Beginning Portfolio Use at PCCC

Whether it is a collection of writings, artwork, photographs, computer programs, architectural drawings or videos, any portfolio is a compilation of work that has been put together for a specific purpose. Portfolios have long been used for job interviews and for promoting your services to a potential client. In educational settings, they are most often used as a way of documenting a student's progress and performance in a course or program.

At PCCC, we have several purposes in using them as part of our Writing Initiative. We expect them to help show student achievement as a writer and critical thinker in the writing intensive courses.

The members of the Initiative team will also use the portfolios as a way to assess program effectiveness.

We also expect that students will do their own self-assessment through the reflective writing that we ask instructors to include in their WI classes.

Some of goals in piloting ePortfolios at PCCC are:

• making these learning portfolios
• having a repository of writing samples for assessment of the grant objectives
• being able to set benchmarks for the future
• providing continuity for students taking multiple writing-intensive courses
• making the process "product-neutral"

The College also has objectives for this pilot:

• help provide institutional and program assessment for Middle States and other programs
• interface with assessment software
• examne and recommend portfolio products
• consider implications for the future including the expressive, transfer and career portfolio uses

eFolio is an e-portfolio product being piloted by students enrolled in Writing Intensive courses at PCCC. eFolio users can share academic and personal information with professors and peers.

We will be posting additional information about the pilot here and on our Portfolios LibGuide.

Survival Grammar Workshops Offered

Due to a surprising demand, we will now be offering weekly grammar workshops for all students at the Writing Center.

Our ESL and grammar guru Claire Ribeiro will expand on her popular workshop that addresses many of the grammar issues that students face in their writing.

Each session begins with a lesson and continues with interactive exercises to help you practice your grammar and improve.

All PCCC students are welcome, no matter what level.

A different grammar topic will be featured each week.

Session will be in the PCCC Writing Center on the main Paterson campus (within the library area) on Mondays from 5:00-6:00 with a repaet of that workshop topic on Fridays at 1 pm.

As always, check our current workshop listing online for what is being offered.

Writing Intensive Courses Offered for Spring 2010 Registration

The following 15 Writing Intensive courses sections are being offered for registration for the SPRING 2010 semester.

WI courses have their registration limited to 25 students, so be sure to register early and fulfill your graduation requirement.

1. AE 101 OL1 (Thoubboron)
2. CIS 101 M10 (Cameron)
3. CT 101 WE1 (Hillringhouse)
4. EN 205 M03 (Mitnick)
5. EN 205 M04 (Bender)
6. HI 101 OL2 (Jenkins)
7. HI 102 W03 (Drakulich)
8. HI 102 ME2 (Kmec)
9. HI 202 OL1 (Perdew)
10. MU 106 OL1 (Ayala)
11. PH 101 OL1 (Fruncillo)
12. PL 101 OL1 (Getso)
13. PS 101 M03 (Burkart)
14. PS 101 W01 (Murphy)
15. SC 104 WW2 (Baranowski)

Thinking Visually and Critically

Mark Hillringhouse is in the PCCC English department. He teaches one of our writing-intensive courses - Critical Thinking CT 101.

Besides using one of our LibGuides to post materials at pccc.libguides.com/ct101, this year he started using a blog to model for his students the idea of thinking visually.

"Sometimes I pre-visualize an image before taking a photograph. An image can have a powerful effect on the imagination," he says.

Mark is well known beyond our campus for his poetry and his photography. He brings both of those to his teaching in critical thinking.

Student in CT 101 created blogs and portfolios using their own photography and images by others to consider topics in critical thinking.

Mark uses some of his own images to model types of writing for his students.

Mark's Visual Thinking blog is at http://mhillringhouse.blogspot.com

Mentoring Faculty in Using Critical Thinking

Mark Hillringhouse will be the Writing Initiative mentor for critical thinking this academic year.

Mark developed and taught the WI section of Critical Thinking (CT 101).

Mark is known as both a poets and photographer and brought both of those talents into the critical thinking course as ways to teach creative and visual thinking.

He will do a presentation at our January Faculty Institute along with Kelly Bender to introduce the mentors to the new WI faculty fellows.

Mentoring Faculty in Writing

Professor Kelly Bender of the PCCC English department has been selected by the Initiative team to serve as our mentor to WI teaching fellows for writing for the academic year 09-10.

Kelly has developed the Writing Intensive section of  EN 212 and will be teaching a WI section of EN 205 next year.

She will present at the January Faculty Institute on creating writing assignments in other disciplines.