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.

My First Lesson

I met with Jason and Wynne at 5PM yesterday.  We met to look over my lesson plan to see if I could bring some class text into the lesson.  We came up with a way to use the Bricklayer’s Boy text and we decided that I could go ahead and teach my first class.

Wynne helped me with the copies of my work sheets and handouts. I went up to the class to post my lesson on the board as I have seen Jason do.  I posted under Grammar: Find Verb and Subjects. Start Subject Verb Agreement, Handouts: Worksheet, take home quiz, grammar in a nutshell.  And then the final activity was to work in groups and pick a sentence in Bricklayer’s Boy and find subject and verbs.

Jason posted on the board: Homework, Math workbook up to page 16, Bricklayer’s Boy for Wednesday, hand in math workbooks, grammar lesson and quiz.

Jason started the class with my lesson, and then Jason stopped me before I was finished with the first lesson as he needed time to give his quiz.  Jason thought that I threw too much information at the class.  Upon reviewing my 2 lesson plans, I realized that I probably had about a month of lessons in the 2 lessons.  We resolved that lesson 2 would be lesson 3 and that I would write another lesson plan for next week that would be about groups using the Bricklayer’s Boy as the text from which we perform grammar exercises that I have talked about in the first lesson.  I am worried about this, because we are in a level of grammar that I am uncomfortable teaching.

I thought I had created a lesson plan that was clear and easy to follow.  It was easy to follow, but grammar is not a clear process.  I was trying to stay as basic and simple with the subject matter to explain grammar rules.  The amount of rules that I discussed was too much and negated any simplicity that I might have brought to the process.  Also, I would not say that grammar is my area of expertise and this added to any confusion.  I did not feel confident in the subject matter.

I did feel comfortable teaching.  I will be great at this once I iron out the teaching kinks, such as lesson pacing, and find a subject matter that I am comfortable with.  I realize that practicing teaching is important and that good teachers are understated in their product delivery; the product being the information conveyed on a topic to a group of people so that they are able perform using this new knowledge.  Good teachers seem to softly coax understanding.  I see Jason do this over and over again.

After I finished my lesson, Jason had the class take a break and then handed out the open note quiz which took the rest of the class.  The quiz was no joke.  It focused on their new summarization skills and their math skills including division.  Jason gently brought the knowledge in the class and yet there was nothing gentle about the quiz. 

I spent the rest of the class redesigning my 2^nd lesson.

Blog 3 Class March 3, 2014

Blog 3

I met with Jason and Wynne before class started.  They both had taken a look at the draft I submitted regarding Lesson Plan 1 and 2.  I had decided to approach 2 lesson plans at the same time because the subject of how to find verbs and subjects and subject verb agreement worked very well with each other.  One had too little for one lesson, the other had too much for one lesson.  They both seemed to think that I needed to tie the lesson plans more closely to the class by contextualizing into the lesson plan some of the reading that had been done in class.  Jason suggested that I use the Bricklayer’s Boy text and that is what I am going to try to work with.

The class started at 6PM.  Posted on the Board was Homework:  Math workbook p 9-16 and Read and markup Bricklayer’s Boy.  Warm up:  Division and Math workbook.  Summary: Review, finish and present. Division Project: Note and begin. 

Jason started the class with math division.    He posted on the board:

·         Checking your answer – see if your answer is reasonable and it is what the question is asking for.

·         Estimating

·         Chart/table/organizing info – Benchmark percents

·         Understand the Question – scale problem

·         He passed out division warm up

Jason passed out the attendance sheet.  I noticed that a lot of people were trickling in the first half hour. 

Jason opens the class asking if there were any problems with page 8 out of the math workbook.  He wanted people to share the problems that they had with the class.  Students started posting their homework problems on the board and the class started discussing problem solving approaches.  At about 6:32 Jason started the lesson on division and long division.  One of the strategies he showed the class, was to take an abstract situation and represent it with pictures.  He showed how to do long division.  He came up with a strategy to divide, multiply, subtract and bring down.  He showed how to deal with remainders and remainders that had no end.  He showed how to do long division with decimal points.

At 7:10 math ended and he had the class re-form into groups to continue the lesson on summarization.  The article the class has been reading, “Worth the Investment,” was the text that would be used for the summarization exercise.  At 7:22 Jason recaps the lessons the students have already learned and creates a graphic organizer on the board titled Summarizing.  The topic sentence was the first box followed by a series of boxes that were focusing on the major points.  After he drew the graphic organizer, Jason pointed out to the class that the topic sentence might be done last as it represented the main idea.  He also talked about the use of transitional devices that acted like mortar between the bricks, which were the main ideas.  He asked the class to use mark-ups to help students establish the major points.  Jason initially asked to have this within 10 minutes and then he wanted the groups to start to post their group findings on chart paper.  However, the process of marking up took a lot longer for the groups to accomplish and the process of posting on chart paper and then going over all the posts took the rest of class time.  He wanted the students to highlight in other peoples work, by using post its, transitional devices used, topic sentences and similarities or differences between the various summaries.  The students did a great job in establishing the main points and main topic of the reading.  Jason pushed the students hard to take the initiative in speaking up and critiquing their classmates work.  He used prompts to give them ideas as possible points of discussion.  The class was having a hard time weaning themselves from Jason’s prompts.  Jason pushed through by starting to say things like, I know you guys must be tired of listening to me, or I’m not going to say anything, you guys take over.  Then there would be silence and Jason would kick start the process again.  As people were gathering their things to leave Jason talked about the homework due for the next class.