Presenters Indira Bakshi and Diane Daudt Lane Community College, Eugene OR

1. A Triple Play: ElCivics, Oregon Adult Basic Skills Learning Standards and College-Wide Core Learning Outcomes in Thinking Critically. Presenters Indira Bakshi and Diane Daudt Lane Community College, Eugene OR

2. Background • In Spring, 2012.EL/Civics instructors chose to implement objectives from the EL/Civics Competency Area “Nutrition # 46” • Nutrition # 46: Access resources for nutrition education and information related to the purchase and preparation of healthy foods. • Critical Thinking is a component of the Language and Learning Objectives for the EL/Civics Competency Area “Nutrition # 46”.

3. Background • EL/Civics 2011-2012 professional development focused on training instructors in Oregon ABS Learning Standards. • 2 EL/Civics instructors participated in Oregon ABS Learning Standards Institutes. • 2 EL/Civics instructors attended Learning Circles. • Critical thinking is also a component of Oregon ABS Learning Standards.

4. Background • In the Fall of 2011, two ELCivics instructors attended a Lane Campus workshop on College Core Learning Outcomes. • This is continuing college-wide effort to teach and assess College Core Learning Outcomes in all LCC classes. • The focus for 2011-2012 was Thinking Critically. • We received a grant (Yes! $$$$) to develop and assess critical thinking skills in our EL/Civics classes.

5. The “Aha Moment” • We realized we could get a ‘three fer’ from the Nutrition Unit that year! • EL/Civics Implementation! • Taught using Oregon Learning Standards ! • In alignment with Lane’s College Core Outcome-Think Critically!

6. Perfect Storm • What started out as a simple idea became the blob that ate Cleveland or at least the Willamette Valley! • We had so many ideas and so many things we wanted to do with the Nutrition unit and so much fun that…….

7. Return Engagement We’ll do it again!!! We did it again!!! Why??? • High student need and interest! • Enthusiastic community participation! • Planned and Taught again in Winter Term, 2013 with similar student engagement and outcomes.

8. What is EL/Civics? • “The intention of EL/Civics is to provide integrated English literacy and civics education to immigrants and other limited English proficient populations to promote effective participation in the education, work, and civic opportunities of this country.”

9. What are Oregon Learning Standards? • The Learning Standard is a global statement of what learners at any level should be able to do, related to speaking/listening/reading and writing. • The State of Oregon has adopted these standards for Adult Learners across the state in ESL and ABE programs.

10. What are Lane’s Core College Outcomes? • Core Outcomes for all students in all disciplines and adopted to have a common reference points for students in 5 primary areas of competence: • They are: • THINK critically • ENGAGE diverse values, perspectives and civic awareness • CREATE ideas and solutions • COMMUNICATE effectively • APPLY learning

11. Who Was Involved? • Evening Program ESL and EL/Civics Classes • Level 3 Combined SkillsEL/Civics* • Level 4 Combined Skills EL/Civics* • Level 5 Combined Skills EL/Civics* • 2B Reading/Writing (not-EL/Civics) *2012 and 2013

12. Class Levels • LCC Levels: Beginning to Advanced • Best Plus Oral Assessment SPL’s 3-7 • CASAS Reading Assessment Scores 180-220 • Federal NRS Levels: High-Beginning to High-Intermediate

13. About Our Classes • All classes met on MW nights • 6:15-8:35 p.m. • Total class time: 5 hours a week

14. Students • More than 50 students in total participated in 2012. • They were mostly Spanish speakers from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and other Latin American countries. • But, there were also speakers of other languages such as Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, and Gujarati.

15. What We Did • All classes studied vocabulary related to food, grocery shopping and nutrition. • Teachers varied activities depending on student levels and abilities.

16. Levels 2 and 3 • Learned vocabulary for food items. • Read about hidden sugars found in foods, healthy and unhealthy diets • Read and analyzed the labels of common foods. • Learned about quantifiers and count and non-count nouns. • Wrote and talked about what they eat and why they eat that way. • In 2013, student demonstrated knowledge by creating and performing skits in restaurants demonstrating that they acquired Tier 2 nutrition vocabulary and could identify healthy foods on a menu.

17. Level 3 and 4 • Levels 3* and 4 kept daily food journals for 3 to 5 weeks. • Level 4 students answered opened-ended questions about food choices and how they applied new information learned in class to their eating habits. • Level 4 also studied nutrition vocabulary words prior to the nutrition presentation. * 2012 only.

18. Level 4 • Accessed websites about food labels and nutrition. • Used information on sites to answer questions on handouts. • Read an article about hidden sugar in processed foods; homework assignment was to read food labels and identify kinds of sugar on labels.

19. Level 5 • Students looked at their own family medical histories. • Identified diseases in their families. • Researched symptoms of illnesses • Created posters and made class presentations of their findings and how those findings related to diet. * 2012 only. • In 2013, students from Level 5 came into the Level 3 class and presented their finding to small groups in a round robin style rotation.

20. Community: Guest Speaker • Tamberley Powell, LCC Nutrition Instructor came and spoke to all the classes. • She discussed carbohydrates, whole grains and reading food labels. • Her presentation included practice looking at food labels. • Students enjoyed presentation and had positive verbal and written feedback. • 2013 she used the same presentation but focused on different aspects. And she brought her Mom!!!

21. Label reading and whole grains Choose foods with a whole grain ingredient listed first on the label’s ingredient list. Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight (from most to least). Example: From Tamberley Powell’s Presentation

22. Which is the whole grain bread? A B Wheat flour, water, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, wheat bran … Whole wheat flour, water, brown sugar … Example: From Tamberley Powell’s Presentation

23. Answer: has WHOLE wheat as the first ingredient! A B Wheat flour, water, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, wheat bran … Whole wheat flour, water, brown sugar … B Example: From Tamberley Powell’s Presentation

24. Color and whole grains Color is not an indication of a whole grain. Bread can be brown because of molasses or other added ingredients. Read the ingredient list to see if bread is a WHOLE grain. NOT whole grain! Wheat flour, water, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, wheat bran … Example: From Tamberley Powell’s Presentation

25. “Nutrition Facts” label and grains Use “Nutrition Facts”label to help choosewhole grain products with a higher % Daily Value (%DV) for fiber. The %DV for fiber is a good clue to the amountof whole grain in the product. Look for >10% DV for fiber. Example: From Tamberley Powell’s Presentation

26. Community: Blood Pressure and Glucose Screening Clinic • LCC Medical Office Assisting students and Nursing students took ESL students’ blood pressure and did glucose testing on students willing to be pricked !! • All four classes participated in 2012!

27. Community: Blood Pressure and Glucose Screening Clinic • Student nurses met with students and answered questions about screening results and other health questions.

28. Community: Blood Pressure and Glucose Screening Clinic • Nursing students took contact information to follow up with at risk ESL students.

29. Community: Blood Pressure and Glucose Screening Clinic • Nursing students spent a lot of time with ESL students and were jazzed about coming back next year!!!

30. Community: TDAP Clinic 2013 • In 2013, Lane County Health conducted a survey at the BP/Glucose Clinic and determined we were a good site for the a TDAP Clinic for uninsured adults. • We quickly changed our EL/Civics Objectives to Health for Spring and this clinic was held in early April. • All classes participated and 90 Lane Students, staff and family members were immunized. Mostly ESL students!! • http://www.lcctorch.com/2013/04/17/whooping-cough-epidemic-addressed-by-public-health-group/Torch!

31. Implementing EL Civics • EL/Civics Competency Area #46 Language and Literacy Objectives were met through class activities. • #1. Identify a healthy diet as recommended by USDA. • #2. Identify the relationship between nutrition and good health. • #7. Interpret food-packaging labels. • #10. Listen to a speaker share information about low cost sources of healthy food. Participate in the discussion by asking previously prepared questions; take notes.

32. Teaching with the Learning Standards • We focused on two learning standards • Listen Actively • Reading With Understanding

33. The Listen Actively Standard • Using the ListenActivelyStandard, students met many of the benchmarks for appropriate levels 2-6. • Adult learners listen actively for a variety of purposes, integrating their knowledge, skills, and strategies in the following process: • Determine the purpose for listening • Focus attention and choose listening strategies appropriate to the purpose • Monitor comprehension, adjusting listening strategies as needed • Integrate new information with prior knowledge to address the listening purpose

34. Teaching with the Listen Actively Standard • Example 1: KWL activity - Level 4 (see handout) • Students drew on prior knowledge; • And, integrated new information with prior knowledge to address the listening purpose by answering the questions. • Example 2: Preparing to Listen Document - Level 2BRW (see handout) • By preparing to listen, students determined the purpose for listening. • Listening comprehension strategies were explicitly taught.

35. The Read with Understanding Standard • Using theRead with Understanding Standard, students met many of the benchmarks for appropriate levels 2-6. • Adult learners read diverse texts for a variety of purposes, integrating their knowledge, skills, and strategies in the following process: • Determine the reading purpose • Select and use reading strategies appropriate to the purpose the content and reflect on the underlying meanings • Analyze the content and reflect on the underlying meanings • Integrate the content with prior knowledge to address the reading purpose

36. Teaching with the Read with Understanding Standard • Example 1: Reading food labels in class and with guest Speaker • Students analyzed the content and reflected on the underlying meanings –is this really healthy? How much fat? How many calories? • Example 2: Identifying and researching family illnesses ( Level 5) on internet and coming up diet and other lifestyle changes to prevent illnesses. • Students integrated the content with prior knowledge to address the reading purpose.

37. Teaching with the Read with Understanding Standard • In 2013, two instructors were attending the Read with Understanding Institute and were more prepared to use the standard in the nutrition unit. • Level 3 students learned and used reading strategies and monitoring comprehension strategies. • Level 4 students learned and used reading strategies to make predictions about the content of the articles they read.

38. Lane’s Core College Outcomes:Think Critically • In order to demonstrate the ability to think critically a student must: • Identify and define key issues • Demonstrate knowledge of the context and complexity of the issue • Integrate other relevant points of view of the issue • Analyze supporting evidence, data and specific details • Construct appropriate and defensible reasoning to draw conclusions.

39. Integrating Critical Thinking • Teachers changed approach and asked more open ended type questions and held more discussions • This helped students identify and define key issues; • And, demonstrate knowledge of the context and complexity of the issue. • Also, students listened to other relevant points of view of the issue in hopes that they could see more than 1 side of an issue.

40. Integrating Critical Thinking • In some classes, students wrote in journals about what they ate and why they made those choices. • In other classes, they answered reflective questions on the back of their food diaries, about what they were eating and why and how they were using and applying the information they learned in class to diets. • This allowed students to demonstrate knowledge of the context and complexity of the issue. • And analyze supporting evidence, data and specific details • Finally, these guiding questions gave students the opportunity to construct reasoning to draw conclusions.

41. ELCivics, Learning Standards and Critical Thinking: How do they correlate? • Oregon ABE Learning Standards specifically indicate the need to use critical thinking skills to achieve benchmarks and sub-benchmarks. • Some but not all the key words that appear in the standards referring to critical thinking : • Identify • Analyze • Synthesize • Evaluate • Draw conclusions • Critique • Make connections • I dare you to look and find even more!

42. ELCivics, Learning Standards and Critical Thinking: How do they correlate? • Critical thinking skills are used and developed in achieving EL/Civics Language and Literacy Objectives in Nutrition. • Key words appear in LLO’s referring to critical thinking: • Identify • Interpret. • EL/Civics Language and Learning Objective #10 states that students will “prepare to listen to a guest by writing questions. • This is a key component of the Listen Actively Standard

43. ELCivics, Learning Standards and Critical Thinking Outcomes • In the end, we realized that we weren’t really doing three different things, but instead looking at the same class activities through three different lenses. • It was simply a matter of reframing what we did with the different outcomes, objectives and standards. • See Handout on wiki.

44. Challenges: Classroom • It was a new topic for teachers—huge amount of materials and many areas of focus; We had trouble staying on track. • It was difficult finding and coordinating speakers and staffing for screening clinic. • In some classes, the topic was covered over a longer span 3-4 weeks and keeping students interested was difficult.

45. Challenges: Classroom • We realized that we needed to do more pre-teaching; not assume students didn’t know as much as we assumed they knew about nutrition. • We tried to do it all and do it right!!!!

46. Challenges: Assessing Critical Thinking • Difficulty of assessing critical thinking skills in writing samples of lower level students. • How do you identify elements of critical thinking when the language output is limited by lack of proficiency in English? • Can you really imply from writing that students used and were developing these skills? • Difficulty of assessing critical thinking skills through discussions. • Wished I could record them---too much trouble. • Ended up taking notes on BB and summarizing from memory.

47. Success: Enthusiastic Responses!2012 and 2103 • ESL students responded positively to Nutrition speaker and BP/Glucose Screening Clinic activities. • Guest Speaker and LCC MOA and Nursing students also responded very positively to coming and working with our students. • They all want to come backcame back Winter 2013 and loved working with our students!

48. Success: High Student Interest2012 and 2013 • Students said they appreciated information from speakers and the screening clinics. • Asked many questions during both activities. • And, even remembered information from the presentation weeks later!!!

49. Success: Students’ Comments- 2012 • One student said she didn’t eat unhealthy foods because she didn’t want to write it on the food log!! • Other students reported that it was difficult to eat healthy and work full-time. • One student said he didn’t like having to look at the label because he wanted to eat what he wanted to eat, not what was “healthy”.

50. ??????????????? • Questions? • Handouts/web resources on wiki: • http://daudtbakshiresearch.pbworks.com