Student Competencies: Global Changes

Janet Fulks, Bakersfield College

Alice Mecom, Glendale College

Student Competencies: Global Changes?

• What is up with our students these days? Students with academic and workplace skills gaps are everywhere, at every level. What do we do in the General Education courses when the students can’t write and they don’t read? How are Career Technical faculty dealing with underprepared students coupled with increased technical training?  This breakout elucidates some chronic challenges and describes strategies for faculty to help their students meet basic academic and workplace competencies.

Outcomes for this Breakout

• Attendees will be able to relay to their institutions what competencies employers report are deficient in graduates and the degrees needed for a healthy economic future*

• Attendees will be able to relay to their institutions the breadth and depth of student needs upon entry into college and the community colleges’ role in addressing these needs

• Attendees will share anecdotal observations of and homegrown solutions to these student needs in their classrooms

Outcomes for this Breakout

• Attendees will reflect on whether or not faculty have the professional obligation to support students who are not “college-ready” yet are enrolled in college*

•Attendees will be able to access, for themselves and for their institutions, effective practices to meet those needs

• Attendees will identify ways to get non-basic skills faculty to embrace and use the effective practices as researched and implemented throughout the state

Getting Started

Please share:

• Your name

• Discipline

• College

• and name a core competency, GE outcome, or institutional outcome at your college

What employer and state research is reporting

• Hand out pamphlet

• Comments – any info/data that surprises you or that you can confirm through your experience?

• Any modifications

• Would they use this, if so where?

• Degrees for a healthy future?*

Faculty Assumptions – Does this sound familiar?

• In one class at a CCC, a researcher has been sitting in on an Oceanography class to observe students and see what dynamics are going on. What they are observing is that students are not struggling with oceanography; for instance students are:

• Unable to read maps and graphs

• Struggling with readability of the text

• Unfamiliar with common vocabulary e.g. latitude and longitude

• Unable to calculate and convert

Misconceptions faculty report that students have about learning

CTE Courses

• It’s easy

• No math

• No reading

• No writing

• No homework

• Showing up is enough

College Level GE course • Showing up is enough

• Reading material only once or just read the bolded stuff

• Highlighting every sentence is the same as reading it

• This is how I always did it in high school

• If I put it in my own words, I don’t need to cite

• “I’m confused” means I shouldn’t have to do this.

• I did the problem in my head so I don’t need to show my work

Group discussion

• Use the post it notes to collect common complaints* of student performance in classes

• Report back

How would you define Basic Skills?*• Poppy copy definition - “Basic skills are those

foundation skills in reading, writing, mathematics, and English as a Second Language, as well as learning and study skills, which are necessary for students to succeed in college-level work.”

• Title 5 definition

• 80% of students who enter the California Community College system are Basic Skills students

Which of these skills that you have noted are actually basic skills?

• Do any of the core competencies that we named at the beginning of this workshop relate to basic skills?

• Do any of our complaints reflect Basic Skills needs?

• Where does the obligation lie to correct this gap in skills or ability to learn?

Your strategies?

•What are some homegrown methods or approaches you have used to accommodate these gaps so that students can succeed in your classes?

• Are you aware of or have you made use of any of the resources and support offered by your local basic skills committees?

Important Concepts: What do all students need to learn

• Positive attitude

• Reading comprehension

• Show up, be present and do all the work

• Think critically

• Time management

• Self-driven

• Ability to follow up

• Willingness to make mistakes

• Practice

• Scaffolding

• Persistence

• Positive attitude

• Motivation

• Critical thinking

Useful tools from the Poppy copy and Basic Skills Handbook• Student readiness pamphlet

• Student Self assessment which responds to previous

• Reading worksheet

• Math worksheet

• Others

What you might already know…• Do any of these solutions reflect what you are already doing (from Strategy slide 12)?

• Are there any new ideas or useful tools here that would help you or your colleagues?

• Can we identify certain useful tools that may be particularly appropriate for students in transfer-level courses?

What to do next?

•How do we get transfer faculty to embrace and use the effective basic skills practices as researched and implemented throughout the state?

•How do we get faculty to recognize that basic skills students are everywhere, and not just contained within certain disciplines or programs, such as developmental sequences, noncredit, etc?

Take something with you…

What is one new piece of information or one idea that you have learned here that you think would surprise your colleagues or that you think your institution should know about?