Welcome Back!

ESL Faculty Meeting – Agenda

Friday, September 19, 2014

HS 2535A

Co-Chaired by Curtis Bonney and Jill Bauer

Handouts:

Agenda

CASAS Listening Pre-test Schedule

New ESL Flyers

Goodwill Computer Classes

Affordable Care Act Assisters in the OCE&E
Workforce Education Handout

WABERS+ Security Update

ESL Summer Survey Results

Table 7 data signup sheet

Lending Library Student Form

Introductions:

New/Newish Faculty Members: Jihye Jung (ESL 012/013) George Beckley (ESL 025), Elinor Appel (ESL 031), Marion DeMoss (ESL 036/046), Sylvia Chai (ESL 041, ESL 065.01, Phlebotomy),Taraji Belgacem (ESL 041.55), Mark Hershey (ESL 051.77/052.77), Ken Lawrence (ESL 061.55/062.55), Cara Romanik (ESL 083 – College Bridge), Alex Abeyta (ESL 057/ABE 049),William Moore (NSFC), Kristin Kent (Northgate Elementary), Sara Legg (our new BTS Coordinator in The Learning Center. More on this at the division meeting.)

Jamila is spending the year in Jordan on an English Language Fellowship, teaching teachers at a woman’s college there. Sylvia Chai has agreed to come on as a temporary full-timer for fall quarter, and possibly the year, to help while Jamila is gone.

“Team J” in WABERS/CASAS: Janice Anderson, Jeff Wang and Jill Bauer, and Jim Eaton

-Janice scans and uploads all CASAS testing for BTS. She assists the Testing Center with ESL testing and Jill with EICs.

-Jeff with Work Study support enters WABERS Intake forms, placement forms, and WABERS hours. He also handles the WABERS uploads and prepares the WABERS rosters at the end of the quarter.

-Jim creates the CASAS post-testing schedule and Next Suggested Test reports. He also supports the Testing Center with ESL testing.

-Jill is leading EICs and helping to implement the changes in EICs and CASAS testing this year. She is also managing the data clean-up in WABERS.

New Interim Dean: Curtis Bonney,new hours; Curtis will be in the office until 6:30 on Mondays. Evening faculty and students can meet with him then about scholarships, lending library, level issues, etc.

New ESL Coordinator: Jill Bauer was our ESL Coordinator for the last half of summer quarter (thank goodness!). Amal and Sherry, at that time, nominated her to continue with the coordination duties until the interim dean has been madea permanent position. I would like to put this nomination in front of all of you now and ask for your responses over the next week.

Guests:

Kathy Rhodes,Dean of Enrollment Services and Registrar is here to say hello and give a brief introduction, in light of recent legislation, on how to best help any undocumented students enroll in school.

Kathy stressed that we can help undocumented students. Please refer any students with questions to Kathy or Juan Gallegos.

Dawn Kinder,Director, Workforce Education, is here to say hi and to discuss OCE&E and Workforce Development. BFET, LEP and Perkins currently have some funding but eligibility requirements have changed a bit.See handout.

Important Dates:

  • EICs: Thursday, 9/25 8:30 to 11 & 4:30 to 8, also Friday 10/3, 12:30 – 4:00 pm. We still need helpers, especially on 9/25 in the evening on 10/3.
  • 10th day of the quarter: Friday, October 3rd. Rosters should match reality!
  • Cashiers, Advising, Registration & Financial Aid will all be open next week September 22-26 from 8:00 am – 6:30 pm. September 29 through October 3 they are open from 8:00 am – 5:30 pm.
  • Collaboration Day: Thursday, November 6: topics anyone? Email Jill or Curtis
  • CASAS dates:

Pre-test dates (listening only): October 6, 7 & 8 (More in a minute.)

Post-test dates: November 17-22 (day evening happen that week)

  • End of quarter meeting: Monday, November 17th 4 to 6pm, room IB 3416.
  • ESL New Faculty Orientation: September 26that 3:30, BTS/Humanities Conference Room
  • Winter Textbook: orders due October 15th
  • WAESOL: Saturday, October 25th at Highline Community College (
  • TESOL: March 25th – 28th, Toronto (

Agenda:

Sub Needed: Sara Legg won’t be here on Monday only and needs a sub for her IEP classes. This is a day when students take a diagnostic, so there isn’t much teaching happening. Anne Forester has more details and you can speak with her at the division meeting. Sara classes are level 3 Reading/Vocab from 2:30 to 3:35 and level 4 Reading/Vocab from 3:45 – 4:50. Let Curtis know if you can do this. This has been handled.

CASAS Updates:Listening Pretest– Integrated skills teachers, we are going to give the new listening CASAS series (981L – 985L) as a pretest on October 6, 7 and 8. Please see schedule handout for details. Yes, this is a bummer. We have to do this because our old listening test went invalid on July 1st so many returning students have no pretest. Some new students did get a pretest, so these students can be excused from that class that day. Jill will email a list of these students. Please only excuse students that are on the list of already pre-tested students.

Answer sheets – The program that reads and uploads CASAS answer sheets has changed, and it was some quirks. Please help Janice out by asking students to darkly bubble the following (particularly on the left side of the bubble):

1 – Name

2 – Instructor Name

3 – SID

4 – Form #

5 – Date

6 – Class Item Number (No bubble!)

Also, make sure that the last question on the answer sheet is darkly bubbled-in.

Pre-testing – We started eCASAS testing new Level 2-6 students in the Testing Center this summer, and it is going well. In October, we are going to pilot drop-in testing for new Level 2-6 ESL students as well.

Post-testing – During the 2014-2015 year, we will slowly implement eCASAS post-testing. We are going to try it with Levels 5 and 6 in Fall 2014. If this goes well, we’ll add Levels 3 and 4 during Winter 2015.

EIC:With eCASAS in place, Levels 2-6 no longer need to take CASAS tests during the EIC! Janice and Jill developed an orientation for the EIC. It covers the WABERS intake form, a campus tour, ESL program overview, student success/time management, the first day of class, and registration. Following the fall EICs, we will send the orientation materials out to faculty to get your feedback and additional ideas.

Lending Library:The lending library has moved to the actual library – behind the circulation desk. There arenew procedures! And a new Checkout form. All is here on the website.

CBS Report out: Curtis went to Rendezvous with several others: Jamila, Jill, Christina, Adria, Sylvia, Janice, Gary Gorland. We lived it up, Yakima-style. He went to CBS as well. Here are some quick details from that whirlwind experience:we have a name change. We are now BEdA (Basic Education for Adults) – not ABE. We have a new BEdA handbook here. We have a new 5-year planhere. The federal government recently passed a new WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) that will impact BEdA fairly substantially in the next few years. One discussion we need to have this quarter relates to the Washington Adult Learning Standardsand the Career and College Readiness Standards(derived from the Common Core Standards). Starting next year, WOIA is going to require BEdA to incorporate the CCR Standards into our teaching and learning if we want federal funding at all. The question is how we want to incorporate them. The State Board would like faculty input before discussing with feds: should we integrate/merge the WA State Learning Standards and the CCR Standards together? Should we replace WA State Learning Standards with CCR Standards? Or should somehow use both of them simultaneously?Please, when you get a chance, read through these CCR standards and other docs linked above and let me know what you think is the best way forward. I have another CBS meeting mid-October, so I will send you a reminder email before then.

Evening Class Changes:Levels 1 through 3 are now 4 nights a week.

James Armstrong is not going to be here for the year, due to military service. Joslin Boroughs will work with Shan to do some embedded advising at night. ARRC will have Christina Cote help in evening classes with registration.

WABERS Changes: Logging in – The next time you log into WABERS, you will be prompted to update your password. They have enhanced the security features. Please follow the directions on the WABERS+ Security Update handout to set-up your new password. All faculty can have WABERS+ access to look-up class or student records. Please email Jill or Curtis if you need WABERS+ access

Distance Education Hours – WABERS will now track distance education hours for online, hybrid, or web-enhanced courses. Please talk to Jill if you are using Canvas or any other type of online learning in your class because we may be able to count those hours. At the end of the quarter, everyone will see an extra column for Distance Education Hours on the WABERS PT & Attendance roster. Just leave it blank if you are teaching a traditional course with no online component.

Curriculum Changes:Computer Classes - This summer Curtis, Jamila, Jill, and Beth (and Ronnie) revised the course outlines for the computer class sequence (ESL 027 – 57). We will be taking those to CAS for approval sometime this fall. We are in the process of creating new curriculum. Jill is working on 027; Beth is writing 037; and Jamila is doing 057.

EAP (English for Academic Purposes) – More detail at division meeting about EAP. Documents in right hand column of PPP page.

ESL Summer Survey Results:Ninety-three students responded to this summer’s survey questions: How can the college help you and other students from your country learn English?

Some of the top responses included Saturday classes (the example), pronunciation classes, and harder classes. See data in meeting folder.

Level Discussions:As we launch into a new school year, can we take 20 minutes and break into our integrated skills levels and do a bit of talking between teachers?

As the our survey results show, and as many of us heard multiple times at Rendezvous, and as I’ve heard in several meetings over the summer, I’m throwing out to you 3 “buzzwords:” Rigor, Cohort, Completions.

Please send your notes from the discussion to Jill or Curtis. Thank you!

Reminders:

Faculty Website:

Changes to Fall schedule: on the faculty website main page. Recent room and faculty changes in red. Check before doing add/drop etc.

Voluntary Photo Copy Collection—Nancy will provide envelopes to take to your classes to collect money from students. If you make a lot of copies, please take up a collection!

  • Class sets of Life Skills and Test Prep levels 1 through 4 live in the green cabinet in the hall behind Anna Binkina's desk. Great for supplementing! Don’t forget to check out and return.
  • Have you returned books to the cabinets from last year that you no longer need?
  • Rekeying IB building 3rd floor. Get a key form from the office if you haven’t already.
  • Diagnostic tests in the first week. We need to make sure NEW students are properly placed before we get too far down the road!