Career Pathways Curriculum Alignment and Collaboration

From LiteracyTentWiki

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3132] Re: Career Pathways
From: Jackie A. Taylor jackie at jataylor.net
Date: Fri Feb 27 20:18:17 EST 2009

Hello Kim,

Another Monday question:

Last week several of us expressed an interest in curriculum issues for transition courses. You noted that this was an ongoing 'hot topic' on your campus and how your college has worked around some of these issues with the integration of the I-BEST model. You mentioned you've done some work in aligning curriculum and developing pathways with other areas of the college that enable your students to bypass college placement exams. How, specifically, have you and others accomplished this? Do you have any materials or diagrams, for example, that you might share?

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

Jackie Taylor
jackie at jataylor.net

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3133] FW: Aligning instructional practices ABE-Postsec
Date: From: Kimberly A. Johnson at gw.hamline.edu
From: Sun Mar 1 08:46:07 EST 2009

I've been following the discussion with a lot of interest, and thought now might be a good time to add a voice from Minnesota into the mix!

As part of our ABE to Post-secondary transitions initiative in MN, we've been doing some work with aligning instructional practices in order to provide appropriate professional development and insights for ABE teachers on what students need. We are in the process of phase II of a project surveying ABE transitions instructors and college faculty in our statewide system (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities - MnSCU) and have already identified multiple areas where instruction does not align. Many of these items are no surprise - like college faculty still rely on lecture format and expect students to take notes and use them while ABE teachers do not spend time teaching notetaking for academic lectures. Other things have emerged that many of us had not given much thought to, such as the fact that a majority of faculty report using short-answer assessments, while very few ABE teachers ever utilize or teach this form of assessment with students.

Our report isn't finalized, and we are beginning the process of surveying more faculty, but we have preliminary findings posted at our website for any who are interested. Check the transitions link on the left to read a brief report of what we have learned so far:

www.hamline.edu/atlas

Kimberly Johnson

Kimberly A. Johnson, PhD

Assistant Professor/ ATLAS Coordinator
-Resources and Professional Development for Adult Educators

School of Education
Hamline University
1536 Hewitt Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55104

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3136] From Bobbie, Aligning instructional practices ABE-Postsec
From: Bobbie McGee-Benson at kilgore.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 11:02:35 EST 2009

I am from an Adult Basic Education program in Texas. Like Kimberly Johnson from Minnesota, I have been following the discussion throughout. Our program is affiliated with a community college, Kilgore College, and we have an I-BEST model for certain Workforce Certificate programs with the college, but nothing to the extent that has been discussed here. For our students to enroll in I-BEST, they have to meet the same standards as the traditional students except they do not have to have the high school credential; however, they must be working toward one and must have it before they can graduate with a college certificate. They must take the college entrance exam, and make the required score. An advantage of that is that the only way that they can qualify for financial aid under the college's guidelines.

Like Kimberly, we have been focusing more lately on helping our student transition successfully into post-secondary education. As the director, I attend the P-16 meetings and workshops, talk to the local college personnel, visit with our former students, and use the Texas College Readiness Standards Guide which was adopted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board as a way to better align our curriculum and instructional practices.

I had not thought about the short answer type questions on exams, so I appreciate that idea. Some of my former students who are over thirty found that they lacked the computer related skills.

Curriculum alignment and professional development takes time and money, so I appreciate the discussion and the contacts that I have see here.

Bobbie McGee-Benson
Director of Adult Education
Kilgore College
300 South High Street
Longview, TX 75601
903.988.3738 x 8362
bmcgeebenson at kilgore.edu

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3137] Re: FW: Aligning instructional practices ABE-Postsec
From: Shash Woods swoods at sbctc.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 11:50:02 EST 2009

This is a question for Kimberly Johnson:

Can you explain what your "Collective Intelligence Networking Groups" are? If these are a piece of your state PD, can you tell us how they are organized, who joins them, how their topics of interest or guiding themes are chosen, whether there is financial support for them, and, if so, what form it takes?

Thanks!


- Shash Woods

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3138] Re: Career Pathways and aligning curriculum
From: Ward, Kim kward at tacomacc.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 11:50:23 EST 2009

Hi Jackie, the area where we have accomplished most of this work is in our ESL program. At TCC we have two ESL programs, which has always lead to a bit of confusion when trying to advise students with a goal of transition. One is our Adult Basic Ed. ESL program (non-credit) and the other is an English for Academic Purposes ESL program (credit). Unlike some colleges, our EAP program enrolls both international and immigrant/refugee students. Both programs offer 6 levels of instruction. Our "non-credit" program, of course, follows the NRS levels. The EAP levels are quite different in content and skill level.

In the past we had no pathway that outlined at what point an immigrant / refugee student should transition from our "non-credit" program to developmental education or the "credit" ESL program. We knew that the academic ESL program (EAP) could serve as a more appropriate developmental sequence for our students, particularly those who were transitioning from I-BEST, but we needed to figure out at what point students finishing our program would enter the EAP program. There were a couple of things we did to figure this out:

  1. 1 We gave a sample of our ESL level 6 students the EAP placement test, and we gave a sample of the EAP students the CASAS. We then compared results.
  1. 2 We also evaluated and aligned curriculum in both programs to identify areas of overlap and areas where we had gaps.

What we found was that students finishing our level 6 placed at approximately level 3 in the EAP program. Aligning the curriculum with our EAP program helped us to better prepare and better advise students. It also enabled us to provide our non native English speaking students with a more appropriate developmental sequence post I-BEST should they not yet test at college level.

In addition to the work accomplished between our two programs, the EAP program took this pathway one step further. The program chair for EAP worked closely with the developmental education program chair to identify at what point the EAP curriculum met the academic standards of the developmental English and Reading courses. These two programs also aligned curriculum and identify a similar entry point and agreed to waive the requirement for Acuplacer testing for students successfully completing EAP level 6.

As a result of this work, an ESL student at our college can potentially get all the way through developmental education without ever having to take the college entrance exam. Our next step is to do similar work between our ABE/GED program and developmental reading, writing, and math.

I have attached a chart that provides a visual of this process.

I'd also like to mention that having full time faculty is what I believe finally made this all happen for TCC.

Kim Ward

Tacoma Community College
kward at tacomacc.edu

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3139] Re: FW: Aligning instructional practicesABE-Postsec
From: Ward, Kim kward at tacomacc.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 12:11:46 EST 2009

Good morning, Kimberly. This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing your website. One question, do you see many ABE transition faculty who also teach developmental or college level courses? We have had a few of our ABE/GED faculty also teach developmental reading, English, and math courses and have found that this experience has contributed to some positive changes in the way we approach instruction in our ABE/GED classes. We are not nearly as far on curriculum alignment in this area, but we are working on it. I'm anxious to share your work with our faculty.

Thank you,

Kim Ward

Tacoma Community College
kward at tacomacc.edu

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3140] Re: FW: Aligning instructionalpracticesABE-Postsec
From: Kimberly A. Johnson kjohnson60 at gw.hamline.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 13:13:25 EST 2009

Re: faculty who teach both ABE transitions and developmental education (DE) courses

Unfortunately, Kim, we have only a few teachers who do both. MN ABE is housed within K-12 education, so we still have very few ABE sites co-located on college campuses or practitioners who work in both worlds. It is still surprising to me to visit ABE sites located on college campuses and then to learn that there is little interaction between the faculty. Some campuses have worked hard to work together with ABE, but others don't seem to understand or value the connection. (In addition, some of the struggle with our transitions work is exacerbated by the number of ABE sites in MN who still have open enrollment in place so there are no real "classes" for students. Given this, it is easy to see how the colleges would have a difficult time knowing how to work with this kind of ABE structure.)

In our work on the instructional practices survey, we brought community and technical college faculty (including DE faculty) and ABE transitions faculty together to analyze and review the survey results. One thing that emerged from that work was how valuable everyone found working together to be. Go figure! We are currently exploring multiple ways to raise awareness and encourage more cooperation and collaboration between ABE and DE by reaching out to the DE professional organization in MN and working with administrators of the state college and university system to get them on board. I was surprised at a recent conference by a DE teacher who asked me if the goal of our work on transitions was to put DE out of business! So, still a ways to go...

Kimberly Johnson
ATLAS (www.hamline.edu/atlas)
Hamline University, St Paul, MN

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3143] Re: FW: Curriculum Alignment and faculty collaboration
From: Ward, Kim kward at tacomacc.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 13:41:32 EST 2009

Hi Kimberly, I can see the challenge. I agree, that even when co-located, getting the two camps to talk can be a challenge. A couple things that have helped us start moving in what I consider a positive direction are:

#1 We now have full time faculty in ABE/GED and ESL, who are interacting with faculty campus-wide. It is amazing what a difference it makes. Five years ago I had one full time faculty. Today we have 8 between ABE/GED and ESL.
#2 We don't have open entry, but rather "managed" enrollment in ABE/GED and ESL.

Much work to be done...

Kim Ward
Tacoma Community College
kward at tacomacc.edu

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3145] Re: Collective Intelligence Groups
From: Kimberly A. Johnson kjohnson60 at gw.hamline.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 14:31:22 EST 2009

Shash,
Thanks for your question! The Collective Intelligence Networking Groups are something that we tried at our annual ABE summer conference last year for the first time and people just loved it! Since then, regions around MN have been using this format to bring people together to share ideas on various topics.

Your questions about CI groups:

-Can you explain what your "Collective Intelligence Networking Groups" are?

The purpose of the CI groups is to harness the "collective intelligence" that exists within ABE programs and providers. The groups are informal, but structured and facilitated by someone who leads discussion of the challenges and "intelligent" practices, problems and solutions, and necessary supports for success around a specific topic or interest area. It is more than just networking - they spend time working through issues to share experience and knowledge. Since we have just started trying to use this format, we provided sample questions and format suggestions to facilitators.


-If these are a piece of your state PD, can you tell us how they are organized, who joins them, how their topics of interest or guiding themes are chosen, whether there is financial support for them, and, if so, what form it takes??

At the fall statewide Transitions conference we created a list of 9 interest group areas and one concurrent session was set aside for the CI groups (Stackable Credentials, Articulating ABE programming with short-term technical training, Making reading instruction relevant to transitions, Making writing instruction relevant to transitions, ESL learners in transitions, Making math instruction relevant to transitions, Coordinating student support services, Bridging the GED to college and training, Distance education & online instruction). We chose these topics based on what the planning committee identified as logical groupings of practitioners who attend the conference and areas of need. Knowledgeable people in the field were asked to facilitate. Practitioners self-selected the CI group in which they wanted to participate. Facilitators were expected to take notes so a summary of the discussion could be made available to everyone who attended; these notes also provided useful information for state PD developers. Participants were encouraged to exchange contact information and to continue their discussions via a discussion board that the state PD system uses for some training.

In addition, our state PD system has divided MN into nine regions with a regional PD coordinator in each. Many of the regional PD coordinators have opted to include CI groups at their fall or spring events, and have selected groups based on the needs of practitioners in that region. I've facilitated some of these myself, on both ESL and transitions.

At conferences and regional events participants do not receive any kind of stipend, although they do receive Continuing Education Units (CEUs) needed to maintain teaching licenses, etc. Money is provided by the state to fund the Transitions Conference and the regional PD events, so it costs little or nothing for participants to attend.


Hope that helps! Let me know if you have other questions.
Kimberly Johnson
ATLAS Coordinator: www.hamline.edu/atlas
Hamline University, St Paul, MN 55104

Retrieved from "http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Career_Pathways_Curriculum_Alignment_and_Collaboration"