Learning about Learning

To design their first year pathway, PCC had already learned deeply about Reading Apprenticeship practices, technology-assisted learning, embedded tutoring, and math bridge programs by engaging with 3CSN. When they sent their first team to BSILI, they worked on developing a first-year experience program, PCC Pathways, that would include a new class called College One. When they returned the following year, they were building the professional learning program they needed on campus to train the more than 60 teachers from across disciplines who would be teaching the new course so that students would experience a consistently rigorous and productive experience in the classroom and in the Pathways Program as a whole. PCC Pathways now serves 45% of all entering students and for those who participate, achievement gaps are nearly erased. PCC was a finalist for the Aspen Award for Excellence in Community Colleges.

Fullerton educators participated in 3CSN’s first networked Community of Practice, California Acceleration Project. Many of these educators had attended multiple 3CSN professional learning workshops throughout their region, Orange County Regional Network. Leadership training at BSILI and engagement with other year-long institutes equipped them with the skills they needed to scale their accelerated English curriculum to 19 sections per semester, serving well over 1,000 students a year. Data shows that 59% of students who took the accelerated developmental English course completed College Writing in just one year. The campus has also implemented a campus-wide Habits of Mind initiative which includes a Growth Mindset intervention that has reached over 2, 000 students, a Supplemental Instruction program that supports 120 sections, totaling more than 4,000 students, and a first year experience program that had served over 700 students as of 2017. Fullerton College was a finalist for the Aspen Award for Excellence in Community Colleges.

Through 3CSN regional events and BSILI, CSM faculty from across disciplines were introduced to Reading Apprenticeship. In less than two years, 68 faculty members have participated in Reading Apprenticeship faculty professional development, 30 student tutors have been trained to incorporate metacognitive conversation into their tutoring sessions in the Learning Center, CSM’s summer bridge program has incorporated Reading Apprenticeship into the curriculum for first-time college students and the Academic Senate declared Reading Apprenticeship to be their highest-ranking institutional priority.