Faculty Development

During the past year, we met our milestones for WI courses designed (19), courses piloted (10), and additional sections implemented (8).

The most important change during the past year in faculty development was the addition of a second faculty development opportunity for faculty who are new to teaching a writing intensive course section but who are not developing a new WI course.

During year 4, we will pilot five new WI courses, but three of those (Math 101 & 105 and Biology 101) began development during the 2010 summer session. With only one additional WI course required (though we anticipate that several others will ultimately be developed), the bulk of our institutes from this point onward will be for new faculty taking on an already developed WI course.

The term faculty “institute” may be a misnomer at this point. They have evolved from the initial 4-day presentation-heavy format with more than twenty participants in 2008, to groups of 4 – 8 meeting for two days in a much more collegial and seminar-style setting.

There are now 43 instructors who have been through the instructional development process in writing, critical thinking, information literacy and have been introduced to our writing technologies.

In addition, as described in the grant for year 3, we have worked with area high school teachers.

“The Handbook for Developing Writing-Intensive Courses” is now in a “sixth edition” with significant revisions from the first version created from the materials used in the initial Faculty Institute in summer 2008.

For example, there had been concern last year that the “minimum requirements” for a WI course seemed unclear to some faculty. The handbook now clearly identifies the seven requirements both in the detailed portion of the handbook that is the “textbook” for Institutes, and on a single page in the appendix.

We have also written a “Handbook for New Faculty Teaching Established Writing-Intensive Courses” that has been used at two seminars for those new instructors. This is the text for those two-day sessions. (Both Handbooks are in the Appendices.)

We are also pleased that the College Writing Committee and the Professional Development Committee recently jointly presented a “Writing Across the Curriculum Roundtable” to the community as a forum for discussion on improving writing at PCCC.

Grant Year 3 Report

The year for our Writing Initiative ends at the close of October and so we are now into year 4 of the grant.

In the program narrative, 28 objectives are identified to be completed by the end of the five-year project period. During year three, the narrative directed the team to focus on the six specific objectives, which are summarized below and will be covered in more detail in future posts.

This past year the Team has worked with faculty to design seven new writing intensive (WI) courses. Five were piloted in year three and two are being piloted in the fall 2010 semester. We also trained 14 new WI instructors and launched 8 new sections of previously developed courses.

In addition to the program assessments done by Institutional Research, we have added our own course-based assessments of all WI courses offered through the artifacts in student ePortfolios.

We also conducted our first student and faculty surveys and focus groups following the spring 2010 semester.

In faculty development, we have now trained 38 full-time and part-time instructors in teaching WI courses and in using the technologies, critical thinking and information literacy.

We have served more than 600 WI students so far in the Writing Center, through one-on-one appointments and student workshops.

After the October 2009 visit by our outside evaluators, their report identified areas for improvement that included branding, the Task Force, writing rubric alignment, working with faculty, clarifying WI minimum requirements, faculty compensation and course-based assessment via portfolios.

We will address those areas in future posts as we prepare for our outside evaluation visit on November 30.

Writing Intensive Courses Offered for Spring 2011

Students at PCCC have a graduation requirement to pass with a "C" or better two writing-intensive courses prior to graduation. (Click here for specifics on requirements based on your degree program)

The following courses are Writing Intensive (WI) sections available for the spring 2011 semester. All WI sections are limited to 25 students, so register as early as possible. Students can only register for one WI course per semester.

Paterson Campus
BS 102 M01
CIS 101 M04
CT 101 ME1
EN 205 M02
ENS 106 M07
HI 102 ME2
MA 103 M01
PS 101 M03
SC 104 M01


Wanaque
CT 101 WE1
HI 102 W03

Passaic
EN 205 P01
PS 101 P02

Online Sections
AE 101 OL1
EN 212 OL1
HI 101 OL2
HI 202 OL1
MU 106 OL2
PH 101 OL1
PL 101 OL1
PS 101 OL3

A Writing Across the Curriculum Roundtable at PCCC

The College Writing Committee and the Professional Development Committee are presenting a Writing Across the Curriculum Roundtable on Thursday, November 18, 2010 from 3:30-4:30 PM in the Paterson Room in Academic Hall.

This is a forum for the discussion of ideas focused on improving writing across the curriculum at PCCC.

Topics will include:

• Journaling: Where Ideas Take Flight - Margaret Holland
• Dramatic Writing: Creating Scenes to Explore Topics - Mark Tambone
• A Creative Way to Teach Critical Thinking - John Fruncillo

No registration required. Bring your own writing ideas to share.

November College Writing Exam Dates

This month there will continue to be WALK-IN testing at the Paterson Campus ONLY.

1) No Appointment is required, but a PHOTO-ID is required.
2) You may appear any time during the time ranges listed below.
3) If you have taken the exam previously, you MUST bring an approval letter from the Writing Center to be allowed to retest.
4) Some sessions times are LIMITED to ONLY 5 seats on a first come, first served basis.
5) ONLY 1 test session per person per month is allowed.

The topic theme for November is"consumerism."


WALK-IN Testing Room E215, Paterson Campus
TEST DATES & TIMES

Nov 13th (Sat.)

9AM to 12PM


Nov 16th (Tue.)

9AM to 2PM

5PM to 6PM

Nov 17th (Wed.)

9AM to 2PM


Nov 18th (Thu.) - LIMITED

9AM to 2PM

5PM to 6PM

Nov 20th (Sat.) - LIMITED

9AM to 12PM

PCCC Writing Initiative Presenting at TYCA Conference

The Writing Initiative team and WI faculty fellows will have a major presence at the Two Year College Association (TYCA) Northeast regional conference next month. Five members of the PCCC community will be giving presentations.

"Capitol Improvements: The Two-Year College as an Agency of Change" will be held November 4-6, 2010 in Washington, DC. TYCA's regional conferences foster the intellectual and pedagogical growth of English teachers and administrators in the two-year colleges throughout the region.

On Friday, a session on "Writing Connection: Bridging the Gap between High School and College" will be done by Alexandra Della Fera, Elizabeth Nesius, and Ken Ronkowitz.  This presentation is on our Connections program to work with area high school teachers across disciplines to create varied opportunities in writing-to-learn rather than the traditional learning-to-write approach that might apply only to the English classroom.

One of three presentations on Saturday from PCCC is "Collaborative Assessment: Working Together toward Institutional Change" by Elizabeth Nesius and Kelly Bender. Their looks at methods of collaboration for course-and program-level assessment and data-sharing to help both faculty and program administrators. Instructors can improve the WAC elements of their courses without sacrificing content, while still furthering the program mission of helping students to write well and think critically in any discipline. Writing program administrators, on the other hand, can improve both the writing program implementation and the training of its faculty to teach WAC courses. Students will benefit by experiencing WAC courses that are clearly defined, engaging, and optimized for their learning.

Ken Ronkowitz will present a workshop on "Adopting Open Textbooks." Open textbooks are openly-licensed textbooks offered free online by authors. The open license sets them apart from traditional textbooks by allowing users to read online, download, and print. They are also editable so instructors can customize content, cross-platform compatible and work with adaptive technology. This session looks at the how to identify, evaluate, and adopt Open Textbooks, and training opportunities for those wanting to adopt open resources, do peer reviews or open their own writing. Ken is an Advocate/Trainer for NJ as part of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER).

Also on Saturday, Christine Redman-Waldeyer will present on "Public Writing: Linking Journalism, the College Newspaper, and Composition." Teaching journalism is always challenging but more so in a community college setting where students may not be prepared to write academically. It is one opportunity to prepare our students how to research and because students’ work is often “public” because it is tied to the college newspaper it helps students understand accountability, teaches them the need to consider what is libelous, to consider expert opinion, and the need to observe without bias.

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TYCA (Two-Year College Association) is an organization under the umbrella of the NCTE (National Council of the Teachers of English) specifically designed for two-year college English teachers. Within National TYCA, there are seven regional TYCA organizations. Each works to foster the intellectual and pedagogical growth of English teachers and administrators in the two-year colleges throughout the northeast region. Our specific goals include conducting our annual conference in the fall and publishing a newsletter, which features members' articles, fiction, and poetry.