Class Orientation 2-19-2014

The instructor for the course that meets from 6-9PM Monday, Wednesday and Friday is Jason Guzman, the program Director is Wynne Ferdinand and the Program Coordinator is Dana. I am to attend Monday class. I started the evening by meeting with Wynne. We went over the Program and signed the contract. I set my dates for the nights I will teach: 3/17, 3/31, 4/4, and 4/28. Since the lesson plans need to be reviewed 10 days in advance, my lesson plan submit dates are 3/7, 3/21, 4/4, 4/18.

Wynne Ferdinand and Dana (Program Coordinator) introduced themselves to the students in the beginning of class time.

Jason handed out a questionnaire to people entering the class. The questionnaire had 3 questions asking the students to share their personal, academic and career goals, a proud achievement, and a personal interest. He then asked the students to share with a partner what they had written and then introduce their partner to the class. Jason followed this by listing on the smart board the itinerary for the class which was: Introductions, Marshmallow Challenge, Reflection, Syllabus and Homework: How to mark up a book, and then he wrapped up the evening schedule with questions. He then announced that Christina is a counselor that leads workshops, maps out plans for next steps after high school equivalency exams are taken. I got the impression that Dana and Christina did the same thing.

There are 36 students in the class. Most of them are in their 20's. Jason had everybody sign in and then he asked that everybody write and sport a name tag. The demeanor of the class was happy and eager.

At 6:50 Jason introduced the class to the next team building activity which he called The Marshmallow Challenge. He created groups of 4; he passed out 20 spaghetti sticks, 1 yard of tape, 1 yard of string and a marshmallow. The challenge was to create the tallest structure within 18 minutes. This was fun. The group that I was closest to, and therefore the group that I observed the most, started to have members stand out by taking control and yet working seamlessly with their team mates. It was interesting to see who started to lead the groups. The level of interpersonal skills was very high within the members of this class. After the activity, Jason had everybody write up their reflections about the activity and share them with each other. The reflection questions probed the process of working together.

The effect of using 2 team building exercises was that while everybody was pretty stiff in their introductions of each other initially, by the second activity the students had lost a lot of the stiffness while focusing on completing their projects.  Also, the ridiculousness of the spaghetti’s being inadequate building supports created laughter and challenge.

We took a break at 7:30 and then at 7:40 Jason started the class up with the syllabus and a syllabus scavenger hunt.  Jason introduced the syllabus as an item that they would need to be familiar with at the college level.  Everybody was given time to read the syllabus and answer the syllabus scavenger hunt.  This was an excellent tool to highlight the important items on the syllabus, especially for people that might not initially understand the importance of this document in a college classroom setting.  Jason’s syllabus is dazzlingly complete and it also included a learning agreement that required student signatures and handing in the document at the end of class.  It is obvious that Jason took great care with this document.  It covers everything the students needed to know about the program as well as the class.  It also included a sheet that allowed the students to get 5 names and contact information from other students.

At 8PM Jason posted the class website on the smart board and showed everybody how to work it.  At this time he started explaining the program as a part of the orientation.  Jason explained that TASC stood for Test Assessing Secondary Completion.  He explained the bridge program was much more than taking the GED/TASC tests.  The purpose of the bridge program was to facilitate college entrance with the short term goal to pass the GED.  The focus of the class will be on problem solving and working in groups.  The program will culminate in helping each student develop a plan to move forward to college applications through the Program Coordinator.  Jason stated that half of the class is on math.  Books with homework worksheets and ID’s will be provided in about 3 weeks.  Many students were eager to take advantage of the college facilities like the dance programs, gym, pool and libraries.  Jason stated that the class is project driven and the class structure would consist of: warm up, group talk, lesson taught, group project to wrap up lesson and reflection.  Attendance was highlighted as very strict and that missing a couple of classes could get a student expelled from the program.  The students will be evaluated by attendance, essays and quizzes.  A portfolio of all a student’s work is due at the end of the semester.  Jason showed an example of a portfolio submission on the smart board and spoke about another student that submitted his portfolio by taking pictures of all the work and submitting the portfolio digitally.

At 8:40 Jason took questions.  He talked about Daniel, the available tutor in room C409 from 1-6 PM, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  He explained the homework which is a reading on how to mark up, and a worksheet that needed to be done by the next day class.  He asked people to make sure that they had exchanged names with at least 5 or 6 people.  He stated that this was new approach he was using to make sure that students had several ways of getting information.  He culminated the class by asking everybody to hand him the signed learning contract.

At the very end, the students asked Jason to sell the Bridge Program to them.  They engaged in post purchase behavior by asking Jason what the success rate was for the program.  Jason responded that the Bridge Program had the best success rates to date in comparison with other GED programs.  I found this very interesting.  These students were fully invested in their success.  They wanted to know they had made the right decision.

Laguardia Community College has differentiated itself with the GED Bridge Program by offering a product with a much higher success rate than similar programs.  They are filling a need with a program that is focused on the ultimate goal of college entry and career and have structured a longer and more intensive learning cycle to help students reach their long range goals.  If I needed a high school equivalency, I would apply to this program.

I am very excited to be included in this experience and I look forward to developing teaching skills in this independent study.  I feel fortunate to be surrounded by the excellent staff charged with the success of this innovative program.

Finally, I have one insight to offer the bridge program coordinators.  I am sure there is a good reason for this, but I think that it would have been helpful to the students to have all of their materials, books and ID’s, at the time of the orientation and not 3 weeks into the semester.   When Jason had people tell a little about themselves as part of the introductions, one factor that leaps out is how little time the students have.  I think that to have all materials before the first class/orientation has started would be important to me if I was one of the students.  At least by the first class, I want to have a very good understanding of the daily school work load in order to better time manage a successful outcome, which would be to pass the high school equivalency and get into college.