The purpose of the Initiative

The Basic Skills Professional Development Initiative—Academic Fundamentals is being proposed out of the need to provide basic skills, and by extension English as a Second Language (ESL), education to students underprepared for college-level work, including those unable to pass the California High School Exit Exam; address the unmet needs of the California Community College System in the area of basic skills education as noted in the 2006 System Office Strategic Plan; and attend to the professional development needs of community college faculty as they seek to provide basic skills courses/programs in their efforts to ensure student succeed. This Initiative provides statewide training and support to address the professional development needs of community college administrators, faculty, and staff in the areas of basic skills and ESL instruction and will jointly address both credit and noncredit instruction as they apply to the broad basic skills area, including appropriate English, mathematics, reading, writing and ESL instruction.

To provide the foundation to develop this training, Foothill-De Anza Community College District will contract with the Academic Senate and the Center for Student Success to create resource materials for use at the colleges. Colleges will begin with a self-assessment tool that helps to identify strengths and weaknesses in basic skills instruction. With the results of the self-assessment in hand, colleges can turn to materials that outline the general principles and processes that work to help ensure student success in basic skills success courses. Colleges will be provided with a “menu-based” approach of course sequences and other institutional improvements to address the unique needs of their students, faculty, and instructional programming. In addition, colleges will be apprised of available “alternative” career-related math and English courses to meet the upcoming graduation requirements (e.g., math for health careers instead of Intermediate Algebra).

Training for Local Colleges

To present these resources, a partnership of the Academic Senate and the statewide organizations of the Chief Instructional Officers, the Chief Student Services Officers, the Center for Student Success, and the System Office APG (Action Plan Group) will conduct training for all 109 California Community Colleges through presentations at statewide conferences and several regional workshops for faculty, staff and administrators. The training will assist colleges in their self-assessment process, evaluation, and selection of implementation strategies for local program improvement. Regional and/or topical meetings will give campuses a chance to learn from each others' experiences and teams at the campus can ensure that everyone participates in local planning. It is expected that faculty, staff, and administrators who attend the grant-sponsored training will share information with others on their campuses regarding the analysis and planning processes.

In the end, this project will produce the following:

• a written analysis of the results of the self-assessment conducted at each college;
  
• documentation of the statewide conference, regional workshops, and individual technical assistance offered and number of participants and colleges served;
  
• a conceptual paper addressing local program improvements planned for 2007-08;
  
• future research topics in basic skills education that surface as a result of this project; and
  
• identification of areas in faculty development that need additional support.