress for the past year
and a half. Students who place in a certain range of the CPT and who place out of
Reading are offered the opportunity to take the ALP version of English. The students sign
up for both ENG 010 and ENG 101. These classes are taken simultaneously, back to back
with the same instructor. The student goes first to 101 then directly to 010. Three courses
ran in Spring of 2015. Initial feedback is quite positive. Evaluation of the course is
continuing.
 The ALP English program will continue on the Ammerman campus and will be extended
to the Eastern campus in the Fall of 2015.
 The primary goal is for students to move effectively and quickly to credited courses.
Students complete two courses in one semester. ALP students have been found to be less
likely to repeat courses.
 ENG 009 Assessment - Fall 2014: In the fall of 2014, the Grant English Dept. conducted
the first college-wide assessment of ENG 009 - Basic English Skills. Aiming to bring all
three campus English departments into compliance with SCCC’s Comprehensive
Assessment Plan for Institutional Effectiveness (CAPIE), the assessment asked ENG 009
faculty across the three campuses to score their students ability to revise a text via an
assessment rubric. To bolster the reliability of the assessment, instructors were urged to
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attend norming sessions where they read, assessed, and scored benchmark papers using
the aforementioned assessment rubric. Three norming sessions were held (and one online
session for instructors unable to attend either one of the face-to-face sessions). All ENG
009 instructors (across all three SCCC campuses) participated in the norming sessions.
Overall, the assessment found the following: the majority (61.6%) of the 65 students
assessed scored in the Meeting (35.4%) or Exceeding (26.2%) categories, while a
minority (38.5%) of ENG 009 students scored in the Approaching (20.0%), Not Meeting
(3.1%), or the Student Did Not Submit Revision (15.4%) categories. Since this was the
first college-wide assessment of ENG 009, these assessment findings will work as a
baseline for future ENG 009 assessments.
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ENG 010 Assessment - Spring 2015: In the spring of 2015, the Grant Campus English
Dept. conducted a single outcome Grant Campus assessment of ENG 010 Developmental Writing. Aiming to pilot an ongoing assessment model for our
developmental writing courses and to build a culture of assessment among adjunct and
full-time developmental writing faculty, the assessment asked all Grant Campus ENG
010 faculty to score their students ability to revise a text via an assessment rubric. To
bolster the reliability of the assessment, instructors were urged to attend norming sessions
where they read, assessed, and scored benchmark papers using the aforementioned
assessment rubric. Among the 12 instructors teaching ENG 010 on the Grant Campus, 8
of the 12 instructors participated in the norming sessions. Overall, the assessment found
the following: just over half (50.7%) of the 231 ENG 010 students assessed scored in the
Meeting (36.8%) or Exceeding (13.9%) categories, while a just under half (49.4%) of
ENG 010 students scored in the Approaching (11.3%), Not Meeting (5.2%), or the
Student Did Not Submit Revision (32.9%) categories.
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ENG 010 Assessment - Closing the Loop on the Spring 2014 Mid-Semester Assessment:
On the Grant Campus during the spring 2014 semester, adjunct and full-time ENG 010
(as well as ENG 101) instructors read and assessed student narratives from spring ENG
010 sections. Adjunct and full-time ENG 010 and ENG 101 instructors were normed via
benchmark papers and a holistic rubric. After student papers were collected from spring
ENG 010 sections, a) each paper was read by one other teacher of ENG 010, and one
teacher of ENG 101, b) each reader filled out a holistic rubric, and c) both rubrics were
returned to the instructor, along with the student papers. During several
reading/assessment sessions, faculty not only read and scored student papers, but
discussed student writing, ENG 010 outcomes, and various pedagogical approaches to
reaching said outcomes. To close the loop on this spring 2014 ENG 010 Assessment
(which assessed the outcomes of development, organization, and expression), an online
survey was conducted in fall 2014 to generate instructor feedback on the assessment and
to build consensus on a plan of action in response to the assessment findings. More
generally, the survey asked instructors what impact the 010 assessment/norming sessions
had on what they were teaching, the way they were teaching, and how they were
assessing/grading students in ENG 010.
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Reading
 Ammerman Campus faculty piloted an accelerated set of reading courses, giving students
the opportunity to complete both RDG 098 and RDG 099 in one semester. The six-credit
series runs in two seven and a half week sessions, four days a week. The success of this
pilot has led to the addition of two sets of accelerated reading courses for the Fall 2015
semester.
 In Fall 2014, Grant Campus ran the special topic course, RDG 095 Essential Reading
Skills. This intensive advanced reading offering is a five-credit course that combines
RDG 098 and RDG 099. Since it has run as a special topics course twice, it cannot be
offered again without governance formal approval as a new course. The proposal for this
course has been given to the College Curriculum committee. It should be examined for
approval in Fall 2015.
 The Ammerman Campus expanded the pairing of PSY 101 with RDG 099 to pairing
RDG 099 with PSY 101 D. While the D no longer appears on the course CRN, this
section of psychology is populated by only developmental reading and English students
and has an additional recitation hour. Having a matching cohort of students in the paired
courses provides an additional level of support for developmental students.
 The master schedule was revised to assign a reading lab hour to specific reading courses.
Both the RDG course and the lab hour appear under one CRN. All changes were
completed during the 2014-2015 academic year.
 RDG 099 was assessed for the student learning objective dealing with identifying implied
main ideas. Comparing results to a previous assessment, tri-campus faculty determined
that students could identify but not formulate an implied main idea. These results were
shared with faculty for additional classroom focus.
 RDG 098 was assessed for the student learning objective dealing with stated main idea.
This objective continues to be in need of further attention. Suggestions for improving
student success with this objective include adjusting the online reading lab program,
increasing student homework and practice and professional development and support for
instructors.
ESL
 ESL continues to examine placement issues.
 80% of the students who successfully pass ESL018 receive a C or better in ENG 101.
 However, ESL 018, ESL College Composition II is being studied to determine why only
about 50% are passing the course. Faculty are exploring placement, CPT score and the
curriculum of the course.
Faculty from the ESL for Academic Purposes Program presented at International TESOL,
Toronto in March.
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The Annual College-wide ESL Faculty meeting was held in May to discuss the
implications of the new Reading / Lab changes as well as other program initiatives
taking place.
The initiative tracking ESL 018 student success in ENG 101 classes is ongoing and
showing promising results: 80% of the students who successfully pass ESL018
receive a C or better in ENG 101. However, ESL 018, ESL College Composition II
is being studied to determine why only about 50% are passing the course. Faculty are
exploring placement, CPT scores and curriculum.
The Grant Campus Testing Center has continued an initiative where they are referring
students who have developmental placements and indicated ESL traits on their
writing samples to the ESL Coordinator for more accurate placement.
Faculty from the ESL for Academic Purposes Program were invited to present on
Factors in Determining Accurate ESL Placements through writing samples at the
Grant Campus English Department’s Placement Testing for ENG 010 and 101
Professional Development Workshop as well as at a meeting with local school
districts participating in the Smart Start Program.
Faculty from the ESL for Academic Purposes Program were invited to present on
Effectively Working with ESL Students in the Center for Academic Excellence
Professional Development Workshop.
Faculty from the ESL for Academic Purposes Program presented at the annual
Festival of Writing at the Ammerman Campus.
ESL Composition faculty met to review and participate in a scoring session to assess
the reliability of the current rubric being used for the exit examination of the 018
course.
A college-wide ESL professional development workshop was held in October. Keith
Folse, a noted professional in the field presented “Myths of Effectively Teaching
Vocabulary to ESL Students.”
Special Project: Third annual Improving Teaching and Learning in Developmental
Education
Saturday, March 7, 2014 workshop for professional development
To better meet the needs of all faculty, particularly adjunct instructors in developmental
education, DSAC initiated, planned and successfully implemented an extremely successful
Saturday workshop on the Ammerman campus. This workshop provided information about our
developmental courses, conversation across the disciplines and, most important, tangible
resources for use in the classroom.
The invitation to attend was extended to all college employees and some instructors who do not
teach developmental course attended to expand their knowledge of developmental students.
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Seventy-two faculty members attended and responded with extreme praise and requests for an
additional program in the future. The project was supported monetarily by the office of the Vice
President for Academic Affairs.
Formal assessment of the workshop was conducted by the Office of Planning and Institutional
Assessment indicating 84% were satisfied or very satisfied with the program, 97.5% stated that
the workshops provided at least two activities or strategies to use in the classroom and 100%
would attend another workshop. The report, completed by Dr. Caroline Burns, also evaluated
individual workshops and included participants’ suggestions for future events.
As this program was so successful, the Office of Academic Affairs will continue to fund the
workshop as an annual professional development event.
The program was as follows:
8:30-9:00 Registration, coffee and conversation
Eaton’s Neck
9:00-9:30 Diane Bosco: Introductions, welcome
Paul Beaudin Ph. D. College Dean of Instruction: Opening address
Honoree: Matthew Hernandez
Overview of sessions
Breakout Session 1: 9:45-10:30
Session A: Responding to Trauma Expressed in Student Writing - Eaton’s Neck
Session B: Student Accountability in Developmental Mathematics - Montauk Point
Session C: Improving Motivation, Engagement and Retention - New Faculty Dining Room
Session D: Disability 101 - Orient Point
Session E: Expanding Today’s Classroom Using Blackboard - Mildred Green
Breakout Session 2: 10:45-11:30
Session F: How Honest Is Your Classroom? Strategies for Instilling Academic Integrity in Developmental
Students - Eaton’s Neck
Session G: Can you hear me now? Understanding how Reading Tone Effectively Improves Reading
Comprehension - Montauk Point
Session H: How Do You Assess and Address Grammar in an ESL classroom? - Orient Point
Session I: Expanding Today’s Classroom Using Blackboard - Mildred Green
Breakout Session 3: 11:45-12:30
Session J: Reforming Developmental Math, A Data Driven Approach: Perspectives from Dyscalculia,
Curriculum, and Pedagogy - Montauk Point
Session K: Strategies that Work: Ways to Teach Grammar and to Use Rubrics in the Developmental
Writing Classroom - Eaton’s Neck
Session L: Canceled
Session M: Schema Awareness: Using Prior Knowledge to Increase Comprehension - Mildred Green
Session N: Avoiding Fragments: If I Could Only Use Dependent Clauses, I'd Really Improve My Writing
Orient Point
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Breakout Session 1: 9:45-10:30
Session A: Responding to Trauma Expressed in Student Writing We have all read it: painful
expressions of trauma penned by students in our Developmental Writing classes. Although we are
teachers, not counselors, we are often the first to learn of trauma suffered by students and witness its
negative effects on student success. The question is: should English instructors encourage students to
express their pain in writing or avoid assignments that would elicit personal disclosures? How do we
respond when disclosures are made? This panel will 1) review the debate surrounding trauma expressed
in student writing, considering the potential healing power of writing and the risks involved; 2)
demonstrate how one English instructor makes expressive writing part of her curriculum and the
guidelines she sets for such assignments; and 3) explain how the Counseling area can help students who
have suffered from trauma and assist faculty who are often “first responders” in these at-risk situations.
Presented by Dr. Susan Fanning, Professor of English, Meridith Leo, Assistant Professor of English, Mary
Reese, Associate Dean of Student Services Eaton’s Neck
Session B: Student Accountability in Developmental Mathematics Instructional processes that build
student accountability, goal-setting, and active learning in and outside of the classroom will be explored.
How can instructors effectively structure class time and use an online homework management system
to view, document, and know when students are cognitively ready to complete a unit exam?
Presented by Susan Koukounas, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Montauk Point
Session C: Improving Motivation, Engagement and Retention Students taking more than one
developmental course are enrolled in COL105-Personal Growth. Participants will be invited to share
ideas and successful experiences with student motivation, engagement in COL 105 and other classes.
Ms. Gentile will share her approach to guiding students through the process of selecting a career and
major that is in line with their values, environmental preferences, natural abilities, interests and realities
of the job market. Once selected, this goal can help to serve as motivation for completion and a
springboard for campus and community engagement.
Presented by Michele Gentile, MA, OTR/L, Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy New Faculty
Dining Room
Session D: Disability 101 Students with disabilities have their own unique needs and challenges. The
transition from high school to college can be a difficult one in which students must learn to be their own
self-advocates and navigate through a new academic setting. This workshop will review disability basics
and classroom strategies for working with students with disabilities.
Presented by Colleen Liccione, Assistant Professor/Counselor Disability Services and Matthew Okerblom,
Counselor, Disability Services Orient Point
Session E: Expanding Today’s Classroom Using Blackboard Last semester all courses offered by SCCC
were Web Enabled, so every course has a Blackboard shell. Explore the many ways you can use
Blackboard to enhance any course.
Presented by Christina Johnston, Specialist, Instructional Technology Mildred Green
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Breakout Session 2: 10:45-11:30
Session F: How Honest Is Your Classroom? Strategies for Instilling Academic Integrity in
Developmental Students For many years, the Academic Integrity Committee and College have
considered this question as it relates to students in credit-bearing courses. But what happens when acts
of cheating and plagiarism rear their ugly head among students in our basic reading, math, and writing
classes? What should we be doing to discourage incidents of academic dishonesty and to address
violations when they do occur? Join instructors from the areas of reading, math, and writing as they
share problems encountered in the classroom, anecdotes, and correctives strategies to instill academic
integrity in their students.
Presented by Carol Mauro, Assistant Professor of Reading, Rachael Millings, Instructor of Mathematics,
Erikka Mendez, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Susan Fanning, Professor of English Eaton’s Neck
Session G: Can you hear me now? Understanding how Reading Tone Effectively Improves Reading
Comprehension Understanding Reading Tone is important to help students read and comprehend the
nonfiction material both in textbooks and other sources, including essays and various articles and
editorials. Students often miss meanings because they miss the tone the author is using. This session
will show you how to introduce tone and to use it effectively.
Presented by Phil Paskowitz , Instructor of Reading Montauk Point
Session H: How Do You Assess and Address Grammar in an ESL classroom? If you asked ten different
teachers to grade an essay, you would get ten different grades. Hopefully, they are close - especially if
you are using the same rubric - but why are there so many discrepancies? Grammar is one of the
culprits since some teachers are more forgiving than others. Regardless, every teacher needs to
consider grammar as part of the overall assessment. After grading, teachers should direct students on
how to work on any problems they may have. Join us as we have a conversation about how to assess
and address grammar in your students’ writing.
Presented by Rich Lauria, Instructor of ESL Orient Point
Session I: Expanding Today’s Classroom Using Blackboard Last semester all courses offered by SCCC
were Web Enabled, so every course has a Blackboard shell. Explore the many ways you can use
Blackboard to enhance any course.
Presented by Christina Johnston, Specialist, Instructional Technology Mildred Green
Breakout Session 3: 11:45-12:30
Session J: Reforming Developmental Math, A Data Driven Approach: Perspectives from
Dyscalculia, Curriculum, and Pedagogy Developmental math has been called “the bridge to nowhere,”
due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of developmental students never pass a college-level
math class. We've taken a systematic, data driven, approach to understanding what causes these poor
results, by examining over 30,000 developmental students at Suffolk Community College, as well as
studying what has worked at other colleges and other countries.
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To provide the framework for a “proven” approach for reforming developmental mathematics, we will
present the data and propose some preliminary ideas to address this critical problem. However, to fully
understand what we are proposing, one must have an understanding of a recognized mathematics
learning disability called dyscalculia (also called “number-blindness”.) We will present an overview of
what it is, as well as approaches for teaching students afflicted by it. Our intent is to provide an
opportunity for initiating a constructive dialogue/collaboration on how we can collectively solve this
pervasive problem.
Presented by Elizabeth Chu, Professor of Mathematics, James Fulton Professor of Mathematics, and
Regina Keller, Professor of Mathematics Montauk Point
Session K: Strategies that Work: Ways to Teach Grammar and to Use Rubrics in the Developmental
Writing Classroom. This workshop will explore strategies for teaching grammar and for using analytical
rubrics to clarify and reinforce writing instruction. Attendees will come away with practical strategies for
approaching grammar in the classroom and for assessing both high-stakes and low-stakes assignments.
Presented by Cristina Savarese, Instructor of English, Jacqueline Romano, Instructor of English and
Joseph Gatti, Assistant Professor of English Eaton’s Neck
Session L: Quantway: A Quantitative Reasoning Alternative for Developmental Math & Non-STEM
Students Canceled . Quantway discussions will take place on each campus in the near future.
Session M: Schema Awareness: Using Prior Knowledge to Increase Comprehension When
constructing meaning, readers bring to text their experiences with the world and with language, both
printed and spoken. This workshop will provide several tried and true instructional activities that allow
readers to experience the effect of schema on printed text and realize the importance of activating
background knowledge. Schema awareness exercises benefit less motivated readers who are not
convinced they have knowledge to bring to text.
Presented by Diane Bosco, Professor of Reading Mildred Green
Session N: Avoiding Fragments: "If I Could Only Use Dependent Clauses, I'd Really Improve My
Writing." In this workshop, specifically geared towards ESL instructors, the presenters will share
engaging activities that will help students to gain mastery in the use of dependent clauses in writing.
Attendees will participate in individual and collaborative activities that they can easily incorporate into
their teaching.
Presented by Laura Cudia, Assistant Professor of ESL, ELL Coordinator East and Ammerman, Lisa Cervera,
Assistant Professor of ESL Orient Point
LUNCH 12:30 -1:30
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