Camaraderie

The 1 team won in Dr. Morante's team building last night, and someone broke out a 20th anniversary version of the game.  We re-numbered (re-teamed?) and attempted to play.  Way different game -- the questions were all flowery and alliterative, and we had a hard time concentrating.

I sat next to Ed Morante in this version.  He really is a cool guy.  We talked about the New York Times, which we both read every day, and I told him that Joseph Kaye, Kellogg Alumn, said hello.  He remembered Joseph very well -- said he was great Trivia player.

At about 9:00 p.m., a fellow Kellogger, Courtlann from Polk State College -- a Florida person -- came into the common room with news that her dissertation proposal had been accepted.  We all cheered more loudly than the winning team.  Someone proposed a toast, and we all drank to Courtlann.  Then we drank to the memories of our own dissertation proposal acceptances.  Then we drank to our dissertations and our defenses and the memories ...

Today was eventful and productive.  Representatives from The College Board and from ACT were here, and we had opportunities to take the Compass and the CPT.  I took both.   It was VERY interesting.  I fear that I like the PERT quite less after really experiencing the others and after this week of intense study of testing and psychometrics.  More in my recap of Assessment and Placement this weekend.

Everyone is exhausted.  We have kept up quite a pace.  It's supposed to be in the 40s outside tonight!  I have some reading to do, and I need to go over my notes from today.  More later.

The App State mascot, Yosef the Mountaineer ... he is pretty ubiquitous around here. 

The Setting, the Cast, and my Moat

I do have a plethora of placement and assessment information to share.  It will wait until the next posting, as I am far too tired, tonight, to contemplate using my brain to that extent.

We have made it to day three of this Kellogg week, which naturally coincided with day three of Professor Morante’s mad trivia game.  The first night the 2s won.  Morante is a 2; he was thrilled.  I, along with my suite mate Nancy, am a 1.  Last night, the 1s won. (Ohhh, and  we learned that Morante does not take well to not winning.)  There has been a lot of wine and usually some odd snacks.  There was a monstrous tub of glow-in-the-dark puffed cheese balls and a box of wine tonight. (I drank water, and I sat far from the cheese things for fear of possible radiation.) 

Tonight’s game was so close.  If we would have known the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, not in 1962 – (Morante’s Trivial Pursuit game is so old that it doesn’t even know that the Berlin Wall is no longer a wall!), we would have won.  We didn’t.  Tomorrow night is the tie breaker and, thankfully, the last game of this Kellogg season.  

It’s supposed to be in the low 50s tonight in Boone, and we all have our windows open.  That’s a very good thing, as the air conditioner in my room had not been working well.  My suitemate tried to fix it.  We got it to blow cold air, but, in return, it has been leaking iky, cloudy water.  The carpet is awful, anyway – rippled, sort of – and it has been absorbing the water.  The absorption is surrounding the bed and desk and we’ve been calling it my moat.  Yes, I have a moat, over which I must now jump to get to bed.  And, it doesn’t smell very good, so I’m quite content with open windows and mountain breezes blowing in.  As far as I know, I have the only moat at Kellogg this year.

Our doors have little signs with our names on them that the Kellogg staff made before we got here.  They are really cute, as each one has on it the college or university logo of its occupant.  Mine has the logo and all, but whoever made it used the Edison flame thing as a border.  It’s sort of cool to walk down the hall and see everyone’s first names with their college logos.

There is a very nice group of people here, and we are gradually getting to know each other.  The women far outnumber the men, and the average age is about mid-forties.  It seems like a highly-educated group; most have doctorates or are working on them, and those who do not have been in the profession for twenty or thirty years or more.  Two classmates, Yumi and Diane, are farthest from home; they are from Hawaii and Alaska, respectively. My suite mate, Nancy, is from Pennsylvania.  She is an English professor, coordinator of her department, and has worked at the same college for thirty years.  She is very knowledgeable and easy going; I thoroughly enjoy her company.  There are two others from Florida, several from North Carolina, and three or four from California.  Other states that I recall include West Virginia, New Mexico, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Connecticut.  Most are from community or state colleges, but there are a few from universities.  There are a few deans, but the majority are either department chair or division coordinator types – just about everyone has significant responsibilities beyond teaching, and just about everyone I’ve spoken to loves the teaching part of their jobs more than anything.  I fit in well.

Denise is in charge of Kellogg, and she is incredible.  She already knows everyone’s name, and she is on top of everything.  Kate is her staff assistant, and she is great, as well.  Hunter has made appearances in the classroom the two days he did not lecture, albeit briefly.  He is such a very nice man and seems genuinely interested in each and every one of the “Kelloggers,” as I have learned we are called.

I have reading to do for tomorrow, and a posting to do to a Web thing that I have yet to access.  More in a day or so … thank you for taking the time to read my chronicle, and I truly welcome comments or questions! Anyone may comment; you need not be a registered user.

Assessment and The Game

Yesterday afternoon, Seminar I, Assessment and Placement, commenced.  Our lecturer is Dr. Ed Morante, a retired college administrator, a psychologist, an expert on assessment, and famous -- or infamous -- for his annual Trivial Pursuit game, played nightly in the common area of Newland House, under the auspices of a team building and morale strengthening exercise.  Dr. Morante has a lot of excellent things to say about assessment and placement, and he started his four-day lecture yesterday, going until after 4:00, giving us three readings to do for this morning, and requesting that we return at 7:00 p.m., for his team building. 

Joseph Kaye gave me a thorough heads-up on this Kellogg tradition, and I took his advice and partook in the optional activity.  Last year’s entry ticket was beer; this year seems to be wine.  We have a wine crowd this year at Kellogg.  I also brought mangoes – yes, mangoes from my very own tree in Southwest Florida – for my classmates from all over the country.  So, it was wine and mangoes and Trivial Pursuit and Dr. Ed Morante.  It was just as Joseph had described, kind of weird and kind of cool and actually a lot of fun and a great way to get to know everyone.  Ed counted us off 1-2-1-2 … we were two teams – the 1s and the 2s.  I was a 1, and we put up a good fight with my suitemate, Nancy, as our spokesperson.  The 2s won.  More tonight.  Oh boy.

Today was Kellogg shirt day; we dressed as clones for the official group photo.  The shirt is very nice.  Apparently the color is different each year.  Last year’s was cardinal.  This year’s is black – with a lime green Kellogg logo.  We assembled for the photo and took several shots before someone noticed that Hunter and Patrick were missing … they joined us, three more shots, and we were done with another annual tradition.

Much more on assessment and placement tomorrow, as we delve deeper into this fascinating and vast topic.  In a nutshell, at community colleges and at state colleges like Edison, the “open door” policy is supposed to mean both access and quality.  The corollary to that is that both access and quality are achievable, and with that is noted that persistence.  Obviously, the successful completion of high school courses does not necessarily indicate proficiency.  Morante believes the “right to fail” is "pernicious," which means he believes it is dangerous to allow students to place into courses for which they have no skills. According to Morante, placement of developmental students must be mandatory, “since it borders on the unethical to know that a student lacks basic skills but is still allowed to enroll in college courses requiring the skill.” 

I took about eighteen pages of copious notes ... I shall post much more in my next entry.  I am off, now, for dinner, a research seminar in the library at 7:00 (that most of the Ph.D.s are skipping, but I don't want to miss anything...), and another round of trivia at 8:00.  Then a bunch of stuff to read for tomorrow ...

Hunter and the Spoon Concept

Dr. Hunter Boylan’s name is widely associated with developmental education, and rightfully so.  His bio lists his career in the field as spanning over thirty years.  He is Director of the National Center for Developmental Education, Professor of Higher Education at Appalachian State, Director of The Kellogg Institute, and myriad other titles relating to research and innovation in developmental education.  Titles aside, Hunter is awesome.  He lectured this morning from 9:00 until 11:30, and the time flew.  Lecturing to 43 people, all of whom are leaders in Developmental Education at our own institutions, could have been a tough sell, but everything Hunter had to say was interesting and pertinent, and it set the tone for the next four weeks.

Developmental Education, by definition, is a continuum of services ranging from remedial courses for new college students all the way to GRE or MCAT preparation courses for students preparing for graduate school.  People grow and learn in stages, Hunter reminded us, and one of those stages might be remediation.  Developmental education, however, is not all remediation.  The field of developmental education encompasses a large framework, all of which surrounds the concept of developing.  That could be developing a first year student to learn the skills necessary to succeed in college, or it could be developing the higher level thinking skills of a graduate student preparing to enter medical school.  It all falls under the continuum of services guided by the principles of adult development and learning and serving underprepared college students – in whatever ways in which they are underprepared.

Dr. Hunter Boylan and Dr. Caroline Seefchak.  Photo credit:  Taunya Paul, Kellogg 2011

Hunter went on to discuss the principles or guiding concepts of developmental education.  I will undoubtedly discuss all of this in more detail during either staff development or during a department meeting when I return, but one of Hunter's guiding concepts was particularly well defined.  It was #5 on his list, and it was “Encourage students to gradually accept responsibility for their own learning." That is certainly a principle with which there is universal agreement, but Hunter brought up some interesting points that are worth repeating.  He stressed that it is a part of the job of the developmental educator to teach responsibility. Well, yeah.   

Then he brought up something developmental educators hear often:  “But, you are spoon-feeding them."  Well, yes, was Hunter's reaction.  You spoon feed babies to keep them alive.  You have to keep them alive so that you can teach them.  You spoon feed them until you have taught them to do it themselves.  The same concept applies to our students.  It is important, he emphasized, that we not ever take our eyes off of the goal of teaching our students to accept responsibility for their learning.  We may spoon feed them to keep them alive while we teach them, but we must keep teaching them.  He concluded by saying that with some students, it may feel like it will kill us both, but we keep doing it!

Duncan Hall, Kellogg Institute, Appalachian State University

Class Notes and Pinot Noir

Though the morning was on our own -- I unpacked, went for a run (for which no amount of incline on my treadmill could have prepared me), and read through a manuscript I said I'd do for McGraw-Hill -- we all emerged from Newland Hall at 1:15 p.m. with a walking tour of the pertinent parts of the campus, three hours of class, a break, and then a reception to meet our practicum advisors.

The campus is very beautiful and seems to be well laid out. Our tour took us to the University's Belk Library and Information Commons, past the University Bookstore, to the Plemmons Student Union and Solarium, and to our stopping point, Duncan Hall, where our classes will be held.

Today's class was about teams and leaderships and included an experiencial  team building session held by consultant Jennifer Davis of Gastonia, NC.  She was very good, and the exercise was well done.  No more on that, as I may use some of it, myself, at a department meeting this semester.

At 6:00 p.m. we went to the Solarium of the Student Union, a beautiful space, for a cocktail reception to meet with our practicum advisors.  My advisor is Dr. Charles Kreszock, who has thirty-five years at App State both teaching and in administration.  He seems knowledgeable and laid back; all three of his assigned advisees this year are Ph.D.s, and we know what we are doing.  All three of us seemed happy to have an advisor who would give us all of the guidance we need without any of the extraneous stuff that we've all been through in previous lives.  The reception, itself, was extremely nice, and the Pinot Noir was excellent.  Though it is obvious that we will be worked hard, it looks like we will be treated nicely, as well!

Tomorrow is a full day of class – 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  I have some reading to do to prepare, and some sleep, perhaps …

3266 Feet, and I am here

It took about thirteen hours and four minutes for my Honda and me to reach Boone, North Carolina.  The first eleven or so hours of that were fairly normal -- horizontal -- driving.  I've never thought of driving as something one does either horizontally or vertically, but the last couple of hours of this journey to Boone were just that -- vertical.  As in 3266 feet up.  The approach to Boone started out as breathtakingly beautiful. Then, State Road 321 started to take on that curvy, switch back form that roads do to make it up mountains. At that point, I held on to the wheel and contemplated whether or not the driver of a car could get carsick. I didn’t, but I could’ve.

I am here.  So are forty-three others, referred to in the opening address as people soon to be “in the top 5% of the nation in their knowledge of developmental education.”   Also here are Hunter Boylan and Barbara Bonham, both super duper rock stars of my dissertation research – and both remembered me and Edison State College. Barbara asked me to have lunch with her next week to talk about Edison and our program evaluation. Patrick Saxon, NCDE's lead researcher, is here; Pat and I have a little history dating back to Hunter's research conference in San Juan. He owes me a couple of beers from back then, and he actually remembered that.

My home for the next month is in Newland Residence Hall, and my dorm room is quite exactly as Dr. Joseph Kaye described last year at this time.  Something like a minimum security penitentiary cell.  I have spruced it, a bit, thanks to IKEA, but it is what it is. 

Boone is gorgeous.  The breeze is cool, and it smells like green grass and green leaves.  I am exhausted.  I have not managed to chronicle anything particularly academic this evening, but I will certainly make up for it as the week progresses.

One Week Out

One week from tomorrow, on June 24, 2011, I shall board my dented Honda, and I will drive approximately 803.64 miles from Edison State College in Fort Myers, Florida, to Appalachian State University, in Boone, North Carolina, to attend the Kellogg Institute of the National Center for Developmental Education. 

Once I arrive, I will be living in a dormitory at the University while I study for four weeks to become a certified developmental education specialist.  Right now, though I am daunted at the thought of being away from all that I know for over a month, I am excited about this tremendous opportunity. 

In my position as Department Chair of College Prep/Developmental Studies at Edison State College, I want to be able to share, with my colleagues, as much cool stuff from Kellogg as I can.  Hence, I have created this blog, What oft was thought, but ne're so well expressed, as a way to chronicle the things I am experiencing and will bring back to Edison. 

I welcome you to "follow" this blog and to contribute your own thoughts, and I look forward to this communication. 

Thank you for your interest!