Transforming the ESL Sequence: A Report from the First Year

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2. Transforming the ESL Sequence: A Report from the First Year

3. Why the Change?

4. External Pressures

5. Budget Cuts

6. Financial Aid Cuts and Restrictions

7. District-Wide ESL Faculty Retreat March 2011

8. The New Peralta ESL Curriculum

9. Combined Reading and Writing

10. Change from 6 levels to 4:

11. Change from 4 to 3 Skill Areas

12. The Strands • 6 skill strands in addition to language objectives run through all main courses at all levels

13. Critical Thinking

14. Information Literacy: Computer Skills/Research

15. Intercultural Communication and U.S. Culture

16. Sentence Level Accuracy

17. Comprehension (Reading/Listening) and Production (Writing/Speaking)

18. 4-8 level A/B system for flexible acceleration

19. Visualization #1 of the A/B plan: Accordion

20. Visualization #1 of the A/B plan: Accordion HIGH INT A ADV A INT A HIGH BEG A HIGH INT B ADV B INT B • HIGH BEG B STUDENT ADVANCING FAST

21. Visualization #1 of the A/B plan: Accordion HIGH INT A ADV A INT A • HIGH BEG A HIGH INT B ADV B INT B • HIGH BEG B STUDENT ADVANCING SLOWER

22. Visualization #1 of the A/B plan: Accordion HIGH INT A ADV A INT A • HIGH BEG A HIGH INT B ADV B INT B • HIGH BEG B STUDENT ADJUSTING TO PROGRESS

23. Visualization #2 of the A/B plan: Stairs STUDENT ADVANCING FASTER

24. Visualization #2 of the A/B plan: Stairs STUDENT ADVANCING SLOWER

25. Visualization #2 of the A/B plan: Stairs STUDENT ADJUSTING TO PROGRESS

26. Other features of A/B system: • All students initially test into an A level • B levels are only for those who have passed A and are not ready for the next A level • Students taking A and B of a level are in class together and are only identified on the roster • Attempt to alternate, not repeat instructors/ materials if possible

27. Example: 3 students toward the end of High Intermediate A Advanced A Got it! Ready to move ahead! High Intermediate B • I worked hard and even got a C+, but I can’t really perform all of the SLOs. High Intermediate A • Wow! That was too hard! I got a D or an F.

28. June/August 2011: mapped out levels and strands

29. August 2011-February 2012: • wrote 24 new course outlines, entered in Curricunet, and passed them through all relevant committees

30. Fall 2012

31. Report from the 1st Year: Data • The new curriculum was implemented at all Peralta Colleges in Fall 2012 • All ESL students started out in an A course at one of four levels: • High-Beginning • Intermediate • High-Intermediate • Advanced • All students participated in a common assessment used to determine placement for Spring 2013

32. Questions • How many students accelerated at each level? • How many students progressed to the B course? • When students accelerated, how did they do?

33. Laney College Fall 2012 R/W Students R/W Courses Taken Spring 2013

34. How did the students who accelerated in Spring 2013 do? Laney College High-Beg. Students who accelerated to Intermediate (Success rate in Intermediate Fall 2012= 83.16%) Intermediate Students who accelerated to High-Intermediate (Success rate in High-Intermediate Fall 2012 = 79.07%)

35. How did the students who accelerated in Spring 2013 do? Laney College High-Int. Students who accelerated to Advanced (Success rate in Advanced Fall 2012= 77.84%) Berkeley City College High-Int. Students who accelerated to Advanced (Success rate in Advanced Fall 2012 = 83.6%)

36. How did the students who accelerated in Spring 2013 do? Laney College Advanced Students who accelerated to English 1A (Success rate in English 1A Fall 2012= 62.16%) Berkeley City College Advanced Students who accelerated to English 1A (Success rate in English 1A Fall 2012 = 64.05%)

37. So, how many students accelerated? • At all levels, more students accelerated than did not • More students accelerated at the first three levels than did at the highest level • A significant number of students did not continue in the sequence in Spring 2013 (averaging around 37% for the first three levels and increasing to 57% one level below transfer)

38. When students accelerated, how did they do? • The success rates for students who accelerated into the the A course of the next level in Spring 2013 for the three levels below English 1A (transfer) are pretty consistent with the success rates for those courses in Fall 2012 at both colleges • The success rates of the students who accelerated from Advanced A to English 1A were exactly 28 percentage points higher at both colleges than the respective success rates in English 1A for Fall 2012

39. BCC Portfolio Assessment Results • All Reading & Comp classes • Pieces scored together: • Short (3-5pp) research paper using “Academically Acceptable Sources,” including databases • 2 hour in-class essay: summary/response to a short, college-level essay or excerpt • “Dead Week” Scoring sessions with extensive norming

40. First Portfolio Assessment Results

41. The Old ESL Program Writing Focus by Level • English 1A: • College-level persuasive essays • One 10-page research paper

42. % of students scoring Acceptable-Excellent on the English/ESL Common Portfolio Assessment Spring 11 vs. Spring 13

43. top level of ESL (1-below transfer) spring 11 vs. spring 13

44. What were the outcomes of integrating reading & writing? • 88% faculty said integrating r/w increased intellectual rigor to a moderate degree or more • 61% positive 17% neutral and 12% negative experience overall new curriculum

45. Student perception:

46. Instructor perception 88% faculty said integrating r/w increased intellectual rigor to a moderate degree or more “Allows for more interesting and meaningful assignments that engage students better and more opportunities for recycling target skills.”

47. Language learning is a spiral, not a pyramid • Contextualization and acceleration go hand-in-hand

48. How Did Faculty Respondto the District-Wide Redesign? • Most satisfied; some: just too much work • most: students benefit greatly from being allowed to progress at their own speed; some: students learn less well when they are being “pushed” to accelerate

49. Positive Outcomes: Professional Development/Collaboration • PD in-house • PD well attended • 70% of faculty say quality of PD has increased a moderate amount or more • Collaboration among faculty has increased: 79% say “a great deal or a lot” “I learn from my colleagues and students benefit from multiple teachers’ experience in collaborative assignments” Being held to standards and collaborating “has made me a better teacher”

50. Positive Outcomes in the classroom • Faculty say they are more excited about and stimulated by teaching now • Integrating skills is a more realistic college experience