LaGuardia Community College Interevaluation Questionnaire

Blog 11

The Fourth Lesson

For the fourth lesson I continued using the text Pros and Cons: Increasing minimum wages.  Since in lesson 2 and lesson 3 we had written summaries about the 2 articles and the students were familiar with the text, I decided to work towards a persuasive writing assignment.  The text was invaluable because it made the students excited about the topic.  When in lesson 3 they read about the cons of raising minimum wage, I think that they were impressed with the arguments made in this article.  So in order to find out if the students had been swayed one way or another, I went for a persuasive piece that allowed them to express themselves. 

When Jason and I met Monday before class, Jason helped me to construct a stellar visual organizer through redoing my evidence collection handout.  He created a box at the top which allowed for entering the main claim.  This was followed by 3 more boxes that were asking for evidence and explanation.  Jason’s reconstructed handout made a huge difference.  It really provided a tool that broke down the writing so that it was almost automatic once the information for the handout had been collected.

While I was giving the lesson, Jason did something different than he had done before.  He jumped in at appropriate times guiding me about things that I was not getting.  What I understood very well after giving the lesson is that the concept of claim, evidence and explanation had to be explained many, many times.  Jason recommended that I start with an I do, you do, we do approach.  I went to the board and entered in an example of a main claim which was followed by my example of evidence and explanation.  We then broke the class down in groups so that they could fill out this handout together.  I was surprised about how challenging this was for them.  But as I thought about it, I have just taken a writing class in the fall semester with Mark McBeth.  I remember being similarly confused while writing my first academic paper in his class.  Jason and I both went around to the different groups helping to clarify the claim, evidence and explanations we were asking from them.  I then asked them to post their work on chart paper.  We continued to go over these concepts while reading each other’s work.  Jason pointed out to me while they were posting their work on chart paper that in many cases there was a hazy line between evidence and explanation.  I tried to hone in on this confusion while we were discussing each other charts.

To finish off the lesson, I asked the students to keep this handout as we would be using it next week to complete the lesson with the persuasive writing.  I had them observe that the handout was a map for how they were going to write the persuasive piece next week.

Although I am teaching a fifth lesson next week, Jason brought me deep into the teaching process.  I was really able to understand how a lesson needed to be scaffolded and how by observing how I and the students were doing during the lesson, I was able to understand when I could move on to the next step.  This observation process is hard for a neophyte educator to put into their teaching because you have to veer your attention away from what you as a teacher have planned.  You have to jump from your plan and really try to see what is going on with the students.  What I loved about teaching this lesson is that Jason forced me to do this.

In our class discussions about what had been posted on the chart paper it became clear that many of them had been swayed by the cons argument.  I cannot wait to see next week’s persuasive writing pieces.

My Second Teaching Experience

My Second Teaching Experience

Thankfully Wynne provided me with the text last week that I used for this week’s lesson.  The text was obtained from the site Newslea.com which allows one to adapt the text level to the student being taught.  The article that Wynne selected is PRO/CON:  Should workers in fast food restaurants make more money?  I decided to split the lesson into 2, one week I would do the pros and the next week I am going to do the cons.  I provided 2 handouts, one that allowed the student to gather evidence for the next handout which was a summary of what they read.  I also used Barbara Gleason’s suggestion of creating a timed lesson plan.  The lesson was timed as follows:  5 minutes explanation of task, 10 minutes reading and marking up the text, 15 minutes establishing the evidence, 15 minutes for each group to pick a piece of evidence and post it on the board for their group and discuss, and 15 minutes to write the summary. 

The text, although it used easy words, was rather shallow on the evidence.  The evidence consisted mostly of author claims that were largely unsupported.  I think that this was a difficult text, because as a writer, you had to latch onto the flimsiest statements to use as a basis for a summary.  I think that this was a fantastic challenge to the class, because it allowed for confidence building.  Even with the flimsiest statements, the class succeeded in finding the evidence.  I was impressed.

I realized the flimsiness of the text while I was teaching.  The whole time I was putting it together it looked great in terms of it being an appropriate level of text for the class.  Being able to find materials to teach with is the hard part of lesson planning.   I realize that teaching is similar to writing in that as you are engaged in the process, unpredictable learning occurs.

I collected the essays and I have read through them.  Jason coached me to read through them, write one good thing that I observe and then to make a list of these observations to that I could use this as a basis for a class discussion before we move onto the Cons. 

When I was being told about what is required from me to complete this class, the 4 lesson plans equated in my head to 4 essays.  Nothing could have been further form the truth.  Lesson plans may not look complex, but they are very complex in terms of implementation.  The idea of the lesson plan is to put together a strategy to teach something.  The effectiveness of the lesson has to be based on the student understanding what you initially set out to teach them and this perhaps should be measured after you have tried to teach the point in several ways.

I have spent so many years observing teaching, and yet I am such a beginner teacher.  I am thankful to Wynne and Jason for their excellent coaching.  I feel that I took a leap in the 2^nd lesson.

Why Do We Not Know Who Our Heroes Are?

Why Do We Not Know Who Our Heroes Are?

I interviewed Dana yesterday before class to find out what a student had to do to be lucky enough to be accepted into the LaGuardia Community College GED Bridge to Business and Health Program.  She explained that when they receive a call from a potential student, they steer applicants to an online registration from which they get about 600 applications.  They ask these students to come in for 3 days prior to entering the program, and if the student can be present for the 3 days before admittance, then they are in.  The first day the students are given a TABE, which is a reading assessment and writing exercise.  The test is constructed in such a way that the student first takes a TABE pre test, from which the instructor discerns whether they should get either one of the 3 booklets marked E, M or D (Dana thought this might stand for Easy, Medium or Difficult).  From there the results indicate whether the student is eligible for the Bridge program, which requires a 5^th grade reading level and above.  If they are below this level, then they are invited to join the BE2 (Basic Adult 2) program, which can get the student up to the level of the Bridge program.  Of the 600 applicants, about 200 students make it to the 3 day registration.  I noticed about 36 students at the beginning of the class that I participate in, of which there are about 26 students left.  Of the people that initially join the class, 63% percent receive their GED and about 65% of these students go onto college.  Although the students are admitted tuition free, Wynne states that the cost per student is probably around $3000.

Our culture seems to think that it is ok to worship glitterati, or people that have come to national and international attention that do not merit, or barely merit, the accolades bestowed on them.  And yet the designers, implementers and users of the LaGuardia Bridge program go unnoticed outside of the academic community.  It is programs like these that make America awesome and they are world demographic shifters, giving people reasons to come to the United States.  The Bridge program allows unlimited chances for an adult to receive an education, and this kind of opportunity is internationally rare.  It was the adult schooling opportunities that my French mother took advantage of when she first got here 54 years ago.  She earned her PhD. in neuropsychology and I watched her go to classes throughout my teen years.  I know what a LaGuardia Bridge student has to go through to earn their academic successes, and the students that take advantage of an incredible product offering are incredible themselves for knowing what they need to do and making it happen.  It is the designers, the implementers and the students of this and other like programs that are our real national and international heroes. 

One Thousand Words





One Thousand Words

 

The collage below was taken Monday, March 24, 2014, during a class of the GED Business Bridge Program at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY).  The collage gives a sense of how the three hour class works. The instructor helps to coordinate the lesson with an assignment. The classroom is structured to accommodate groups of three people who gather together to arrive at solutions.  Once the group is confident with their work, usually one student designated by the group posts their findings on chart paper.  Some of the students spend 45 minutes detailing the charts and when all of these documents are seen together they create a memorable gallery of the art of learning.



 

Essay Introduction and Institutional Context

Introduction

The Language and Literacy Masters Program at City College of New York is an excellent educational venue for those people that have accumulated a lifetimes worth of experience and are looking for a way to channel back their hard won expertise to others.  Part of the education that City College is offering me is a class that is an independent study at LaGuardia Community College’s GED Bridge to Health and Business Program.  The program differentiates itself from other high school equivalency programs in that it offers the student a pathway directly to a college program or career training. For many of us, schooling is not an option, and if the opportunity ever presents itself, then it is most likely outside of the traditional student experience.  As a result, those students are, more often than not, packaging their own academic experience, and crafting their own career path with limited success.  LaGuardia Community College has observed an educational market niche in which students are under served.  As a result, the college has combined a GED program that entails three times the normal time spent in other programs along with career counseling, built in tutors and nuts and bolts type of support, such as helping students fill out college applications.  In other words, the college has created a program that has addressed flaws of similar less comprehensive programs to enhance the success rates of nontraditional students in their quest for a better life.

The Bridge program uses a contextualized approach to teaching lessons.  The readings tie into what the student wants to know about, business or health, and they are used as a basis for developing academic skills, such as how to mark up a text to be able to find the important points in a narrative, how to summarize, and the difference between subjective and objective statements.  The initial readings used provided a basis for the discussion about the value of school.  So while students were learning to mark up, they are also being informed and developing opinions about the process they are going through as well as developing realistic expectations about what life will be like with achieved academic certificates in hand.  The style of the class is a combination of formal and informal school settings.  The instructor may spend time teaching a point as you would find in a traditional classroom, but it is a brief lesson, and from there the class style is to move into groups of three or four people, where the students use each other to fight for understanding of the subject matter.  The instructor moves from group to group and provides support by noticing where he is needed to help move a group forward.  The process always culminates by the groups posting their work on the classroom walls with each group taking turns and explaining to the class their findings.  After 7 to 10 groups have presented their results, a lesson has taken place.

The Bridge program designers have based their teaching approach on characteristics of adult learners.  Andragogy, an adult learning theory developed by Malcolm S, Knowles, is based on the premise that there are significant differences between adult and children learners (Knowles 34-35).  There has been much academic discussion regarding the adult learner and this dialogue has led to establishing teaching guidelines that are oriented to the success of the adult student.  The adult learner characteristics are covered more fully in the section below on Adult Learning Theories, but the idea is to adapt teaching styles to effectively reach the targeted student.  Elements of the Bridge Program style of teaching that are easily identifiable as adult student oriented are the use of peer learning groups, learning contracts, and providing learner support after the initial training in the form of coaching, study teams, and opportunities to learn by watching colleagues perform (Cercone 154-155).

The LaGuardia Community College GED Bridge to Heath and Business program is a study in how to best move forward the striving adult student.  Being included in the classroom as an observer has been a privilege offered to this adult student and the experience has changed my view and deepened my respect for adult teaching and adult learners.

LaGuardia Community College’s GED Bridge to Health and Business Program

MDRC and LaGuardia Community College of the City of New York (CUNY) have partnered to create a program for adult students that have yet to obtain high school graduation credentials.  The program is much wider in scope than other GED programs because it has as a goal of not only obtaining the high school certificate for the student, but to also help them to successfully navigate their way into a college and training programs (Martin 1).   ”MDRC is an organization that attempts to inform social policy, find solutions for reducing poverty, bolsters economic self sufficiency, and improves public education and graduation rates.  They design promising new interventions, evaluate existing programs using the highest research standards, and provide technical assistance to build better programs and deliver effective interventions. They work as an intermediary, bringing together public and private funders to test new policy-relevant ideas, and communicate what is learned to policymakers and practitioners — all with the goal of improving the lives of low-income individuals, families, and children”  (MDRC.org). 

This dove tails well with what LaGuardia Community College is known for:  “A nationally recognized expert at pioneering innovative programs and initiatives that are rebuilding the middle class. The faculty and staff dare to do more every day – so that students can write their own futures, immigrants can achieve their dreams, and small businesses learn how to grow and thrive” (laguardia.cuny.edu/home/).  These two organizations formed an alliance with financial support from the Robin Hood Foundation and the MetLife Foundation to launch a small but rigorous study of the GED Bridge to Health and Business program, which focuses specifically on GED curriculum, program design and efforts to forge a stronger link to college and career training (Martin 1).  One year after enrolling in the program, Bridge students are far more likely to have completed the course, passed the GED exam, and enrolled in college than students in more traditional programs (Martin 2).  The Bridge program requires students to attend more hours in class and receive intensive advising from a full time Bridge staff (Martin 2).  The full time Bridge staff members at LaGuardia are, Wynne Ferdinand, the Assistant Director, Jason Guzman, the instructor, Christina Stang, the Transitional Counselor, and Dana Kitzes, the Coordinator.  Wynne Administrates the program, Jason teaches the program and Christine and Dana help the Bridge students target colleges, find loans and fill out college applications.

 The GED Bridge curriculum differs from other programs through their use of a contextualized curriculum with two broad goals:  To build skills that are tested on the GED exam through the use of content specific to a field of interest in health care or business, and to develop general academic habits that prepare students to succeed in college and training programs (Martin 2). 

Works Cited

Knowles, Malcolm, and Madison, WI. American Society for Training and Development. The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species. n.p.: 1973. ERIC. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

Cercone, Kathleen. "Characteristics Of Adult Learners With Implications For Online Learning Design." AACE Journal 16.2 (2008): 137-159. ERIC. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

Martin, Vanessa and Broadus, George.  MDRC. Enhancing GED Instruction to Prepare Students for College and Careers. New York City: MDRC, 2013. Print. 

"Mdrc | Building Knowledge to Improve Social Policy." MDRC. MDRC, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.  (http://www.mdrc.org)

"LaGuardia Community College." LaGuardia Community College. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. (http://www.laguardia.cuny.edu/About/Welcome-Message/)

Learning to Learn

I met with Wynne and Jason yesterday at 5PM.  We discussed the lesson plans.  I am not able to spend 30 hours spinning my wheels accomplishing nothing and I believed that is where I was at as I received Wynne’s comments on my third lesson plan.  I believed that I was allowed to go forward and create meaningless or flawed lesson plans and that I was getting direction way too late in the game.  This caused me a great deal of anxiety, as I was planning on using the lesson plans as material that I could present in a job interview.  I believed yesterday that although I had spent the time, I did not have the goods. 

The questions that I had for both Wynne and Jason were, why don’t I have 1000’s of examples of lesson plans?  There must be droves of books about this topic and why am I working with one lesson plan sample from Jason that apparently does not reflect the type of content LaGuardia CC would like to see in a lesson plan.  Maybe this is all a person with an Education background needs as they have had multiple exposures to lesson plans.  Also, I was wondering why I never got the class curriculum as to what is planned for teaching everyday of the class.  It is difficult for me to tie into the class now or at a later date with ideas for lessons or lesson plans if I don’t know what everybody is going to be doing.  Also, I asked why I had not seen a copy of the test that the students would eventually take.  My idea there is to take the test and work into a lesson plan backwards.  This seems to me to be a very efficient way to get students to know the material that they will have to know for the test. Wynne was holding the sample test document in her hand, but she did not share it with me.  I am supposing that the document was meant to be seen by limited eyes only, but I was not told this, I assumed.  I understood from the meeting that my reaction was unexpected and perhaps surprising.  From this I took away that I had overreacted and that I should calm down.  Wynne suggested that we did not need to stick with the lesson plan schedule that we had initially agreed upon and for the next week I would concentrate on the half of a paper due.  I resolved to stay in the class on faith.

For the evening class I tried something new.  I sat in a different part of class. When I taught my lesson last week, there were the standard 2-3 participators that would raise their hand for every invitation to do so.  So I sat next to 2 of these students and I managed to get into a group with both of them.  Jordan, Stacy and Said were gracious enough to let me chime in.  I noticed that not all groups would allow me in necessarily per my other class visits.   The latter half of the class, they were working with a graphic organizer to help them learn the difference between objective and subjective writing.  They were using the Bricklayers’ Boy as their text and they were asked to write about what the father, and then what the son thought about education.  All of them went through the text and painstakingly wrote down all of the sentences that gave some indication of what the father and the son thought.  Although this was a slow process, the group was systematic and combed the text for all that applied.  Then it came to the subjective part and I noticed a real slow down in output.  For Jordan, he would put down an interpretation of the text and not be able to expand on it.  I understood this, because this is a problem that I have in writing.  It is a very tight feeling inside and you are wondering why you need to write anything more, isn’t what I wrote explanation enough.  So I shared with him that I understood how he felt because I believe that I have to overcome the same hurdle when I write.  And so I tried to help him get to the supporting explanation of his top sentence.  He would look like he understood, then he would move forward to write something and then retract without writing anything.  This went on for 10 minutes.   At one point he looked like he knew what he wanted to say and then started writing something that was off the mark.  The whole time, I was trying to prompt him to move forward in a soft way with appropriate questions about the text.  The other two, Said and Stacy, also took their time but they were better able to plod through.  The three of them used each other for the objective part and they used each other for the subjective part and Said and Stacy kept of writing, but not Jordan.  This could have meant a couple of different things.  Maybe Jordan was too kind to say to me that I was not helping him and I should just let him get it out on his own.  Or maybe he really could not get it out and the little that I offered him may have helped.  Without my prompting, he stated that it had been helpful when I left.  Again, this was either because he is kind or maybe I did help.

After having just gone through a major learning frustration myself, I was marveling at Jordan’s composure.

I was also able to look at their math workbook in which they were working on negatives and positives.  Said, really had a handle on the division and multiplication.  I was looking at his addition and subtraction and found an error.  They told me that they found the addition and subtraction harder than the multiplication and division.

Some of the students are saying hello to me when I walk in.  They seem to be easier with me after I gave my lesson.  I think they are aware that I am in the same boat they are.