With the increased calls for accountability, community colleges are collecting more information than ever before on our classes, programs, and students. But how do we use this information once we have it? Are we measuring the right things and can we translate the numbers into actionable improvements?

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The Strengthening Student Success conference provides a unique opportunity for a wide cross-section of community college professionals to gather and brainstorm ways to leverage assessment to strengthen institutional effectiveness and student learning. The 2009 conference, being held in San Francisco from October 7-9, will explore using evidence to improve practice, as well as the integration of curriculum with basic skills, student services, and career technical education.

Keynote presentations will feature Joyce Romano of Valencia Community College, a Florida college with a successful model for meeting the needs of basic skills students, and Jeff Duncan-Andrade of the Educational Equity Initiative at San Francisco State University’s Cesar Chavez Institute, on using critical pedagogy to engage low-income urban students. Sample sessions topics include:

a.. High Expectation and High Support: How Colleges Are Changing the
Formula for Student Engagement and Success
b.. What To Do With Assessment Data
c.. Sustaining Pilot Programs: Lessons from the Field
d.. Assessing Creative Thinking
e.. Will This Be On the Test? Creating a Campaign to Build Students’
Habits of Mind

In keeping with the lean budget times, registration fees for the three-day event are just $375. Hotel rooms are available at a discounted rate of $140. The hotel offers a free shuttle to the San Francisco Airport, which also provides low-cost BART access to the City.

Find out more about the sessions, read up on ways to get funding to attend,
and register at: http://www.rpgroup.org/events/sss09.html

Check it at the top of the page or here

The Academic Senate’s Basic Skills Coordinators Workshop will be held on September 17-18, 2009 at The Hyatt Regency Newport Beach.

This will be a great opportunity to ask questions and obtain information for the Action and Expenditure Plans due on October 15, 2009. This workshop was organized for all coordinators to facilitate more collaboration and to address pressing issues they face throughout the state. A tentative agenda will be released in June.

For more info, email the organizer at info@cccbsi.org.

To register, visit: http://www.cccbsi.org/regional-meetings.

Dr. Daryl Kinney, Basic Skills Initiative LA Regional Network Coordinator, presented the BSI thrust for 2009 at LATTC on May 21, 2009. The essential idea of basic skills has undergone a sea-change in concept and become more holistic to encompass the need of the student to be an empowered individual. The new initiative intends to build a more self-sustaining network composed of institutions and learners and to enhance the environment through leadership trainings.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Among the major topics discussed were as follows:

• The use of data to improve basic skills success rates and promote overall positive institutional changes
• The expansion of equity in the distribution of basic skills services
• The organizational learning approach to education

Thanks to all the attendees!

The California Community College Collaborative at the University of California, Riverside (C4 at UCR) is a collaborative policy and research center established by the University of California’s Office of the President and the Chancellor’s Office of the California Community Colleges.

C4 collaborates in research and organizational development with researchers, policy centers, university and community college systems, and community college practitioners

Click here to read issue for Fall 2008

Hello, LATTC

I have attached the invitation to participate in this network to this message. The invitation includes details regarding how faculty, staff, and administrators at LATTC will benefit from participating in this network. By participating in this inaugural network your college will also help- plan, build, and sustain a state-wide innovative learning network to ensure California Community College students receive the support needed to succeed.

The attached Leadership Institute brochure shows how the Basic Skills leader on your campus can participate in sustaining the effort to build a learning network across the 110 California Community Colleges by registering (before April 15, 2009) for the BSI Leadership Institute which will be held at San Francisco State University June 14-20, 2009.

The attached materials will provide answers to some of the questions you may have regarding the future direction of the Basic Skills Initiative. However, if you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at any time. I am the Los Angeles Area Regional Network Mentor and part of my job is to assist you in any way I can.

After you have had an opportunity to read the invitation and brochure, I would like to arrange a time to come to your campus to further explain and discuss the Regional Network as well as the Leadership Institute. I will contact Jan Gangel-Vasquez, my contact on your campus, next week to set up a specific date and time soon after Spring Break when I can come to your campus to visit with all of you.

Please note that the deadline for registration for the Leadership Institute is April 15; if you have specific questions about the Institute, you should contact me right away. Space is limited to one individual from each of the colleges in the inaugural Network, a total of 30 participants. Again, registration is due April 15.

Daryl Kinney
LA Area Network Mentor CCCBSI 2009
http://cccbsi.edulounge.net/the-inaugural-network/

Learning Outcomes/Assessment
Los Angeles City College
323-953-4000 Ext. 2069

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
-William Butler Yeats

Dear Basic Skills Coordinators,

 

It was great to see so many of you at the Spring Regional Workshops!
I’m writing to let you know that this year’s Basic Skills Coordinator
Workshop will be held on September 17-18.  We are holding the workshop
in September this year to give you an opportunity to ask questions and
get the information you need before the Action and Expenditure Plans are
due on Oct. 15.   In addition, we’ve chosen to hold one workshop for all
coordinators this year in order to facilitate more collaboration among
coordinators and address the diverse issues faced by coordinators
throughout the state.  We are currently reviewing the workshop topic
suggestions from those of you who attended the Spring Regional Workshops
and will be sending out a tentative agenda in June.  If you have
additional topic suggestions, please send them to me: molloy@sbcc.edu.

Here is the workshop information:

Participants:
One Basic Skills Coordinator from each campus.  Please contact Kathy
Molloy about exceptions: molloy@sbcc.edu

Location:
The Hyatt Regency Newport Beach
1107 Jamboree Road
Newport Beach, CA 92660
(949) 729-1234

Travel:

Please contact Jen Davies Gross at jen@asccc.org for travel
arrangements.  You may request hotel rooms from the Senate until August
28th.  There is a free airport shuttle from the John Wayne Airport
(SNA).

I look forward to seeing all of you in September, and I hope each of you
has a chance to take some well deserved time off to relax and enjoy the
summer!

Kathy Molloy

BSI Regional Workshop Coordinator

Dear Faculty,

Over the summer, LACCD Professional Development Coordinators in consultation with our faculty senates are busy planning for Opening Day for the 2008-2009 Academic Year: Friday, August 29, 2008.

One result of this planning process is that our Student Success Initiative Professional Development Taskforce, under the leadership of a subcommittee led by Bradley Vaden (LATTC), Evelyn Escatiola (ELAC), and Deborah Kaye (LAVC), put together several useful handouts (see attached) compiled from the work of leading professional learning experts such as Skip Downing and Patricia Cross. These handouts contain strategic approaches designed to get your semester off to a great start and to promote student retention and persistence.

If you’d like to find out more about teaching and learning across the LACCD, go to this page on the SuccessNet website and click on the links to each of our college’s professional learning programs:

http://laccdsuccessnet.wetpaint.com/page/Campus+Web+Pages+for+Professional+Learning

While at LACCDSuccessNet http://laccdsuccessnet.wetpaint.com/ , feel free to explore all the other pages of the site and to join and post your own great tips for teaching and learning. It’s an easy and fun way for us to work together in order to build learning-centered communities of practice across the LACCD.

Cheers and Continue Having a Great Summer!

On Thursday, May 21 at 12:30 in LRC 107 Daryl Kinney, the BSI LA Regional Network Coordinator, will come to LATTC to outline the activities and resources available to us from the 2009 Basic Skills Initative. You are invited to participate in this meeting to learn how the Network can assist us in our efforts to help students meet their learning goals. Daryl’s presentation takes about 45 minutes and then she will be available to answer questions about the BSI and how the Network is there to assist us in our efforts.

Everyone is invited. For more information, contact LATTC Basic Skills Coordinator Jan Gangel-Vasquez at (213) 763-5515.