The Bergen Community College Journal of Scholarly Teaching, Volume 2

The Bergen Community College Journal of Scholarly Teaching Fall 2017 n Volume 2

n In this issue n What is the Tuning Project and Why Should You Care by Sarah Shurts

n Reigniting a National Debate: Why Western Civ and World Civ Matter by Daniel and Evan Saperstein n Facilitating Productive and Equitable Class Discussions by Sara Mastellone n A Modest Quest to Measure the Relationship Between Student LearnSmartÂŽ Performance & Test Scores in a Principles of Macroeconomics Course by Takvor H. Mutafoglu n Properly Developing a Questionnaire to SelfAssess Pedagogical Practices in Class

by John Bandman

n Active Learning: Patient Case Studies and Grand Rounds Presentations Enhance Learning in a Dental Hygiene Periodontology Course

by Denise Avrutik

n Assessing and Meeting the Language and Cultural Needs of ESL Students Who Want to Enter the Health Professions by Bina Dugan and JoAnne Diamantidis

n ESL Service Learning: How and Why

by Heidi Lieb

n 2017 Bergen Community College Scholars’ Dinner Keynote Address by Stacey Balkan

Editor: Carol Miele, Ed.D. Editorial Board: Beatrice Bridglall, Ph.D. Amarjit Kaur, Ed.D. Special thanks to Paula Williams, Ed.D. for consultation on APA format

In This Issue Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 William Mullaney, Vice President of Academic Affairs What is the Tuning Project and Why Should You Care? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Sarah Shurts, Associate Professor, History Reigniting a National Debate: Why Western Civ and World Civ Matter ...14 Daniel Saperstein and Evan Saperstein, Adjunct Professors, History Facilitating Productive and Equitable Class Discussions . . . . . . . . . . .20 Sara Mastellone, Assistant Professor, Math A Modest Quest to Measure the Relationship between Student LearnSmart® Performance & Test Scores in a Principles of Macroeconomics Course . . .29 Takvor H. Mutafoglu, Assistant Professor, Economics Properly Developing a Questionnaire to Self-Assess Pedagogical Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 John Bandman, Assistant Professor, Business Hotel/Restaurant Management Active Learning: Patient Case Studies and Grand Rounds Presentations to Enhance Learning in a Dental Hygiene Periodontology Course . . . .47 Denise Avrutik, Associate Professor, Dental Hygiene Assessing and Meeting the Language and Cultural Needs of ESL Students Who Want to Enter the Health Professions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Bina Dugan, Adjunct Professor, ESL and JoAnne Diamantidis, Assistant Professor, Nursing ESL Service Learning: How and Why . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 Heidi Lieb, Associate Professor, ESL 2017 Bergen Community College Scholars’ Dinner Keynote Address .70 Stacey Balkan, Assistant Professor, English

The BCC Journal of Scholarly Teaching • Fall 2017

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Foreword Dr. William P. Mullaney Vice President of Academic Affairs

The nineteenth century English poet John Clare once wrote, “If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs.” Although most of us are not fortunate enough to be granted a second edition of our lives, it is with great pride and joy that I present you with the second edition of The Bergen Community College Journal of Scholarly Teaching. As Bergen’s Chief Academic Officer, I would like to congratulate those faculty members whose articles appear within its pages.

As copies of the first edition made their way around the college, the state and even the country last year, the responses tended to be very similar. After commenting on the quality of the individual articles, people were often impressed by the collaborative spirit of the faculty and the administration in coming together to produce such a fine publication. The appearance of the second edition is a further testament to the fact that scholarship is thriving at BCC. Traditional scholarship in the academic disciplines has been a stronghold at the college since its inception, as the included remarks from the 2017 BCC Scholarly Dinner keynote address eloquently underscore. However, this journal signifies an expansion of that notion of scholarship to include the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), which is now an equally important part of intellectual pursuits of the faculty.

The articles that appear here represent the work of faculty members who have applied and extended their research skills to the classroom. They have often begun their work by asking questions about student learning and then analyzed a variety of evidence to answer these questions. As with last year’s edition, the disciplines represented sketch a rich view of the teaching that occurs in the classrooms across the college: from traditional subjects (e.g. history, economics, mathematics, English) to career-oriented programs (e.g. nursing, dental hygiene) and even to a field that is especially pertinent to the mission of community colleges (English as a Second Language).

When thinking about scholarship, I am often inspired by the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote, “Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself.” This journal is a proof that Bergen Community College strives to awaken our students to wonders of the world.

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The BCC Journal of Scholarly Teaching • Fall 2017

n What is the Tuning Project and Why Should You Care?

Sarah Shurts Associate Professor History

Tuning is a rather inelegant name for a major educational initiative. This was my first skeptical thought when it was introduced to me at a gathering of 60 history educators from across the country in 2012. It sounded a bit like I was fixing my piano or adjusting the radio. But soon my snobbishness about the name was eclipsed by my absolute awe at what it involved. It posed simple questions and asked us merely to make explicit for our students and the public what we always assumed was implicit. How do we define our disciplinary identity? What do we want our students to know, understand and be able to do when they leave our program? What are the essential competencies of our field and how do we know that students are acquiring them?

It was a simple process but it could transform the way I taught, the way I thought about my own discipline, and the way I introduced it to students. It would help me better answer students who asked why they had to take our courses, what they could do with a major, and how it was important in their lives beyond the ubiquitous response: “it improves critical thinking skills.” Because of this, Tuning had the potential to increase enrollment in our program, to smooth student transfer to four-year colleges, and to help our graduates get jobs. By the end of the weekend, I wasn’t just drinking the Kool-Aid, I was ready to franchise it. I returned to Bergen Community College (BCC) ready to try this new Tuning experiment and share it with my department.

In fact, I realized that this was a process that would be of interest and of importance to any discipline, not just history.

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The concept of Tuning originated in Bologna in 1999 when 47 European countries sought a way to make their graduates’ degrees and courses of study more easily transferable across national borders without imposing strict standardization. The goal was to make the expectations for the skills and knowledge that each discipline set for its graduates transparent to the students, the public, and the potential employers in any of the 47 nations. In 2010, the “European Higher Education Area” was born with the signing of the Budapest-Vienna Declaration. Its mission continues to be the creation of a society where students benefit from mobility between institutions, regardless of national borders, through a “smooth recognition of their qualifications” (European Higher Education Area). The Bologna process has since spawned similar projects in Latin America in 2005 and the United States in 2009.

More recently, Russia, Australia, China, and Japan have begun the process (American History Association, 2012). In the US, Tuning began with the statewide project to tune Utah and Indiana colleges in all disciplines. However, it was not until 2012, with the introduction of the American Historical Association (AHA) Tuning Project that tuning a specific discipline across the country was attempted. The initial phase of the AHA Project included over 60 faculty members from institutions nationwide and from institutional types ranging from Research I, doctoral degree granting universities to community colleges. As one of the community college representatives, I discovered that while sometimes we may feel divided from our colleagues in Research I institutions, the conversation about the nature of our discipline and student learning is one that unites us as scholars and educators regardless of institutional type.

This was how the AHA was able to solicit participation from educators across the country. We all share similar concerns and hopes for our discipline and student learning no matter where we teach or what type of institution employs us. One of those concerns is that our discipline is being subsumed into the categories of social science or humanities as indistinguishable from its fellow disciplines there. Every discipline claims to improve critical thinking skills. If we cannot express what makes history unique and essential beyond this, then we risk losing our unique role in general education. From there our student enrollment likely drops and our faculty lines are reduced. Related to this is the common concern that our discipline, alongside the other humanities and social sciences, is being dismissed as “useless” or, at best, the frivolous pursuit of the idle elite. Tuning helps us to clarify and express with a shared language what is valuable about our field, what habits of mind and practices it contributes to general education for all students, and how these unique competencies are essential to society. It helps us “brand” our discipline, define our identity, and defend its contribution to learning for our administration, our colleagues, our students, and the public. Finally, we educators all share the concern that assessment of learning imposed from above would not reflect what we want our students to take from the study of history. At the heart of the tuning process, therefore, was a nationwide effort to define for ourselves and our students what historians do and what we wanted students to know, understand, and be able to do after completing a course of study.

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What is the Tuning Project and Why Should You Care?

“Branding” and Defending the Discipline I had the opportunity recently to talk to several students planning to major in history after they transferred from BCC to four-year colleges in the area. One was particularly concerned that she would be choosing a major that she loved, history, over nursing, which her parents urged her toward because it promised employment after graduation. Another made the ubiquitous joke about flipping his diploma to write “will work for food.” Both looked to me to assure them that they were making the right decision to pursue their passion for history. The same scenario could easily be envisioned in the office of any humanities professor in any community college. And how can we be surprised by this hesitation about the humanities when our political leaders promote that fear? Kentucky Gov. Matthew Bevin recently suggested that French literature majors should not get state funding for college tuition because their degrees were useless (Cohen, 2016). Marco Rubio famously quipped that the country needs fewer philosophers and more welders (Gray, 2015). And Jeb Bush wrote, “Universities ought to have skin in the game.

When a student shows up, they ought to say, ‘Hey, that psych major deal, that philosophy major thing, that’s great, it’s important to have liberal arts … but realize, you’re going to be working [at] a Chick-fil-A.’ (Mills, 2015). Florida Gov. Rick Scott said: “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so” (Anderson, 2015). And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wanted to change the historic mission of the University of Wisconsin system by removing words that commanded the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs” (Strauss, 2015).

It is not just a select few politicians who see the humanities as frivolous in the current economic and political climate; it is a belief shared by much of the general public. And, while even the Research I and private liberal arts colleges have seen the number of humanities majors slip in recent years, the fear of a “useless” degree seems particularly potent for those students who have turned to community college for financial reasons. How then do those of us who devote our lives to the study of the humanities redress this disillusionment among our students and the public?

One of Tuning’s most beneficial aspects, for two- and four-year colleges alike, has been the attempt to define coherently the identity of the discipline and to, in a sense, “brand” that identity for the public. The project has given faculty from across the nation a forum to share their ideas about what history is and what history education should include. In this way, Tuning provides a language for defending the uniqueness of the discipline and its contribution to the general education of students. This language has become increasingly important as history departments across the country fight being folded into the general humanities or social sciences or even eliminated from student course requirements. When faculty advocates can make a case for the distinctive nature and contribution of a discipline, it is more likely to remain independent as a program, a department, and as required courses within a degree. With this in mind, the 60 representatives

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of history departments across the country created a disciplinary core document designed to articulate the distinctive “skills, knowledge, and habits of mind” that history introduces or enhances for its students (see Appendix). In addition to developing a complex yet comprehensible definition of what “history is,” these documents begin the conversation about what history students are able to do (their competencies) and how they display these skills and knowledge (their assessable outcomes and accomplishments).

Discipline Core In putting together the discipline core, we 60 were forced to contemplate the identity and purpose of our discipline in ways that most of us never had before.

For many of us, teaching history had primarily been about engaging students in knowledge of the past, making the content relevant and the narrative memorable.

Trying to define a disciplinary identity led us to consider what we do as historians in order to create these narratives of content and the skills and ways of thinking that our profession requires. At what point do we introduce these methods and historical thinking skills to students? This led to an ongoing debate about the emphasis on giving knowledge of content, noticeably absent from the discipline core, and the emphasis on giving historical thinking, competencies, and skills.

Those who favor emphasis on skill sets and competencies are also looking toward a defense of the discipline against those who challenge its utility in the modern economy. I believe we should still extol the intangible benefits of a life of the mind. We as scholars have devoted ourselves to the pursuit of knowledge, to the passion for questioning and understanding the human experience, and our intrinsic joy in this pursuit often influences our students to take this path as well.

But this more philosophical defense of our discipline can coincide and coexist with a more practical offense that highlights the skills and proficiencies that our fields provide for society and the workplace. While the idea of promoting the tangible skills and marketable competencies of humanities graduates has led to accusations that we will sacrifice intellectual elegance for career utility, I cannot see these two efforts as mutually exclusive or the latter as somehow a betrayal of the humanities. Perhaps it is for this reason that I have become such a proponent of Tuning. The Tuning discipline core emphasizes broad-based skills shared across the small sub-fields of the discipline rather than the minutiae of individual course content. From there it is not much of a leap to see how these skills our students gain from studying history can be relevant to the external world and their future professions. If we accept that history students are going to seek employment outside the traditional confines of teaching and law, we should teach them to recognize the competencies they have gained in our programs and provide them with the vocabulary to express these skills to others, especially employers.

Tuning encourages us to become more vocal and effective advocates for our discipline by communicating its value, and, yes, even its utility, outside academia. Most of our graduates will not continue on to professions traditionally

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linked to the humanities. Tuning asks us to help these majors market themselves in a difficult economy by teaching them to recognize and verbalize the skills they have learned. What can history majors do? They have been trained through historical study to “identify reliable sources, analyze information, contextualize complex questions, and communicate conclusions in a clear and thoughtful manner.”

They can evaluate and synthesize a variety of perspectives, recognize biases, make ethically informed judgments, and respect cultural differences (McInerney, 2012).

Recent studies conducted by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) indicate these are the same skills that employers are seeking in new hires (2013). We simply need to help our students translate the broader skills they have developed into language employers understand. This gives us, as humanities educators, the confidence to assure our students that choosing to major in the humanities does not condemn them to future unemployment and, in turn, helps us to more actively recruit and retain humanities majors rather than passively lamenting the decline in their numbers.

Alignment for Transfer and Assessment There was initially, as there should always be, a healthy amount of skepticism and critique of the project by those concerned that it might invite standardization of curricula and assessment. However, the nature of the process was increasingly reassuring in these areas. It has been faculty driven, institution-specific, and has eschewed standardization in favor of alignment.

Tuning originates with the faculty of each college department rather than external organizations or even the AHA. So, while we 60 “Tuners” developed statements of learning objectives and core competencies that we hoped could serve as guidelines across institutions nationwide, the objectives are intended as reference points for individual institutions to adapt rather than uniform expectations passed down from the AHA. This autonomy to critique and reinterpret the discipline core and to design our own expectations and assessments deflates any charge of standardization. But, having these guidelines helps those of us attempting to define our program for our students and our college find a common ground on which to stand with our colleagues across the country. It also helps us to align our expectations for learning in our courses and our degree programs with those of our fellow colleges. This is of particular value for community colleges since it allows us to open conversations with our transfer college partners about their expectations for students entering their program as juniors. Having a shared or at least a similar set of course and program learning expectations allows our students to transfer with greater confidence that they are prepared and can succeed in the four-year program.

Working toward alignment also encourages the community college departments to reconsider our role in a student’s full educational journey from high school to terminal degree. In our department at BCC, and in many others around the country, Tuning has provoked discussions of when students should learn certain disciplinary skills. Tuning emphasizes “scaffolding” the skills students learn for

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our discipline across the years from K-12 to graduate programs. This means that community colleges must work to scaffold the methods and concepts they introduce to students in their programs over the four semesters. But the question of providing levels of instruction like this within the community college program remains a divisive one. Some believe the role of the community college is to provide surveys as introductory level courses only. Because of this, all courses in the BCC history department have been offered at the 100 level and taught without any scaling of skills or prerequisites.1 However, others argue that by the end of their two years, students in a history AA program should be taking sophomore- level coursework that has been scaled as 200 level courses. Having these upper level courses with 100 level prerequisites would allow us to require a more advanced understanding of these research methods and more developed thinking skills. They believe this is more in keeping with the trajectory of four-year colleges that are often requiring sophomore methods courses and expecting a more advanced skill set before the junior year.

The Tuning process also challenges us to think about and express our goals for student learning in our classes and our programs and to move toward introducing experiences and assignments that clearly reflect and promote these proficiencies. In this way, Tuning is related to assessment, a term despised by many in the humanities who envision assessment as a reduction of that aforementioned intellectual elegance to a set of statistics. But I would argue that Tuning allows faculty to take assessment back from the statisticians; to determine how effectively we are conveying the value of the humanities to our students. If we, as faculty, articulate these goals, we, as faculty, can decide how they are measured.

Tuning allows educators to reappropriate assessment for their own purpose: to determine how effectively we are teaching what we believe the study of the discipline entails. These goals do not need to be quantifiable in the way many humanities educators fear. One of the goals developed by the History tuning group was for students to “recognize the ongoing provisional nature of knowledge,” another to “explore multiple historical and theoretical viewpoints” (American Historical Association, 2012). Evidence of this learning comes not through scores on multiple-choice tests but through expression of ideas in papers and class discussion. Seen this way, assessment becomes less an external imposition or accumulation of data and more a natural component of what we do as educators.

This will be changed in the coming academic year when a 200 level course on the Civil War will be introduced for the first time.

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A Challenge The Tuning Project has been instrumental in making explicit the skills and proficiencies we expect of the history major at each stage in their progress toward the degree. It has also created a set of core competencies that, while adapted to the needs of each individual institution, provides a language of expectations for student learning in history that is shared by history programs across the nation allowing students to transfer more confidently. I’ll close with a challenge to my colleagues in other departments to consider how this process could be instrumental in your own disciplines. A few simple questions about the nature of your fields and what you want students to gain from study of them can be transformative.

What do you want every student to gain from the study of your field, and what are the skills and knowledge that you believe it is essential for students to learn?

What should students expect from their introductory surveys and how could you re-envision the structure and methods of these courses in a way that makes these fundamental proficiencies the focus? How can you introduce the skills that are vital to the practice of your discipline to entry-level students who have little or no background in it? How can you align your expectations with those of your transfer partners to promote seamless transition to four-year classes? How can you make explicit for your students and the public what you had assumed was implicit about the value of our discipline and its contribution to society? From these questions will emerge your own tuning project.

For more information, see the project webpage at http://www.historians.org/tuning.

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References Anderson, Z. (2011, October 10). Rick Scott wants to shift university funding away from some degrees. Herald Tribune. Retrieved from http:// politics.heraldtribune.com/2011/10/10/rick-scott-wants-to-shiftuniversity-funding-away-from-some-majors/ American Historical Association. (2012). AHA Tuning Project: History discipline core. Retrieved from http://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/ current-projects/tuning/history-discipline-core.

Association of American Colleges & Universities. (2013). It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success.

Retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/leap/presidentstrust/compact/2013Survey Summary Cohen, P. (2016). A rising call to promote STEM education and cut liberal arts funding. The New York Times. pp. B1-B3.

European Higher Education Area. (2010, March). Budapest-Vienna declaration on the European higher education area. Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/cid101033/budapest-vienna-declaration.html.

Gray, K. (2015, November 10). Rubio calls for more welders, fewer philosophers.

USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nationnow/2015/11/10/rubio-welders-philosophers-jobs/75551946/ Institute for Evidence-Based Change. (2012). Tuning American Higher Education: The process. Retrieved from http://degreeprofile.org/wp-content/ uploads/2014/09/Tuning-Higher-Education-The-Process.pdf.

McInerney, D. (2012, June). A beginners guide to tuning Presented at the American History Association’sTuning Project, Arlington, Virginia.

Mills, C. (2015, October 24). Jeb Bush: Psych majors work at Chick-fil-A. Washington Examiner. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/jeb-bush-psych-majors-work-at-chick-fil-a/article/2574851 Strauss, V. (2015, February 5). How Gov. Walker tried to quietly change the mission of the University of Wisconsin. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answersheet/wp/2015/02/05/how-gov-walker-tried-to-quietly-changethe-mission-of-the-university-of-wisconsin/?utm_term=.cefacf22efaa

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Appendix AHA Historical Tuning Project: History Discipline Core History is a set of evolving rules and tools that allows us to interpret the past with clarity, rigor, and an appreciation for interpretative debate. It requires evidence, sophisticated use of information, and a deliberative stance to explain change and continuity over time. As a profoundly public pursuit, history is essential to active and empathetic citizenship and requires effective communication to make the past accessible to multiple audiences. As a discipline, history entails a set of professional ethics and standards that demand peer review, citation, and toleration for the provisional nature of knowledge.

Core Competencies and Learning Outcomes History students can: 1 Engage in historical inquiry, research, and analysis.

• Develop a disciplined, skeptical stance and outlook on the world that demands evidence and sophisticated use of information.

• Understand the dynamics of change over time.

• Explore the complexity of the human experience, across time and space.

• Evaluate a variety of historical sources for their credibility, position, and perspective.

• Read and contextualize materials from the past with appropriate precision and detail.

2 Practice historical empathy.

• Value the study of the past for its contribution to lifelong learning and critical habits of mind that are essential for effective and engaged citizenship.

• Develop a body of historical knowledge with range and depth.

• Recognize the ongoing provisional nature of knowledge.

• Interpret the past in context; contextualize the past on its own terms.

• Explore multiple historical and theoretical viewpoints that provide perspective on the past.

• Recognize where they are in history.

3 Understand the complex nature of the historical record.

• Distinguish between primary and secondary materials and decide when to use each.

• Choose among multiple tools, methods, and perspectives to investigate and interpret materials from the past.

• Recognize the value of conflicting narratives and evidence.

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4 Generate significant, open-ended questions about the past and devise research strategies to answer them.

• Seek a variety of sources that provide evidence to support an argument about the past.

• Develop a methodological practice of gathering, sifting, analyzing, ordering, synthesizing, and interpreting evidence.

• Identify and summarize other scholars’ historical arguments.

5 Craft historical narrative and argument.

• Generate a historical argument that is reasoned and based on historical evidence selected, arranged, and analyzed.

• Write effective narrative that describes and analyzes the past for its use in the present.

• Understand that the ethics and practice of history mean recognizing and building on other scholars’ work, peer review, and citation.

• Defend a position publicly and revise this position when new evidence requires it.

6 Practice historical thinking as central to engaged citizenship.

• Engage a diversity of viewpoints in a civil and constructive fashion.

• Work cooperatively with others to develop positions that reflect deliberation and differing perspectives.

• Apply historical knowledge and analysis to contribute to contemporary social dialogue.

Sample tasks for demonstrating competencies: This broad list is intended to give instructors, programs, and departments a wide range of items through which to the competencies above might be demonstrated.

• Describe your own position in history in written, oral, or other forms.

• Generate class discussion questions from primary and secondary sources.

• Engage the ideas of others constructively in oral or written conversation, dialogue, or discussion.

• Explain in written or oral presentation the difference between primary and secondary sources.

• Explain in written or oral presentation the different perspectives (such as author, audience, and agenda) between two or more primary sources.

• Explain in written or oral presentation the different perspectives (such as author, audience, and agenda) between two or more secondary sources.

• Demonstrate how various sources may be synthesized.

• Find appropriate materials online, in a library, or in the community and know how to cite them.

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• Demonstrate the relationship between primary and secondary materials by assessing a historian’s work and recognizing the tools used to construct that historical argument.

• Contextualize a source; demonstrate in written or oral presentation what historical detail a source needs to be understood.

• Narrate in written or oral presentation an event from the past.

• Present and analyze in written or oral presentation different perspectives on an event from the past.

• Have a transcript that shows courses whose content ranges over time, space, culture, and methods.

• Use specific primary and secondary sources in examinations, discussions, and oral presentations.

• Select appropriate primary source(s) as evidence.

• Select appropriate secondary source(s) as evidence or in support of a position or argument.

• Identify existing and compelling questions about the subject.

• Pose appropriate research questions and assess the range of materials necessary to answer them.

• Write a proposal for the development of a work of history in any medium.

• Identify and cite sources and points of evidence appropriate in number and type for exercises such as an annotated bibliography, paper proposals, a semester paper, or a capstone exercise.

• Write a successful capstone research paper with appropriate citations.

• Participate in an internship and/or field experience, and also create an e-portfolio, blog, or website that demonstrates the creation of historical narrative and argument for public use.

• Complete a substantial historical project autonomously.

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n Reigniting a National Debate: Why Western Civ and World Civ Matter

Daniel Saperstein and Evan Saperstein Adjunct Professors History

There was a time when a survey course in Western Civilization (popularly known as Western Civ) was a standard part of the general education curriculum at many leading U.S. colleges and universities. The course—often divided into two or three sequences— broadly explored the history of western civilization from antiquity to the Middle Ages to modern times.

The history of classical Greece and Rome and medieval and modern Europe filled the pages of course lectures and texts, with little attention directed to nonWestern civilizations.

Yet, in recent decades, studies have shown that a growing number of U.S. colleges and universities are no longer offering—let alone requiring—Western Civ. Part I of this article discusses the history of this trend.

Part II examines the growing support in academia for a broader survey course in World Civilization (popularly known as World Civ). Part III analyzes the recent debate between those who favor reinstating Western Civ requirements and those who prefer that the curriculum offer World Civ or more specialized courses.

The conclusion proposes that higher education follow the model of many New Jersey community colleges and offer survey courses in both Western Civ and World Civ to fulfill General Education requirements.

I. The Rise and Fall of Western Civ More than three decades ago, historians were already lamenting the growing disappearance of Western Civ from college curricula. In 1982, the American Historical Review featured an article entitled “The Rise

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and Fall of the Western Civilization Course.” Deeming “[t]he rise of ‘Western Civ’ [a]s one of the great success stories in the history of the historical profession in America,” Allardyce (1982) argued that from the time of World War I to the 1960s, “all roads led to the Western Civ class” (p. 695). Yet, in the wake of the tumultuous student protests of the 1960s and the hastening curricular shift away from course prerequisites, Western Civ began to “cling[ ] to life at various schools” (p. 696).

Almost three decades later, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) confirmed this trend, issuing a report entitled The Vanishing West: 1964-2010: The Disappearance of Western Civilization from the American Undergraduate Curriculum, which detailed the demise of Western Civ at 50 well-known U.S. colleges and universities (Ricketts, Wood, Balch, & Thorne, 2011; see also Kiley, 2011). According to the study, in 1964, students at these institutions “often” enrolled in a two-semester sequence course in Western Civ, with 20 percent of the institutions requiring Western Civ and the other 80 percent offering some form of the course (Ricketts et al., 2011, p. 1).

“By 2010, the picture had changed drastically,” however, with none of these institutions requiring Western Civ and only 32 percent offering some form of the course (Ricketts et al., 2011, p. 1). Additionally, only one of the 75 public institutions later surveyed in 2010 required Western Civ (Ricketts et al., 2011, p. 5). The study concluded that an increasing number of U.S. colleges and universities (both public and private) had “abandoned” Western Civ “with nothing equivalent put in its place” (Ricketts et al., 2011, p. 1). In that same report, the NAS highlighted “the diminished remnant” of Western Civ requirements even for undergraduate history majors (Ricketts, et al., 2011, p. 7).

II. The Rise of World Civ A decade ago, Jerry Bentley (2007), a professor of World and Early Modern European History at the University of Hawaii, wrote a piece entitled “Why Study World History?” He argued that “[w]orld history provides the best and most useful contexts for many historical purposes,” and “enable[s] historians to construct meaning out of the myriad bits and pieces of information that constitute past experience” (Bentley, 2007). In support of this proposition, the professor claimed that the study of world history: (1) “deepens the understanding of individual societies’ experiences by clarifying their relationship with other societies and by placing them in comparative perspective”; (2) “has some larger social or public benefit in preparing students for responsible citizenship in the contemporary world”; and (3) “has to do with the kinds of personal conduct and public policy that are appropriate for the contemporary world” (Bentley, 2007).

As a general matter, World Civ covers much of the same material as Western Civ, albeit sometimes from differing vantage points and perspectives (Coffin, Stacey, Cole, & Symes, 2011; Tignor et al., 2011). Both courses commonly trace the study of ancient Near Eastern civilizations (e.g., Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Assyrian, and Persian civilizations) to Greco-Roman civilizations, to medieval

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times, to the modern age (Coffin et al., 2011; Tignor et al., 2011). Unlike Western Civ, however, World Civ spends more time examining the histories of civilizations in the Far East (e.g., the Indus River and Yellow River Valleys, and dynasties across China, like the Qin and Han), as well as seminal events in the history of the Americas (e.g., the Atlantic Revolutions in Haiti, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico) (Coffin et al., 2011; Tignor et al., 2011).

Over the past couple of decades, there has been a slow but steady shift to study World Civ. In 1994, a group of historians proposed new World History curricular standards at the secondary school level; by 2001, the College Board created the Advanced Placement (AP) World History exam (Lockard, 2000; Roupp, 2010; Stearns, 2006). Despite resistance from pro-Western Civ historians, politicians, journalists, and talk show hosts, “[w]orld history is the fastest-growing subject in the social studies” (Bain & Harris, 2009; Lockard, 2000). And the discipline is also becoming increasingly popular in higher education, particularly among public colleges and universities (Ricketts, et al., 2011, p. 13).

While World Civ is still not a staple of general education curricula, it has become a “far more common course than it once was” in higher education (Ricketts, et al., 2011, p. 13). For example, according to our review of recent course catalogs, approximately half of New Jersey community colleges have offered survey courses in World Civ. But that is not to say that World Civ has replaced Western Civ, as our review also showed that approximately half of New Jersey community colleges offer survey courses in both. For example, Ocean County College offers two-sequence Western Civ (HIST 171 and HIST 172) and World Civ (HIST 181 and HIST 182) courses. And, by way of another example, Middlesex County College provides courses in History of Western Civilization I and II (HIS-121 and HIS-122), and World History I and II (HIS-131 and HIS-132).

III. Reigniting a National Debate In early 2016, students at Stanford University squared off to debate the merits of western civilization. In a self-described manifesto, the editorial board at The Stanford Review (2016) petitioned the University to once again require a two-quarter class in Western Civ, instead of the more specialized (sometimes non-history) courses used to satisfy the current humanities requirement at Stanford (e.g., “Breaking Codes, Finding Patterns” and “Food Talks: The Language of Food”). The editorial board stressed that the course “should focus solely on Western tradition,” arguing that no other cultures “remotely match the Western tradition’s influence” (The Stanford Review, 2016). While the petition-turned-referendum ultimately failed by a wide margin (1992 to 342), it reached a wide audience and helped to “reignite a national debate” (The Stanford Review, 2016).

Several national news outlets supported the petition. For instance, Suzanne Fields (2016) at The Washington Times stated that “[t]he Stanford debate is a window on how institutions of higher learning lost sight of what’s important to think about.” Peter Berkowitz (2016) of RealClearPolitics commended the “admirable

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students of the Stanford Review” for proposing to “create a shared intellectual experience.” And Ashley Thorne (2016) at the New York Post added: “If they succeed, Stanford students will have written a new chapter in Western civilization for future students to study.”

Other outlets pushed back, however. In an article entitled “From Plato to Palo Alto: The Case Against Western Civ,” Lind (2016) criticized the “genre of triumphalist Western history” as “crude presentist propaganda.” In another Stanford student-run paper, The Stanford Daily, Mara Chin Loy (2016) accused The Stanford Review (2016) editorial board of “promot[ing] Western values in order to establish the superiority of Western values.” And, even comments posted on The Stanford Review webpage at the time asked why we should study Western Civ and not other civilizations. Other comments claimed that the course was a hallmark for cultural insensitivities and whitewashing of Western atrocities (“The case for a Western Civilization requirement,” 2016).

As adjunct professors of history at Bergen Community College (one of 19 community colleges in the New Jersey system) and elsewhere, we have collectively taught several survey courses in Western Civ and World Civ. Based on our teaching and scholarship, we agree, in part, with The Stanford Review editorial board (“The case for a Western Civilization requirement,” 2016). From Athenian democracy to Roman republicanism, from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, from Adam Smith to Karl Marx, from Plato to Freud, from the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment, from the Agricultural Revolution to the Industrial Revolution, from the American Revolution to the French Revolution, the West has given birth to some of the most consequential ideas, individuals, and institutions the world has ever known—sins and all. Western Civ “explain[s] some of the most important issues facing college campuses and the country,” and the evils of the West “should not rule out a Western Civilization requirement” (“The case for a Western Civilization requirement,” 2016). Every global civilization has “stories of repression,” and if we want to right the wrongs of the past, we need to understand them (“The case for a Western Civilization requirement,” 2016).

At the same time, while “focusing almost entirely on a single civilization” (“The case for a Western Civilization requirement,” 2016), the editorial board failed to appreciate that a lot has changed in the last few decades. We live in a society today that, because of the Internet and new forms of media, is more interconnected than ever before (Oblinger, 2001). As Thomas Friedman (2000) deduced, “If the first era of globalization shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, this era of globalization is shrinking the world from a size medium to a size small” (pp. xviii, xix). In this new globalized world, it has become even more imperative that the next generation of American leaders—be it in business, government, education, or a host of other areas—be exposed to the histories and traditions of cultures across the globe, not just the West.

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Conclusion Despite their differences, Western Civ and World Civ share much in common.

Survey courses—be they in Western or World history—connect the dots in a way that more specialized courses do not, taking students on a journey through the seminal political, economic, social, religious, philosophical, scientific, intellectual, and cultural movements of history. Both Western Civ and World Civ provide students with a window into who we are, how we evolved, and the recurring challenges we face. For all that we have to learn from Western and World history, U.S. colleges and universities across the country should offer both as part of their general education curricula, and let students choose the course that best suits their interests. And schools need look no further than the New Jersey community college system for that blueprint.

References Allardyce, G. (1982). The rise and fall of the western civilization course.

American Historical Review, 87(3), 695-725.

Bain, R., & Harris, L. M. (2009). A most pressing challenge: Preparing teachers of world history. Perspectives on History, 47(7), 33-43.

Bentley, J. H. (2007). Why study world history. World History Connected, 5(1).

Berkowitz, P. (2016, February 24). Require Western Civ Courses — and End College Dark Ages. RealClearPolitics. Retrieved from http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/24/require_western_civ_courses_— _and_end_college_dark_ages_129758.html Chin Loy, M. (2016, February 23). A response to The Review’s Western Civilization petition. The Stanford Daily. Retrieved from http://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/02/23/the-case-against-a-western -civilization-requirement-at-stanford/ Coffin, J., Stacey, R., Cole J., & Symes, C. (2011). Western civilizations: Their history & their culture. New York: Norton.

Fields, S. (2016, March 30). From ‘Plato to NATO’ in a dangerous world.

The Washington Times. Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/30/suzannefieldsfrom-plato-to-nato-in-a-dangerous-w/ Friedman, T. (2000). The lexus and the olive tree: Understanding globalization.

New York: Anchor Books.

Kiley, K. (2011, May 19). Decline of ‘Western Civ’? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/19/national_ association_of_scholars_report_finds_no_mandatory_western_civilization_courses_at_top_universities

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Lind, M. (2016, February 25). From Plato to Palo Alto: The case against Western Civ. The Smart Set. Retrieved from http://thesmartset.com/fromplato-to-palo-alto/ Lockard, C. A (2000). World history and the public: The national standards debate. Perspectives on History, 38(5).

Oblinger, D. (2001). The world is getting smaller, but are we seeing farther?.

Educause Review, 36(4), 62-63.

Ricketts, G., Wood, P. W., Balch, S. H., & Thorne, A. (2011). The Vanishing West: 1964-2010: The disappearance of Western Civilization from the American undergraduate curriculum. Princeton, NJ: National Association of Scholars.

Roupp, H. (2010). Teaching world history in the twenty-ďŹ rst century: A resource book (Ed.). New York: Routledge.

Stearns, P. N. (2006). World history: Curriculum and controversy. World History Connected, 3(3). The case for a Western Civilization requirement at Stanford. (2016).

The Stanford Review. Retrieved from https://stanfordreview.org/the-case-for-awestern-civilization-requirement-at-stanford-bc274f53a40 Thorne, A. (2016, March 30). The drive to put Western civ back in the college curriculum. New York Post. Retrieved from http://nypost.com/2016/03/29/the-drive-to-put-western-civ-backin-the-college-curriculum/ Tignor, R., Adelman, J., Aron, S., Kotkin, S., Marchand, S., Prakash, G., & Tsin, M. (2011).

Worlds together, worlds apart. New York: Norton.

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n Facilitating Productive and Equitable Class Discussions

Sara Mastellone Assistant Professor Math

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Many education specialists encourage professors of all disciplines to shift their classroom pedagogy from being the “sage on the stage” to being the “guide on the side” (Chapin, O’Connor, & Anderson, 2003; Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1984; McDonald, Mohr, Dicter, & McDonald, 2007). This advice is meant to foster a classroom environment that is more engaging for students in the hope that this engagement will produce higher academic achievement. (Chapin et al, 2003; Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick, 2008). However, many professors are concerned that the quality and focus of a discussion generated by students will miss the key components of the topic at hand, and the meandering quality of student-generated discussion will derail the lesson.

These legitimate concerns need to be addressed if professors want to take the advice of education reformers and build more student-centered classes. The point of lesson planning is to control and guide the students’ learning of the intended material efficiently. Most of the control of the classroom environment finds its roots in pre-lesson work. In planning a mathematics lesson, professors need to identify the salient mathematical features of the lesson, consider how to address likely misconceptions that students may harbor, and prepare guiding questions and remarks that will highlight the important information of the lesson.

In a previous article for this journal, I discussed techniques that would assist students in learning mathematical concepts and procedures by reading their textbook, writing their understanding of the

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mathematical ideas addressed, and presenting those ideas orally. I produced ‘anticipation guides’ to help students focus on the multiple strategies needed to decode the unit assigned for reading (Mastellone, 2016). These anticipation guides consist of questions about the unit that students read prior to the class dedicated to the learning of that unit’s content (see Appendix A). Students hand in their completed anticipation guide at the beginning of class. Each student is assigned to a group; each group writes the answer to one of the questions on the guide on large sheets of paper posted around the room. Then the groups review the answers to the questions that have been posted (gallery walk) and write comments on the paper for each question. When the gallery walk is complete, each group prepares and presents the answer to their assigned question.

The presentation commonly includes students responding to questions from the class (the teacher included) on their presentation. In this article I will provide a ‘monitoring tool’ for the teacher, which facilitates the presentation segment of the class and focuses the discussion of the answers that students give to the questions posed in the anticipation guide. Since the foci of these lessons are the acquisition of mathematical knowledge and mathematical reading comprehension, the monitoring tool aims to achieve both of these goals.

The format of the monitoring tool is a four-column chart (see Appendix B).

The anticipation guide questions are recorded in the left-most column. In the second column the professor writes all of the possible correct and incorrect responses a student might give to each of the questions on the anticipation guide. In the third column, the professor records the remarks s/he would like to give to a student’s (or group’s) answer. The fourth column is used to record the key questions or content the professor wants to highlight and other important thoughts for the summary section of the lesson. When writing a monitoring tool, it is helpful to leave space on the form for making notes during the lesson, as this is an evolving document that will be informed by the work the students produce in each iteration of its use. In discussing the production of monitoring tools in more detail, I have chosen the anticipation guide written for “Simplifying Rational Expressions” (Appendix A).

Writing the Monitoring Tool Monitoring tools written by one professor should not be viewed as a final product that all professors can or should adhere to as a script. A monitoring tool should be thought of as a work in progress for three reasons. First, this is a guide that will generate new versions as it is used. Student responses and comments during the class will inform professors on needed revisions. Second, the process of producing a monitoring tool is valuable in helping the professor keep in mind his/her goals for the lesson. This attention and focus on lesson goals and planned responses to possible answers helps reduce the risk of derailment of the lesson.

The third reason is that facilitating productive and equitable discussion takes preparation before each iteration; therefore, the monitoring tool should be reviewed before each use. Thinking beforehand about how to respond to students

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in a way that encourages deeper consideration while at the same time transferring the role of arbiter of correctness to the students, helps professors reduce the number of pedagogical decisions they make ‘on their feet’.

In preparing a monitoring tool there are several guiding principles to consider.

One overarching structural imperative is supporting and promoting purposeful and equitable discourse among students. Another focusing principal for developing monitoring tools is helping students develop both thinking and reading skills. Students must be helped to clarify terms; recognize, unpack, and correct misconceptions; develop productive reading strategies for the mathematics textbook; pose legitimate mathematical justifications; see the connection between mathematical rules and mathematics definitions; make connections between the content under investigation and content they have already studied; and see, by foreshadowing, upcoming connections.

To facilitate meaningful conversations, which accurately bring out the important content and details of a lesson and insure that all members of the class understand and participate in the discussion, the instructor must build an environment that supports these outcomes. Appendix C offers advice based on the work of educators concerned with supporting meaningful class discussion (Chapin, O’Connor, & Anderson, 2009; Herbel-Eisenmann, & Cirillo, 2009; Johnson, 1984; McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, & McDonald, 2013; Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick, 2008).

While considering the sample monitoring tool (Appendix B), one can see examples of both focusing principles and talk strategies shown in Appendix C. For example, Question 1 illustrates instances of clarifying mathematical terms, extending thinking to make connections, and making use of the textbook. In Question 2, the prompt calls attention to detail and prompts the students to ‘unpack’ the logic behind the rules of mathematics. Question 3 focuses on mathematical justifications and addresses misconceptions students often have. Question 4 continues the exploration of misconceptions, foreshadows upcoming connections, prompts the students to make connections between the procedures for rational numbers and the procedures for rational expressions, and focuses on textbook examples and how to read them. Question 5 is an example of the use of talk strategies and prompts ‘what if’ questions. Question 6 shows another example of the use of talk strategies and prompts the connection between mathematical rules and mathematical definitions. Finally, Question 7 gives an example of the professor’s helping to focus the student’s thought without ‘funneling’ that thought. Question 7 also highlights different mathematically correct procedures and forms and prompts students to make connections between these concepts and forms.

The sample monitoring tool shows discussion strategies and also some examples of various prompts to achieve a range of results. They direct student thinking about the mathematical concepts under consideration (without ‘funneling’ their thoughts to the teacher’s thinking). In addition, the prompts deepen connections to previous learning either by causing cognitive dissonance when that prior

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learning contradicts a current statement or by it reinforcing their accurate prior knowledge. Finally, there are prompts that aim at giving direction that helps students see how the textbook communicates mathematical content.

This detailed planning for student presentations and class discussions is required if professors want to guard against meandering discussions or derailed lessons. It is also useful in supporting professors who want to avoid usurping the thinking and problem solving opportunities from the students. As the bulk of my teaching experience is in the field of mathematics, the discussion of facilitating classroom discussion has focused on the mathematics classroom. It is very likely that the ideas in this paper will transfer to other discipline. However, professionals in each field are encouraged to judge the appropriateness for their disciplines.

References Chapin, S. H., O’Connor, C., & Anderson, N. C. (2009). Classroom discussions: Using math talk to help students learn, grades K-6 (2nd ed.). Sausalito, CA: Math Solutions.

Herbel-Eisenmann, B., & Cirillo, M. (2009). Promoting purposeful discourse: Teacher research in mathematics classrooms. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R.T., & Holubec, E.J. (1984). Circles of learning: Cooperation in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Mastellone, S. (2016). Reading, writing, and presenting in the community college mathematics classroom. The Bergen Community College Journal of Scholarly Teaching, (2016).

McDonald, J. P., Mohr, N., Dichter, A., & McDonald, E. C. (2013). The power of protocols: An educator’s guide to better practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Michaels, S., O’Connor, C., & Resnick, L. B. (2008). Deliberative discourse idealized and realized: Accountable talk in the classroom and in civic life. Studies in philosophy and education, 27(4), 283-297.

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Appendix A: Anticipation Guide: Simplifying Rational Expressions

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Appendix B: Sample Monitoring Tool: Simplifying Rational Expressions

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Appendix C: Purposeful and Equitable Classroom (Mathematical) Discussions Structure of the Discussion: Think, Pair, Share • Think - Individual thinking time helps students consider their opinion before the thinking of others distracts them. Require each student to respond in writing. I use sturdy page protectors that have graph paper and plain paper inserted. The surface is erasable. You could use a small white-board or some other personal writing surface. This sets an expectation that each student will participate in the lesson, and it gives the teacher a quick view of the range of skills and ideas in the class.

• Pair - Students verbally express their thoughts in a small group (2 to 4 students) about what they have written. This demands clarification of ideas. The role of the listeners is to consider carefully each member’s ideas, ask questions, and help the group chose what to share with the class.

• Share - This ‘whole class’ discussion is an opportunity for everyone to come to agreement on the productive answers presented by the groups.

Class discussions also provides assessment opportunity for the teacher and build a strong closure to the lesson if the presentations have been carefully sequenced.

Discussion Strategies that Enhance Equity: Teacher Moves that Invite Everyone into the Conversation Re-voicing: “So, you’re saying that we can’t add fractions unless the denominators are the same? Do I understand you?”

• Slows the conversation so all students have time to process what is being said; • Illuminates what students currently believe.

Restating: “T, can you tell me what P just said but in your own words?”

• May help students to make themselves clear and comprehensible when they know that other students will examine and evaluate what they said in a supportive yet critical way; • Gives students a second chance to decode the input, but it also gives them an opportunity to test their own understanding of what was said by comparing their thoughts to how other listeners interpreted the original speaker.

Wait Time: “Let me give everyone a few moments to think about that.”

• Ask the question before selecting a speaker and wait before and after selecting a speaker (I count silently to twenty in each instance).

• Conveys that everyone is allowed (and expected) to formulate and answer questions;

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Apply their Reasoning to Someone Else’s Reasoning: “Do you agree or disagree? Say why.”

• Helps students see the similarities and differences among problems, helping them to stop viewing every problem as a brand new task; • Requires testing one’s own assertions often leading to “What if” questions; • Helps students develop metacognitive strategies to evaluate their procedures and solutions.

Say More: “Can you tell us more about that?”

• Gives students a chance to think more deeply; • Helps teacher avoid jumping and completing a student’s thought; • “What would you say if you did know?” is a surprisingly effective response to students who respond to a question by saying, “I don’t know”.

Say Something: “Can you share your thinking on this?”

• Another way to prompt listening to and commenting on peer’s thinking; • Helps students direct the mathematical conversation from the last speakers remarks.

Sentence Starters: Posting prompts on the wall for student use when they are tongue-tied.

• Helps students adopt “talk habits” i.e. ways of beginning their statement that is respectful and detailed.

• Deepens the discussion • Lessens self-consciousness Examples: I agree with that because ...

I disagree because ...

I have a question about that because ...

I notice that ...

I see a connection to ...

I wonder if this is the (same/different) as ...

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n A Modest Quest to Measure the Relationship Between Student LearnSmart® Performance & Test Scores in a Principles of Macroeconomics Course

Takvor H. Mutafoglu Assistant Professor Economics

The use of technology in presenting course material to students, PreK-12 and higher education alike, has been advocated by many in both administrative and academic circles. Thus, popular textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill (Connect), Pearson (MyLab), Cengage Learning (Aplia), and Macmillan Learning (Sapling Learning) offer access to textbook technology supplements (TTS) for several disciplines, which are promoted to improve student success in the classroom.

Such TTS may include e-texts, online quizzes/homework, videos, and/or interactive tools that produce computer-assisted learning (CAL) for students. Lewis (2003) conducted a brief literature review of 10 CAL studies in the domain of anatomy and physiology and found support for benefits of these technologies for student performance. Furthermore, Timmerman & Kruepke (2006) conducted meta-analyses across several domains to investigate the impact of CAL on college student performance and concluded that student performance gains are larger for CAL than traditional, non-supplemented, instruction but inconsistent across the studies selected for inclusion. Nevertheless, other authors have assessed several forms of technologies, making it difficult to identify which CAL resources have concrete effects on student performance.

Griff and Matter (2013) assessed the effectiveness of LearnSmart, an adaptive learning system developed by McGraw Hill Higher Education, across six institutions among undergraduate students enrolled in anatomy and physiology courses. Their treatment-control comparison study found no significant improvement with

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LearnSmart compared with the control section, although two of the six participating schools showed consistently better results in the treatment relative to the control sections. Gearhart (2016) also investigated the effectiveness of LearnSmart used in an interpersonal communication course. He found that both the control group, where no LearnSmart modules were required, and the treatment group, where LearnSmart submission was a requisite, scored similarly on the exams, with no significant differences, tested by independent sample t-tests. Moreover, Gurung (2015) examined the relationship between the amount of time spent using LearnSmart and student exam performance in introductory psychology classes.

The results indicate a significant positive correlation; that is, the more time students spent with the LearnSmart modules, the higher they scored on tests.

Inspired by these studies, this study primarily investigates the simple correlation coefficient between the use of CAL, namely LearnSmart, and average exam performance in Principles of Macroeconomics courses offered at Bergen Community College during the spring and fall semesters of 2016. Furthermore, the paper explores the correlation between student performance in online homework assignments, with auto-grading and instant feedback features, and average student exam grades. The two-types of assignments, LearnSmart and traditional homework, with multiple choice and fill-in-the-blanks, are both provided by the Connect TTS of McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

LearnSmart Technology The TTS known as Connect includes a collection of online resources. For macroeconomics, the package has multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks, long-and-short answer questions, access to the e-book edition of the textbook, videos, and LearnSmart. One of the advantages of using Connect for assignments is that upon submission, students receive instant feedback, in some cases with videos and visual aids. The program then provides instructors with reports that can be used to determine which students need more guidance based on their performance on homework assignments. Currently, student access to the Connect TTS can be purchased, with an electronic copy of the textbook, for a net price of $105.00.

LearnSmart, one of tools available within Connect, is marketed as the industry’s first “adaptive learning technology” which dynamically assesses students’ skill and knowledge levels, based on confidence indicators, to track which topics students have mastered and which ones require further practice.

Griff and Matter (2013) describe seamlessly how the LearnSmart resource works: For each question in a LearnSmart session, the student first decides his or her confidence level in answering that question, from “yes”, “probably” or “maybe”, (I know the answer) to “just a guess.” Some questions are multiple choice, some are multiple answers (where more than one choice is correct) and some are fill-in-the-blank. The software uses the student’s under

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standing of the material from previous questions and the student’s confidence to select subsequent questions (p. 171).

The fully digital system acts like a personalized tutor, continuously assessing students’ knowledge and skills and providing an individualized learning experience that helps them master course concepts and retain their knowledge over time (McGraw-Hill Education, 2013). For educators, the program creates a wide range of reports documenting overall class progress as well as areas needed for additional instructions. Ideally, the data help instructors construct lectures around topics that need more exploration in the classroom. Thus, both students and instructors might benefit from the LearnSmart technology.

Methodology & Results This study focuses on student performance achieved in Principles of Macroeconomics courses, which utilize LearnSmart technology, during the spring and fall semesters of 2016. It examines online and face-to-face sections separately simply to have a better, not particularly a deeper, understanding of in which environment LearnSmart helps students more. In order to be included in this exercise, a student must have taken all three tests in the course. Although there were a total of 131 and 80 students in online and face-to-face classes, respectively, only 79 students in online sections and 51 students in face-to-face sections were qualified to be included in this study.

Student performance on a particular LearnSmart exercise was based on percentage of completion by the assignment deadline. If 80 percent of the assignment was completed by the due date, students’ grades for that particular LearnSmart study module would be 80 points. Students had the opportunity to access a module after the deadline; however, only scores earned before the deadline of an activity were accepted. Each LearnSmart module was due after the chapter content was covered in the classroom for face-to-face students. This practice was adopted based on recommendations included in the course evaluation of face-to-face sections from previous semesters, when it was a requirement for students to complete a module before the chapter content was covered.

Students in the previous semesters, both online and face-to-face sections, emphasized in the course evaluations that LearnSmart modules were “too long to complete”. The amount of content delivered to students can be adjusted within LearnSmart by moving a slider for either more or less content. As the slider is adjusted, the average amount of completion time is displayed at the top. Accordingly, the completion time was reduced from 75 minutes to 60 minutes. Students were required to complete 12 activities throughout the semester, and they were part of the students’ final course grade. Each of the three exams in the course covered four content chapters via 50 multiple-choice questions, and total exam scores were averaged for each student to determine an overall performance score. Likewise, total LearnSmart and homework scores were averaged for each student to have uni-

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formity in measurements. While the average LearnSmart score in online sections and for face-to-face sections were calculated to be 80 and 75, respectively, the average homework grade was computed to be 76 and 66. The average test grade was measured to be 60 in online sections and 63 in face-to-face sections.

Each required homework assignment included a combination of 10 multiplechoice and fill-in-the-blanks questions. Students had one attempt to complete each assignment. However, for each question, students had access to the e-book, hints, and one chance to check their answer with no penalty. Additionally, for each question, students received instant feedback, which provided a detailed explanation and/or solution for the correct answer upon submission of a homework assignment. Although late submissions were allowed, there was a 10 percent grade reduction for each late day. It was not required for face-to-face students to complete a homework assignment before chapter content was covered in the classroom.

Both online and face-to-face students had the opportunity to take a 24-hour break between completion of a LearnSmart study module and a homework assignment. Those two activities were not due the same day and time. LearnSmart study modules were due a day before homework assignments. While the average amount of time spent by both students in online and face-to-face sections for LearnSmart completion was 83 minutes, the average amount of time spent by students in online sections for homework assignments was 41 minutes and for students in face-to-face sections was 37 minutes.

The Pearson correlation coefficient, denoted by r, is used to measure the strength of a linear relationship between two variables. A correlation coefficient of 1 indicates a perfect positive association whereas a value of -1 shows a perfect negative relationship between variables x and y. The Pearson correlation coefficient formula is where x ̅ and y ̅ represent the mean, or average, of variables x and y, respectively.

The results for the online sections of Principles of Macroeconomics are presented in Table 1.1. It seems that there is only a moderate positive relationship,

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slightly less than 30 percent, between average performance in LearnSmart modules and average test performance in the course. On the other hand, a strong positive relationship, 40 percent, exists between average homework assignment performance and test performance. That is, the traditional homework assignments with multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blanks appear to be much more effective than completion of LearnSmart study modules. Although there is a strong positive relationship between the average amount of time a student spends with LearnSmart and average LearnSmart performance, there is either no or negligible relationship between average test scores and amount of time a student spends with LearnSmart. Lastly, there seems to be a moderate positive relationship between average LearnSmart performance and average homework assignment performance.

The above results in Table 1.2 present the Pearson correlation coefficient test results for face-to-face sections in Principles of Macroeconomics. Similar to the result observed in online sections, there is only moderate positive relationship, 30 percent, between average performance in LearnSmart activities and average test performance in the course. However, the relation between average homework assignment performance and test performance is much stronger in face-to-face sections. There is a strong positive correlation, 57 percent, between these two variables. That is, the magnitude of the relationship is much stronger in face-to-face sections when compared to online sections. Nevertheless, the relation between the average amount of time a student spends with LearnSmart activities and average LearnSmart performance as well as the correlation between average test scores and amount of time a student spends with LearnSmart is similar for both sections. On the other hand, there is a very strong positive relationship, more than 70 percent, between average homework performance of a student and average LearnSmart performance. That relationship in online sections is calculated to be just slightly more than 30 percent, moderate positive relationship. While there is only weak positive relationship between the average amount of time a student spends on homework assignments and homework performance in online sections,

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there is strong positive relationship between those two variables in face-to-face sections.

Conclusion The primary motivation for this study was to find out whether there was any relationship, between an adaptive-learning technology, LearnSmart, provided by McGraw-Hill Higher Education Publishing Company within the Connect textbook technology supplement environment, and student performance in online and face-to-face sections of Principles of Macroeconomics. Pearson correlation coefficient values indicate that there is only moderate positive relationship between the two variables for both online and face-to-face sections. However, a strong positive relationship is observed between homework assignment performance and test performance for online and face-to-face sections alike. Interestingly, no relationship was found between time spent using LearnSmart and exam scores.

Admittedly, the conclusions reached in this study suffer from several issues.

First, the sample sizes for both online (N=79) and face-to-face (N=51) sections are smaller than desirable. In order to have a thorough understanding of the relationships between the variables, a larger sample size is needed. Second, one should be aware that there are numerous hidden and unexamined factors, which could have an impact on average LearnSmart performance as well as on test performance. These factors include demographic characteristics (male versus female), students’ program of study (majors versus non majors), students’ classification/year in college, number of absences per student in face-to-face sections or infrequent logins per student in online sections during the semester, as well as average institutional GPA of students’ prior to the semester. Lastly, it should always be remembered that correlation does not indicate causation. That is, the moderate positive correlation found between average LearnSmart performance and test performance does not at all reflect any causal relationship between the variables. Thus, a more rigorous and effective investigation necessitates the use of a Granger causality test which describes the bilateral relationship between independent and dependent variables in a single equation, holding all else constant. However, the application of Granger causality test would be unproductive in the absence of a relatively large sample size because it would produce spurious results. Consequently, future research should attempt to consider all the shortcomings of the current study in order to improve accuracy and reliability.

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References Gearhart, C. (2016). Does LearnSmart connect students to textbook content in a interpersonal communication course?: Assessing the effectiveness of and satisfaction with LearnSmart. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 28(1), 9-17.

Griff, E. R., & Matter, S. F. (2013). Evaluation of an adaptive online learning system.

British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(1), 170-176.

Gurung, R. A. (2015). Three investigations of the utility of textbook technology supplements. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 14(1), 26-35.

Lewis, M. J. (2003). Computer-assisted learning for teaching anatomy and physiology in subjects allied to medicine. Medical Teacher, 25(2), 204-207.

McGraw-Hill Education. (2013). McGraw-Hill Connect effectiveness study.

Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/518efbd8e4b07b7f3ea35e0b/t/5 2e29830e4b0064a1e5cfa03/1390581808756/McGraw+Hill+Connect+o verview.pdf Timmerman, C. E., & Kruepke, K. A. (2006). Computer-assisted instruction, media richness, and college student performance. Communication Education, 55, 73-104.

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n Properly Developing a Questionnaire to Self-Assess Pedagogical Practices in Class John Bandman Assistant Professor Business Hotel/Restaurant Management

Developing a self-administered questionnaire requires a great deal of preparation and monitoring in order to gather reliable responses (Fink & Kosekoff, 1985). To gather necessary information, such planning requires that one narrow down the research focus, develop research questions, and create data collection instruments. Planning also needs one to strategize the methodology, select participants, and test the survey for effectiveness and minimal bias. Further, the scientific process of writing a questionnaire involves assessment of clarity, relevance, reliability, validity and practicality. As part of a study for a dissertation, I applied these planning stages to determine students’ perceptions of task repetition as a means to improve their academic writing skills. I developed a student questionnaire as a systematic method of response collection in order to gather the data and draw proper conclusions about my teaching methodology.

The aim of my research is to identify whether nonnative speakers of English improve in their academic writing after repeating the same task at various time intervals between tasks. Therefore, I explored students’ perceptions on repeating writing tasks as a way to develop their writing. In the writing tasks, I looked at whether the complexity, accuracy, and communicative adequacy of students’ writing improved after rewriting a text based on an integrated listening-to-writing task about college study skills.

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Data Collection Instruments and Methods before the Main Study Educators who would like to write a questionnaire to gather information solely to reflect on their teaching methods do not need formal administrative approval. However, in order to publish or present the findings, student consent forms as well as administrative clearance are needed. To obtain the proper authorization, I underwent the formal application process. I first sought and received permission from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) committee at Bergen Community College, where the study was conducted. I completed an extensive form that described the study and the participants and addressed ethical considerations. Then I developed consent forms and participant information sheets.

After I received IRB approval, I described the study to the students, and those who were willing to participate signed the consent forms. Afterwards, I provided all participants with a pre-task Student Demographic Questionnaire to fill out online. This questionnaire made it possible to gather information about student demographics as well as preferred learning styles in order to make correlations between those data, the written tasks, and the data from the post-task student survey, the Task Repetition Perception Questionnaire (TRPQ). The original version of TRPQ (Appendix 1) and revised version of the TRPQ (Appendix 2) are the focus of this article.

Data Collection Instruments and Methods during the Main Study Once the participants completed the online pre-task questionnaire, they completed a listening-to-write activity immediately after listening to a recorded dictation. The audio recording was about a college professor who reviewed with his students the course requirements. The writing task prompted students to write a brief summary of the recording and to write about how to be successful in college.

The task also asked them to explain what they look for in an excellent professor.

I designated one group to receive feedback after the first repetition, one group after the second repetition, and one group not to receive any feedback until all repetitions were completed.

Data Collection Instruments and Methods after the Main Study After all writing tasks were completed, while students could still remember their experience completing the task, I administered the revised TRPQ (Appendix 2) to gather input on their perceptions of task repetition as an aide to improving their writing. It is extremely important to consider the timing of this questionnaire’s administration because it explores participants’ perceptions and attitudes of not only task repetition in general but also a specific task. In this case, participants will likely have a better recollection of their feelings and attitudes toward the task as well as task repetition in general.

Specific student responses are beyond the scope of this article. The next section delves into the designing of the questionnaire, including some changes made between drafting it and executing it in the classroom.

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Designing the Task Repetition Perception Questionnaire Designing the TRPQ was a multi-step process. Even before writing the original version, I had developed an ambiguous question that I then had to reword. I had worded a double-barreled question, where respondents would need to tick box whether the task was interesting and helpful. Payne (1951) states, “Double-barreled questions deserve to be split into separate questions for each of the two issues except in special cases where two issues [need] to be asked about together” (p. 233).

My question touched upon more than one issue. I needed to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity that could have affected the response.

I truly wanted to know whether the students found the task helpful as well as interesting. However, I then realized that a task can be helpful to students but be boring at the same time, Rasinger (2013) states, “know what you want and ask what you need” and “get as much as possible out of your data with as little effort as possible” (p. 56). He emphasizes the importance of avoiding generic questions that do not provide answers to specific questions. I experienced the need to refine my questions such that the answers would provide significant information for my study. Following Rasinger’s ideal to ask what I need, I developed a question about learners’ attitudes about task repetition in a five-point Likert scale that uses “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” on both versions of the questionnaire.

By developing the Likert scale questions, a participant can identify separately their attitude toward repetition. For example, statements 1-5 in Question 2 (Appendix 1) and statements in Questions 3 and 4 (Appendix 2) allow the participants to identify whether task repetitions are helpful or interesting without the ambiguity that had occurred in my initial wording. Ideally, the Likert scale provides responses that distinguish themselves from one another, thereby allowing students to gauge their levels of agreement with the item. Payne supports this point: “The issue should be clear within each choice in the degree-type question [and] not be left to implication in another” (p. 232). This new question form on the revised version (Appendix 2) separately categorizes feelings (interesting) and effectiveness (helpful), and this simplification helps ensure more accuracy in the responses.

Rohrmann (2007) supports varietal categorizing (arrangement of topics under specific headings) of rating scales because it clarifies the construct of the verbal labels. This facilitates the practicality of quantitative data collection. If the levels of agreement on the rating scale are not clearly defined, the qualifiers (words that restrict or open general statements) are not properly grading the degree to which learners agree with statements reflecting their perceptions about task repetition.

Of course, there is a degree of subjectivity involved in interpreting prompts no matter how precise we are, but we strive toward clear and discrete categories. Nevertheless, a goal of achieving zero subjectivity is unreachable.

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Clarity Clearly ranked rating scale responses represent exclusivity in the answers (Saris & Gallhofer, 2014). For example, my choices “strongly disagree” and “disagree”, as well as “strongly agree” and “agree”, are exclusive, or as exclusive as can be reasonably achieved. These choices represent clarity regarding whether someone agrees to some extent versus on a stronger level. Similarly, learners can select “neutral” if they have no opinion. It can also be argued that respondents may select the mid-point answer if they are either unsure of their level of agreement or simply wish to complete the survey quickly. Oppenheim (1966) discusses the importance of clarity in the instructions themselves: “Instructions to the respondent will usually be confined to the way an answer should be recorded…The main function of all these instructions is to compensate for the absence of an interviewer” (p. 67).

One of the reasons I chose a written questionnaire instead of an interview was to avoid bias between the interviewer and the respondents, as some may provide different responses when they feel influenced by the interviewer’s demeanor.

I further clarified the grouping of my questions from the original version to the revised one. For example, Questions 1 – 12 on the original version (Appendix 1) involve solely a list of statements without a specific section title. Because I wished to gather students’ opinions about the specific task as well as tasks in general, I later subcategorized the statements into two parts: Question 3: Questions about this task and Question 4: Questions about tasks in general (Appendix 2).

This revision made it clear as to when I was asking their opinions about one task versus tasks in general.

Comprehensibility Equally important to exclusivity is comprehensibility. Babbie (1990) indicates that having unclear and ambiguous questions is very common in surveys and should be avoided. Words such as “enough”, “sufficient”, “boring”, “many” and “appropriate” are prone to multiple interpretations and can be understood in a number of ways. For that reason, I used these terms as little as possible. However, I deemed them acceptable to use in Question 2, statements 6, 7, 9, and 10 because the focus is on the learners’ perceptions (Appendix 1). For example, statement 6 asks “The task sufficiently reflects my English writing ability”, which represents diverse meanings of “sufficient”.

I addressed the concern about ambiguity by asking the same question in a different way later in the questionnaire. For example, statement 7 “The task sufficiently reflects my English listening ability” and statement 12 “The listening was too difficult to understand” represent level of difficulty (Appendix 1). If the learner responds “strongly agree” to statement 7 and “strongly disagree”, to statement 12, it suggests the learner found the level appropriate. In this questionnaire, I repeated the question with different wording about the same topic, so I could truly determine the learners’ perceptions of level of difficulty. However, in very long questionnaires, it is essential to limit such repetition to avoid fatigue and in-

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valid responses. Although I developed a short questionnaire, I am more concerned about interpreting non-polar responses. Gideon (2012) states, “While some repetition is at times desirable for reliability purposes, unnecessary repetitiveness is not only onerous for participants, but is it also time consuming, as it prolongs the questionnaire” (p. 97).

To avoid lengthy questionnaires, I incorporated mainly closed-ended questions. Fowler (1988) emphasizes the importance of designing questions that “mean the same thing to all respondents…[and] respondents should have the same perception of what constitutes an adequate answer for the question” (p. 83). In this case, I provided the five levels of agreement to a list of twelve statements. Fink and Kosekoff (1985) provide several rules for writing questions with forced choices: The questions must be meaningful to the respondents, standard English without abbreviations must be used, the questions should align with the respondents’ experiences, bias must be avoided, and each question should be mutually exclusive (pp. 30-2). Fowler (1988) cautions that closed questions are not applicable in all cases if there are more possible answers than just a few choices.

Although the closed statements address learners’ perceptions of task repetition, I do not find the closed option applicable to Question 5: “What is your overall opinion about task repetition? Explain” (Appendix 2) Thus, I provided this openended question to allow space for general comments on the topic, which adds flexibility (Babbie, 1990) and increases validity and reliability (Krosnick, 1999). More fundamentally, open-ended questions give participants space to identify an issue I may have missed. Therefore, I can glean more information if they have additional comments to make about task repetition that are beyond the scope of the closed questions. However, I kept open-ended questions to this part only. Fowler (1988) cautions: “Asking people to answer questions in their own words increases the difficulty of their task, which will affect the rate of nonresponse for many types of respondents” (p. 64). Additionally, if there are too many open-ended answers, it makes it much harder to analyze. Further, since this question type may tire respondents, it is at the end of the questionnaire. Finally, a short questionnaire would seem preferable to the respondents over time-consuming interviews, as it minimizes the time gap between task repetition and attitude measurement.

Reliability According to Litosseliti (2010), validity and reliability are closely related to measurement. Reliability is defined by the continual ability for the researcher’s measure to deliver similar results. While external factors can shift the results, a tested measure should deliver similar results if the participants and conditions are the same and if all other factors are normal. Oppenheim (1966) states that reliability is also consistency such that if the research were replicated, the same results would occur. A way to gauge the reliability of a questionnaire would be to distribute it and the task to a similar group of students in future semesters. Litosseliti (2010) refers to this as the test-retest method to check

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reliability through continual examining among various groups. Sapsford (1999) and Dörnyei & Csizér, (2012) recommend researchers use previous questionnaires.

Rukthong (2015) recently used a perception questionnaire similar to mine. Her questionnaire consisted of 23 Likert-scale statements where respondents selected their level of agreement on a five-point rating scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.

Rukthong wrote two versions of the questionnaire for those completing written and oral tasks. She was gathering data on test-takers’ perceptions of tasks and task difficulty “[to determine whether they] can inform task validity in terms of task authenticity, fairness, and task difficulty” (p. 99). Rukthong’s study explored the relationship between test-takers’ perceptions of the difficulty of a listening task and task performance to “consider whether they are related to each other” (p.

99). She had administered the perception questionnaires immediately after the task was completed. Following Rukthong’s study, I also administered this questionnaire immediately following the task repetitions.

Because Rukthong had successfully carried out her empirical research among 72 participants using this questionnaire, and due to the fact that she piloted it beforehand, I became very confident this would be an appropriate measure as long as I developed clear and relevant perception statements using the Likert scale. I adapted some of Rukthong’s questionnaire statements. This process aligns directly with Fink and Kosekoff (1985) who state, “One way to ensure the reliability and validity of your survey is to base your survey on one that someone else has developed and tested” (p. 41). Therefore, consulting and considering previous instruments is helpful but equally important is adapting but not copying the questions to address particular research questions.

Validity Validity, on the other hand, refers to the extent to which a measure, in my case the perception questionnaire, is actually measuring what it should. Because my questionnaire consisted of subjective questions, validity carries a different meaning than if the questions were purely objective. Fowler (1988) states: “One can only estimate the validity of a subjective measure by the extent to which answers are associated in expected ways with the answers to other questions or other characteristics of the individual to which it should be related” (p. 95). Fowler highlights three ways to improve the validity of subjective measures: Making the questions reliable, streamlining several categories of respondent groups, and asking multiple questions that measure the same subjective status. One way I gained insight into my perception questionnaire’s validity was by asking university professors to critique the statements for the Likert-scale. Educators can be resourceful in determining whether a questionnaire taps into the construct.

Usefulness for Data Analysis The next step after administering this perception questionnaire is analyzing

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the responses statistically using SPSS. As I was revising my questionnaire, I discovered Qualtrics, a software program that makes it possible to write the prompts in various forms (scales, tick-box, multiple choice, open-ended) as well as to convert the data directly onto Excel. This template is also more practical than the complimentary version of Survey Monkey, which I had used for the first version.

Four major advantages beyond ease of input entry are (1) SurveyMonkey limits the number of questions to ten in the complimentary version; (2) Qualtrics features a scan code for mobile devices; (3) Qualtrics is a more secure database, a necessity when storing confidential information; and (4) Qualtrics allows unlimited questions in its complimentary version.

To explore the learners’ perceptions of task repetition and the extent to which they believe repetition helps their writing proficiency, I need mainly quantitative data to draw conclusions as they correlate with variables (age, gender, major, etc.), which I could factor in from the questionnaires. The Likert scale is a helpful measure to identify and score learners’ attitudes such that the learners easily understand the responses, and the responses are easily quantified. In a larger scale study, the Cronbach’s Alpha would determine the reliability. With a large pool of participants, I could further conduct a correlational analysis between the perception questionnaires and the changes in writing scores across the repetitions (complexity, accuracy, and communicative adequacy).

Conclusion Designing a questionnaire requires careful monitoring for a balance between proper construct, clear response options, validity, and reliability in order for the questions to flow logically so that the questionnaire is straightforward for respondents to complete. Because subjective questionnaires that examine learners’ perceptions toward task repetition align with higher face validity, the response options must represent exclusivity and be free of ambiguity in order to avoid misinterpretations and minimize bias. Clarity plays center stage in this evolving formation, and piloting helps perfect the data collection process. Through such careful planning, educators can develop their own surveys to assess their own pedagogical effectiveness in the classroom.

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References Babbie, E. (1990). Survey research methods, 2nd Ed. Belmont, Ca: Wadsworth.

Dörnyei & Csizér, (2012). How to design and analyze surveys in second language research. In A. Mackey & S. M. Gass (Eds.). Research methods in second language acquisition: A practical guide. 74-94. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Fink, A. & Kosekoff, J. (1985). How to conduct surveys. London: Sage.

Fowler, F.J. (1988). Survey research methods, 2nd Ed. London: Sage.

Gideon, L. (2012). Handbook of survey methodology for the social sciences. New York: Springer.

Krosnick, J. A. (1999). Survey research. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 537-567.

Litosseliti, L. (2010). Research methods in linguistics. London: Continuum.

Oppenheim, A. N. (1966). Questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude measurement (New Edition). New York: Basic Books.

Payne, S. L. (1951). The art of asking questions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rasinger, S.M. (2013). Quantitative research in linguistics: An introduction. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Rohrmann, B. (2007). Verbal qualifiers for rating scales: Sociolinguistic considerations and psychometric data. Project Report. Australia: University of Melbourne.

Rukthong, A. (2015). Investigating the listening construct underlying listening-tosummarize tasks. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Lancaster University, U.K. Sapsford, R. (1999). Survey research. London: Sage.

Saris, W. E. & Gallhofer, I.N. (2007) Design, evaluation, and analysis of questionnaires for survey research. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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Appendix 1: Task Repetition Perception Questionnaire (Original Version using Survey Monkey)

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Appendix 2: Task Repetition Perception Questionnaire (Revised Version using Qualtrics)

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n Active Learning: Patient Case Studies and Grand Rounds Presentations Enhance Learning in a Dental Hygiene Periodontology Course

Denise Avrutik Associate Professor Dental Hygiene

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Introduction The Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA), which governs and sets the standards for dental education programs in the United States, lists a set of core principles in its Accreditation Standards for Dental Education Programs. These principles emphasize the importance of educating students about comprehensive and evidence-based care, increasing their critical thinking skills, ensuring their appreciation of scientific discoveries, integrating their knowledge, and increasing their willingness and ability to function in an interdisciplinary team with other healthcare professionals (Commission on Dental Accreditation, 2016). As an educator in a dental hygiene program, I am required to incorporate these standards into my periodontology courses and teach the skill sets required. As an experienced educator, I have found these principles to be fundamental to the learning process. My students not only comprehend but also retain the knowledge imparted to them in my lectures when they are able to apply the knowledge to a practical clinical situation.

The practice of dental hygiene demands critical thinking in order to provide the best patient care. This fact is impressed upon our dental hygiene students from their very first clinical course. Facione, & Facione, (2008) describes critical thinking as “the process we use to make a judgment about what to believe and what to do about the symptoms our patient is presenting for diagnosis and treatment” (p. 2). That process includes considering “the unique character of the symptoms (evidence) in view of the patient’s current health and

Active Learning: Patient Case Studies and Grand Rounds Presentations Enhance Learning in a Dental Hygiene Periodontology Course

life circumstances (context), using the knowledge and skills acquired over the course of their health sciences training and practice (methods, conceptualizations), to anticipate the likely effects of a chosen treatment action (consideration of evidence and criteria), and finally monitor the eventual consequences of delivered care (evidence and criteria)” (p. 2). This process is second nature to the experienced dental hygienist but not necessarily to the dental hygiene student, thus necessitating a more formalized analysis. The case study portion of my periodontology course, in which a student selects a patient and takes him or her through this process, provides an opportunity for critical thinking.

Many health professions programs worldwide utilize case study reports to reinforce knowledge, enhance communication skills, and develop critical thinking skills for their students. At the University of Ulster School of Nursing, McFetridge & Deeny, (2004) focused on the use of case study presentations to promote critical analysis of the patient care provided and to base patient care in recent research findings. The study found that “the use of case studies as part of the academic assignment achieved the goal of encouraging students to develop a holistic approach when assessing and caring” (214) for their patients, which involved the “application of wide ranging theoretical knowledge, reflective skills, and clinical experience” (214). Case study reports have always been a vital part of my curriculum because of the multitude of learning strategies they require the students to employ. The students are encouraged to develop both a clinical and social view of the patient and then to evaluate the patient, assess his or her needs, develop a patient care plan, implement treatment, evaluate post-treatment outcomes and outline future treatment needs.

Case-based education has proven to be effective in dental education by offering students “opportunities to link didactic training with clinical situations and increase their confidence in clinical reasoning”(McKensie, 2013, 688). In past years I have made an effort to diversify the teaching methodologies utilized in my periodontology course by departing slightly from the traditional didactic modes of teaching and expanding my course to include a more active learning component through the completion of case study reports. This type of case-based education “combines small-group learning, problem-solving, and evidence based dentistry” (McKensie, 2013, 688). Case-based learning also adds another level of complexity to my periodontology course by developing the students’ professional communication skills. The students are now offered a new, exciting opportunity to communicate with one another as budding professionals and with myself as a more experienced professional, as they would in a professional setting.

As a more formal application of case-based learning, “Grand Rounds are a time-honored approach in medical education and even in continuing medical education. They are known for bringing professionals from similar fields together and for providing opportunities to discuss differing perceptions and values” (Fasbinder, 2015, p. 510). The incorporation of a Grand Rounds component to dental education has proven to be a valuable forum for sharing research, assessing patients, developing treatment plans, assessing treatment outcomes, communi-

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cating as professionals, and most interestingly, sharing differing professional perspectives.

When incorporated into dental education, Grand Rounds presentations are linked to positive learning outcomes, an increase in confidence, and an increase in knowledge associated with greater group engagement (McKensie, 2013). The group participants are required to listen, analyze the information presented, and provide feedback, thus allowing active learning to occur. A robust body of research suggests that “long-term retention, understanding, and transfer is result of mental work on the part of learners who are engaged in active sense-making and knowledge construction” (Lynch, 2016, p. 1). That is, a more meaningful learning environment is created when the students are forced to apply and make associations between parcels of imparted knowledge rather than simply regurgitate facts. Lynch (2106) points out that there are three primary cognitive processes involved in active learning: selecting relevant material to attend to, mentally organizing attended material into meaningful representations, and integrating these representations with prior knowledge.

Patient case study projects have always been an integral part of my Periodontology II course. I provided outlines and rubrics but I found that students frequently omitted some of the important components, such as developing a patient-specific treatment plan or evaluating periodontal treatment outcomes.

These early projects communicated only a superficial understanding of the material rather than profound analysis of their patient’s condition and treatment needs.

In order to make this a more meaningful critical learning experience that would utilize their knowledge of the discipline and self-assessment skills as well as foster professional collaboration, I modified my instructional design. It now includes a more detailed outline template, a new grading rubric which reflects the relative weights of each component, and an opportunity for the students to develop their professional communication skills though the addition of a Grand Rounds presentation.

Presentation Materials and Methods At the beginning of the semester, the students were provided with a patient case study report outline and rubric and were required to submit their written reports on the designated date. The rubric indicates the expected content of the report with each section delineating the maximum points that can be achieved (See Table 1). Utilizing the grading rubric, I graded and analyzed the data included in their written submissions. The Grand Rounds portion of the project was graded by peer and self-assessment. Peer evaluators assessed their colleague’s presentation skills, patient care plans, and offered commendations and suggestions.

Upon completion of the case study project, the students were evaluated on their ability to : 1) to select a patient in compliance with the parameters set forth in the case study outline; 2) formulate and institute a care plan for the selected patient; 3) assess the treatment outcome for the patient utilizing the post treat-

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ment evaluation data; 4) utilize the template provided to complete the case study report; 5) present their case study in a Grand Rounds format to their class of peers; and 6) assess their performance through a reective summary in their case study report.

Mentorship was provided at multiple levels to ensure that the students had proper guidance at every stage when completing the case study protocols.

Throughout the case study, I, as well as other faculty members, was available to mentor the students on selecting a patient, developing a patient care plan, implementing the plan, as well as to assist the students if the need to re-evaluate the plan arose. I was also always available to discuss the students’ progress in completing their project.

Patient Case Study Report Template and Rubric Summary

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Grand Rounds Presentation Evaluation Peer Assessment The students were asked to evaluate the presenter’s performance based on the following criteria by assigning a grade on a scale of 0 to 10 for each element with 10 as the highest grade.

Self-Assessment The students were asked to reect on their presentation and provide answers to each of the following prompts.

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Results The outcomes of this patient case study project were extremely successful.

The student case study reports included all key components set forth in the template. The class average increased from an 82 to an 87. Each student’s self-assessment and project assessment were very positive. They felt this project enabled them to witness the healing process and increased their critical thinking skills, especially in treatment planning and assessing treatment outcomes. It also provided them the opportunity to collaborate with their peers in the Grand Rounds presentations where they also shared their best practices. In the future, two patient case study improvements will be incorporated. One is to include a minimum of one required mid-semester conference with the course director to discuss the project and to give a patient update. This would provide students even more guidance when treating their case study patient and writing their reports. The other modification will be to shift the weights of the categories in the grading rubric to better reflect the amount of work required for each specific category.

Discussion Overall the outcomes of this patient case study project consisting of a combined case study report and Grand Rounds presentation were extremely successful in achieving the goals set at the onset of this project. The newly revised case study report template and grading rubric more clearly communicated the goals of the project, standardized the student’s reports, and provided an opportunity for selfassessment. The 5-point increase in class average confirms the value of this new approach to case studies. The Grand Rounds presentation allowed the students to share their patient outcomes, collaborate with their peers on treatment modalities, and assess their peers as well as their personal presentation skills. The written and oral presentations reinforced the students’ knowledge through active learning which helped them to develop critical thinking skills, and enhance their communication skills. The students enthusiastically welcomed the Grand Rounds presentations. They enjoyed the collaborative process of discussing their patient reports with their fellow students and sharing treatment suggestions with each other. As a whole, the students enjoyed this project and found it to be “meaningful” as reflected in their personal project evaluation. It allowed them to “compare bestpractices with their peers/colleagues” and most importantly, it provided them an opportunity to apply the knowledge they learned in Periodontology I and II to a real-life clinical situation, as they will be required to do in their future practice of dental hygiene.

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References Commission on Dental Accreditation. (2016) Accreditation standards for dental education programs. Chicago, IL. Facione, N. C., & Facione, P. A. (2008). Critical thinking and clinical reasoning in the health sciences: An international multidisciplinary teaching anthology. California Academic Press.

McFetridge, B., & Deeny, P. (2004). The use of case studies as a learning method during pre-registration critical care placements. Nurse education in practice, 4(3), 208-215.

McKenzie, C. T. (2013). Dental student perceptions of case-based educational effectiveness. Journal of dental education, 77(6), 688-694.

Fasbinder, D. J., Heys, D. R., Holland, G. R., Keerthy, A., Murdoch-Kinch, C. A., & Inglehart, M. R. (2015). Grand Rounds for Dental Students: An Exploration. Journal of dental education, 79(5), 510-522.

Lynch, J., Course Design, Development, and Academic Research, Pearson. (2016, October 25). What does research say about active learning? Retrieved June 10, 2017, from http://www.pearsoned.com/education-blog/research-active-learning-students/

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n Assessing and Meeting the

Language and Cultural Needs of ESL Students Who Want to Enter the Health Professions

Bina Dugan Adjunct Professor ESL

JoAnne Diamantidis Assistant Professor Nursing

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Foreign-born health professions students excel in academic settings. However, in clinical practice, those same students fall behind their American-born colleagues. Upon closer examination, it is clear that gaps in language skill and cultural knowledge are responsible for lower than expected performance. At Bergen Community College (BCC), English as a second language (ESL) students can benefit by learning basic health care concepts, American hospital culture, communication skills, and basic medical terminology within an advanced level ESL speech course. This type of contentbased ESL Speech can help increase the success rates of ESL students in health professions programs.

The health care environment encompasses a unique way of communication: distinctive interpersonal skills, writing, critical thinking, and an implicit set of customs, which are difficult for the non-native students to grasp. For example, communication is to the point, fact-based, objective, and spoken in a quick manner, which can intimidate non-native speakers.

Although many patients are also foreign, the health care system still embraces an American cultural paradigm, only well understood by those who are exposed to hospitals or working within the field. For example, physician orders need to be repeated back, in a distinct, audible, clear manner, which might seem disrespectful to the foreign student and appear as questioning the actions of authority figures. Hence, we see a lack of cultural and linguistic competence and unequal clinical performance as compared to their American peers.

In fact, foreign-born students are often hesitant in

Assessing and Meeting the Language and Cultural Needs of ESL Students Who Want to Enter the Health Professions

clinical settings, due to a lack of assertiveness and not understanding the norms of American communication, including maintaining eye contact, correct pronunciation, and tone. Furthermore, ESL students also struggle with medical terminology.

These challenges make it very difficult for them to succeed once admitted to a health profession program. As a result, some of these students fail out of the program, have trouble getting jobs, or must accept less lucrative positions. The impact on job placement is of concern because a nursing shortage is likely to reach as high as seven figures by 2030 (Ledbetter, 2015). Moreover, with the Census Bureau predicting a minority population of almost 50% in the United States by 2050 (Alpert 2009), there is a need for a diverse workforce in the healthcare system.

Unfortunately, “because of their language and cultural issues, the attrition rate of ESL students is higher in general than students who speak English as their first language.” (Guhde,2003, p 113). The increasing numbers of foreign-born individuals wanting to enter the health professions has proven to be challenging for the faculty as well as the students. Many of these students are not fluent in General American English (GAE), which may compound the obstacles to their success in academic course work for the health professions (Guhde, 2003).

The need to help improve the ESL students’ clinical preparation and confidence by increasing their understanding of expectations, clinical language and communication skills has been a discussion point among the health professions faculty, who often become frustrated when interacting with students who lack communication skills and fluency. According to Gardner’s 2005 study of retention for minority nursing students, non-native speaking nursing students felt isolated, lonely, and alienated due to their lack of English communication skills and American cultural understanding.

Results show that the lack of knowledge of American medical culture was a barrier, adding to the high attrition rates in the nursing program. The students felt isolated from faculty as well. Faculty also reported a lack of knowledge of teaching and learning strategies to address the needs of their ESL students. The study concludes that early intervention programs in a supportive environment, before beginning the nursing program, are most effective (Gardner, 2005). Gardner’s insights were powerful support for the approach taken in the intervention at BCC to deal with the same problems. Clearly, both ESL and health care professionals are concerned about increasing the retention rates of ESL students and improving their chances of a successful job search.

It seems important to emphasize how crucial a supportive environment is in bringing about student success. In fact, Klisch (2000) shows that counseling, mentoring, and academic support systems work best with students and lead to improved linguistic and communicative competence, especially counseling and mentoring within their career-based discipline.

Bergen Community College has not completely addressed the barriers faced by non-native speakers entering health profession programs, specifically the issues of spoken language or medical cultural gaps, which cause lower performance in clinical rotations. Pairing ESL and health professions courses is not possible

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because students have to apply to the programs after taking pre-requisites and qualifying to take entrance tests. As a result, there is an interval of several semesters between taking ESL and admission to a health professions program.

In 2016, the College offered a new approach for addressing the language and cultural needs of ESL students interested in a career in a medical profession. Students could enroll in a special content-based section of the highest level of speaking/listening in the ESL program (SPE 100). At this level, students are preparing to enter college-level content courses and are expected to demonstrate fluent spoken language (appropriate speed, intonation and pronunciation), accuracy (grammar and content), and listening comprehension, which will allow them to understand lectures and interact with professors and native-speaker classmates. In addition, students must learn vocabulary and use new words in speeches and in-class activities. Finally, students make academic presentations, which require research (both in the library and on the internet), analysis of information, and critical thinking. Professors have freedom to choose the content of their own section, so creating a medical/health-focused section was appropriate.

An ESL professor taught this special section of the course (SPE100HP), with a nursing professor acting as a visiting professor eight to ten times a semester, in addition to grading certain assignments and offering feedback and academic/career guidance. The content of the course focused on medical vocabulary and the language strategies employed in a clinical setting with the idea that exposure to the health professions as a vocational context during their ESL courses will greatly improve their prospects of completing a health professions program.

The course introduced small chunks of language and culture and then built on that knowledge with more advanced and integrated assignments. The course started with conversations about health care and introduced vocabulary, which students then used in their own conversations both in class and with family and community members. Finally, students used their cumulative knowledge to create presentations and deliver them in class.

The first class discussion introduced American hospital culture, with the nursing professor sharing stories from her clinical experiences. Students were encouraged to ask questions, and the conversation followed their interests. For example, students were interested in the vocabulary of pregnancy and delivery, so they asked questions about neo-natal vocabulary, the NICU, and post-partum depression. New vocabulary was discussed, explained, and written on the board. Students compared the American system to the one in their home countries and discussed how the differences may lead to miscommunication and frustration. Some students who were taking a course in cross-cultural healthcare were able to share information about differences between practices throughout the world. For example, students talked about how patients in different cultures ask questions, how some cultures allow the oldest family member to make medical decisions (not necessarily the patient), and how some cultures hide certain medical information from doctors because it is embarrassing or taboo to discuss between people of different genders.

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Assessing and Meeting the Language and Cultural Needs of ESL Students Who Want to Enter the Health Professions

This first conversation served many purposes. It allowed teachers to gauge student knowledge of the American medical system and vocabulary. Words used in the doctor’s office or hospital were identified and discussed in terms of meaning and usage. For example, there are many terms for immunizations, such as inoculations or shots. Students were especially confused about the word “shot” since it has other more alarming meanings. Other hospital jargon and its use in the American hospital systems was explained to the students. Procedures, lab-testing services and ways to communicate these to patients and hospital staff were discussed.

In addition, this conversation overtly modeled the idea in healthcare that the conversation should be guided by patient information – and not follow a path predetermined by the health provider. Finally, teachers were able to assess student abilities in key course objectives, including the communication conventions of turn-taking, asking clarification questions, restating what they heard, and using appropriate tone, rhythm, and pronunciation.

Six sets of medical terminology (about 60 words in total) were added. These are important words for any health professions career, such as cardiac, angina, benign, malignant, inpatient, suture, inflammation, and fracture. Knowledge of these words are not taught in health professions courses since native speakers of English are likely to know them. Students wrote definitions and sentences with the terminology; they looked up and practiced pronunciation. Both instructors graded the assignments and gave feedback on usage of the vocabulary, the appropriateness of the sentences (both culturally and linguistically), and pronunciation.

After two sets of terminology, students did a written assignment and presented dialogues using the vocabulary for specific situations, such as a witness to an accident calling 911 or a doctor talking to a patient. This type of assignment is supported by the research of Dekemel-Ichikawa & Carr (2012) who maintain that nurse-training programs need to focus upon helping ESL students improve verbal and interactive communication skills to engage in interactions with physicians, hospital staff, families, and patients. Their research focused upon dialect and pronunciation correction, learning to slow the rate of speech and place correct stress upon syllables. They found that speech improvement classes enhanced ESL students’ overall success rates within the program.

The assignments in SPE 100HP begin to address the same goals. The objectives were to make the medical terminology understandable when used by students in the context of the hospital or laboratory. Centering the conversation on medical themes helped the student understand and practice proper usage.

Students received feedback on sentence intonation, pronunciation, and grammar, as well as the correct usage of medical terms and the authenticity of scenarios.

For example, in the situation where a witness to an accident calls 911, the students did not tell the 911 operator about the condition of the patient or the location of the emergency. This information is vital in any 911 call, so the mistakes were used to teach students about 911 phone calls.

Another important aspect of any health professions career is speaking and

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listening to patients. Two assignments provided opportunities to practice these skills. The first was a Process Recording, where students had to interview a family member about their health. This assignment was modified from an assignment for nursing students, in which they interview a patient and write down the person’s exact answers, the body language, their own feelings during the interview, and what they learned from it. In class, ESL students practiced asking information questions (what, when, why) to elicit information, listening to the answers, and following up when interviewing for medical purposes. In addition, they learned how to clarify responses they did not understand. Students learned they needed to follow the patient through the conversation, not to go through a static list of questions. For example, if a student asked “Do you have any health issues?” and the family member said, “No. I’m very healthy”, the students could not continue with any questions about health problems. Instead, they had to ask about the person’s diet or exercise routine: “What do you normally eat for breakfast?” or “How often do you exercise?”. Therefore, if students started the conversation expecting to use questions about illnesses they had practiced in class, they would have to ‘think on their feet’ in order to be successful. As with nursing students, students then gave a presentation about the experience, including how they felt during the interview and what they learned.

The second assignment was interviewing a live scripted actor (we used students in the theater department and nursing students) who posed as a patient. The ESL students were given eight medical issues (such as a student having college medical forms filled out, a patient with heartburn, a pregnant patient getting a sonogram, and a patient with migraines) and brainstormed possible questions and patient answers. Then they practiced asking each other the questions and following up based on the given answers. Finally, students interviewed the actor playing the part of a patient and had to find out the medical issue by asking questions. As before, students gave a presentation about the experience and the actor and both professors graded them.

In a final project, students did research on a disease and created a PowerPoint presentation. They chose from a list of diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, asthma, Zika, and HIV/AIDS. To begin, students participated in a library class that introduced databases and MLA citations, as well as instruction on how to create a PowerPoint. Students were graded on their presentation (pronunciation, content, structure) and body language, as well as how well they explained the disease, including the names of the disease (both lay and medical terms), the symptoms of the disease, and the common medicines and other treatments.

In designing the course, it became clear that students did not know about or use academic planning and guidance. Thus, in addition to language and culture, they had opportunities for advisement. Students were eager to begin their health professions careers, but often did not know which courses they needed to take before or during the program. Therefore, in addition to the speech assignments, stu-

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dents took a tour of the Health Professions building and heard presentations by faculty members on various programs offered at the College, including the non-credit certificate programs in the Division of Continuing Education. Students were encouraged to ask questions and to follow up with professors individually. Not only did students receive valuable information on program prerequisites and timelines, but they also got an opportunity to listen to different accents of English and to hear from working professionals about their careers.

Students’ ability to understand the American medical culture was evident in their conversations as the semester went on. Their proper use of the medical terminology and their interactions with the interview process for medical purposes showed improvement over time. This course showed promise of increasing the student’s knowledge of what language skills are needed to become a health professional. Review of basic medical terminology, conversations about medical issues, and interviewing skills all enhanced the foreign-born student’s level of competence making it more likely that they will be able reach their goals.

Throughout the two semesters of the project, the students’ achievement was clear and observable by the instructors. To add to these measures of success, after the first semester (Fall 2016), an anonymous survey was designed and administered to collect subjective evaluations of their experiences in the course. After the spring 2017 semester, the same anonymous survey was administered. In total, 17 students responded to the surveys. Students were asked if they felt they had learned medical terminology that is essential for health professions and American healthcare culture. The students felt they had. When asked to respond to the statements “I learned about the health care system and terminology which I would not have if I did not attend class” and “The speakers and teachers helped me understand the health professions roles”, all the students strongly agreed or agreed.

When responding to the statement “The exercises in the class helped me feel more confident to speak about health care”, students strongly agreed or agreed. In fact, one student said that she felt comfortable when she had to take her husband to the hospital because she understood more about what was happening and what people were saying to her.

Students were asked if they had confirmed their health care career choices and if they understood the prerequisites and application process for their chosen program. When asked “Which health profession were you interested in studying when you signed up for this course?”, all but 2 responded with “nursing, respiratory therapist, medical office assistant, dental hygienist, sonography, or biology.” As for understanding prerequisites and the application process for their chosen program, one student responded: “I didn’t know what I have to take or to do after my ESL classes, so they helped me in knowing what I have to do.”

Students responded to questions about whether they felt more confident in their ability to complete a health professions program and to gain employment.

Most students were still interested in the same career choice, but a few expressed

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interest in Continuing Education programs, which would get them into the workforce faster. One student responded, “I’d like to study something under 1 year that can get me ready to work” - and another student said she had learned how difficult getting into the nursing program would be and thought she might change her focus. These responses show that the students were better informed and are likely to make smarter course choices, which may lead to students retaking fewer classes and successfully following the pathway for their chosen profession.

When asked “How could this course be improved?”, students expressed an interest in more contact with working health professionals, even requesting a visit to a hospital. While this is not possible because of liability issues, plans include classroom visits in each student’s area of interest, such as sonography, radiography, nursing and dental hygiene. Another way to foster a real-life connection is by requiring Service Learning in a health-related community based organization.

The course has significant interest for students because they learned what is meaningful to them, and they were very engaged in the course materials. The activities build on each other, so students can immediately put into practice what they have learned. They see that the content and activities are leading them to their goal of applying to a health profession program and completing their degree.

Given these short-term results, a contextualized speech ESL course is a positive addition to the ESL department. Most ESL students begin their college careers with language and cultural gaps which make it harder to achieve success in health professions; this course exposes students to essential vocabulary and cultural information that will help close those gaps.

It will not be possible to know whether the course leads to successful admission and completion of a health professions program without following the students who have finished these two sections of this course through to their application to a program and beyond. However, as a next step, the College should consider offering cohort advising for students between completion of their ESL classes and their application to the programs. This would ensure students are taking the correct prerequisites and would make it possible to do needs assessment of the population. Data collection from the College on how many ESL students apply and enter the health professions programs will be required. Tracking the ESL students’ progress in college will give insight into the success of this study.

Based on experiences with this course, it is likely that the same career-based contextualized learning would work in other high interest areas at BCC such as business, computer science, education, and fashion. However, to continue and to expand this approach requires team-teaching, and, therefore, a model for compensation.

In conclusion, participation in this Speech 100 HP helps empower ESL students to become more familiar with the American hospital culture and improves the communication skills essential for employment in the health care field. The course fosters confidence as students apply to and complete the health profession

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programs. Institutions such as BCC should determine how to make these experiences available to more students through making structural changes needed to support both students and faculty.

References Alpert, R., One nation, many cultures, Retrieved from http://www.umb.edu/editoruploads/images/odi/ONENATION manyculture.pdf Dekemel-Ichikawa, K., & Carr. S. M.(2012). Improving communication through accent modiďŹ cation: Growing the nursing workforce. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 19 (3), 79-84.

Gardner, J. (2005). A successful minority retention project. Journal of Nursing Education. 44, 12.

Guhde, J. A. (2003). English-as-a-second-language (ESL)nursing students: Strategies for building verbal and written language skills. Journal of Cultural Diversity. 10 (4), 113-117.

Klisch, M. L. (2000). Retention strategies for ESL nursing students: Review of literature 1900-99 and strategies and outcomes in a small private school of nursing with limited funding. The Journal of Multicultural Nursing and Health. 6(2), 18-25.

Ledbetter, J. (2015). Why is the U.S. perpetually short of nurses? Journal of Nursing. December 1. Retrieved from https://www.asrn.org/journal-nursing/1411-why-is-the-us-perpetually:short-of-nurses.html

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Appendix A: SPE 100HP – General Course Outline and Calendar

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Assessing and Meeting the Language and Cultural Needs of ESL Students Who Want to Enter the Health Professions

Appendix B: ESL Speech 100 HP Survey Spring 2017

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Assessing and Meeting the Language and Cultural Needs of ESL Students Who Want to Enter the Health Professions

n ESL Service Learning: How and Why

Heidi Lieb Associate Professor ESL

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For the spring semester of 2015, I was granted a sabbatical to research service learning in ESL. Although several courses and subject areas at Bergen Community College had been regularly including service learning projects, there seemed to be limited options for second language learners to participate in this highimpact practice. Moreover, there was no systematic method for incorporating service learning into the ESL Speech curriculum. Therefore, my goal for this sabbatical was to research programs and curricula in other colleges that oered opportunities for ESL students to participate in service learning, and to examine how to implement successful methods at Bergen.

There are several reasons service learning in ESL is important. The ďŹ rst is that ESL students need the opportunity to learn English in meaningful contexts.

By interacting using English in a real-world setting outside of the classroom, students are able to practice and use the language and communication skills they have developed. At the same time, by bridging ESL students to the community, service learning can help heighten their cultural competence. Service learning is ideal for second language teaching because it creates meaningful contexts for the language leaner, and it draws out and cultivates humane values (Minor, 2001).

In addition, service learning provides authentic communication. Many ESL teachers know that the most eective language instruction results from situations in which authentic communication is possible (Krashen, 1982, 1985; Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989). Service learning also gives stu-

ESL Service Learning: How and Why

dents valuable knowledge of American culture by allowing them to interact with Americans and participate in real-life situations. This exposure to American culture and language strongly enhances the learning they do in the classroom. Also, this experience helps students develop a sense of social responsibility and feeling of belonging in the local community. Through service learning, ESL students may gain a sense of self-worth in their new environment because they become a part of it, and transform their identities from foreign students to active participants in the U.S. culture (Perren, Grove, & Thornton, 2013).

According to a survey conducted at San Jose City College, students who do service learning report that they are more aware of current social issues are motivated to volunteer in the community and are clearer about a career direction. In ESL, studies show involving English Language Learners (ELLs) in service learning increases academic performance and retention of students at risk of dropping out.

Service learning projects position ELLs not only as those who serve a community but also as respected members of a campus community who have knowledge to share (Maloy, Comeau-Krischner, & Amaral, 2015).

In my research, I discovered a diverse range of service learning projects at various colleges and universities throughout the country. Edmonds Community College in Seattle offers a service learning designated course specifically for ESL students, “Partners in Service.” According to the course description, “Students meet in the classroom and also do volunteer work in the community. Example volunteer sites include a preschool, an elementary school, and a home for older people.”

Kingsborough Community College in New York City has an ESL Peer Mentors program, where students are trained to help their fellow ESL students with academic and personal adjustment to college. Central Wyoming College has ESL students volunteering to help with some classes, office work, and translation. Chaffey College in California has a project that matches ESL students with sociology students for interviews during a semester. The sociology students interview the ESL students to collect real world data to help them examine sociological concepts.

The ESL students practice their speaking/listening skills and are exposed to American culture and difficult vocabulary (Phipps, 2006). At the Intensive English Institute at the University of Maine, students created digital VoiceThread presentations about their countries for a third grade class. The ESL class and the 3rd-graders had Skype meetings and shared information through VoiceThread. At Hostos Community College, CUNY, there is a learning community with Sociology and ESL. The class visits a low-income senior center, and students interview the seniors for a life history project. At Virginia Commonwealth University, ESL students visited a lifelong learning institute where they taught a class called Diversity, Discussion, and Desserts. ESL students would teach the seniors about food, art and holidays in their countries. This program inspired me to have my students work with BCC’s own Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR), and in the fall 2016 and spring 2017, my advanced ESL Speech students taught a class called, “Where We’ve Been, a Multi-Generational, Multi-Cultural Exchange.”

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In this class, we met with the seniors once a week for six weeks. In the first half of each class, different students presented their “Coming to America” story.

They made a presentation about why they came, how they felt about coming here and leaving their countries, and what culture shock they experienced. They also provided information about their countries and cultures, including history of immigration to the United States and pictures of their countries in a PowerPoint. A Q & A from the ILR students followed the speeches. The seniors were very engaged and had many questions for the presenters. In the second half of the class, ESL students worked in pairs or groups with ILR students to learn about the seniors. At the last class meeting, ESL students made a short presentation about their partners.

Around the time of the semester this was taking place, the class was also working in a textbook unit about aging and longevity, so students were learning vocabulary and concepts related to what they were doing. This increased the relevant learning that is an essential factor in service learning.

After each semester doing this project, my students participated in a Survey Monkey survey, which showed that most of them felt their English had improved, and they developed more confidence in speaking to native English speakers, as illustrated in their responses: • It was good to listen the old people’s life story as well as to improve my English.

• I felt very sad that we had to be with them just for a couple of weeks.

They were so nice.

• I had the best partner ever. He was very smart and interesting. I could listen to him 24/7 and he was very interested in learning about us, our nations and countries.

• I had a really great time to communicating with native Americans, it really good not only for English practice but also I had a pleasure to get to know with nice people.

I also surveyed the seniors who participated in the course, and many said they learned new information from the ESL students’ presentations. They were all pleased with the final project in which the ESL students made a presentation about their ILR partner. Their enthusiasm is reflected in their responses: • I loved that there were so many different countries, experiences and personalities in the group. I have been telling all my friends what a great class this has been. Can’t wait to take it again!

• It exposed me to different backgrounds and other cultures.

• This class gives me hope for the future that we can all get along.

From my observations over these two semesters, the English Language Learners in this class became more dedicated and bonded more as a group compared to my other sections. They shared in this special experience, and they took it very seriously.

Another service learning program currently in development at BCC is World Language Partners, in which ESL students are paired with students in Spanish classes for conversation and vocabulary practice. In addition to meeting other BCC students, ESL students have the opportunity to assume the role of teacher,

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which instills confidence and pride that they have valuable knowledge to share.

Since the Spanish language students are at a beginning or intermediate level, it’s often necessary for them — and therefore their ESL counterparts — to use English during these conversations. A review of students’ reflection journals revealed positive reactions to the World Language Partners program, including a common sense of satisfaction in being able to help the Spanish language students, as well as a healthy level of introspection on being language learners: • At some point I felt reflected in the Spanish students. We forget all the time we invested in learning new vocabulary, grammar and other. Helping them allows me to realize that every language has its own difficulties.

This was one of the best parts of the semester.

• I am very happy to have participated as a volunteer. It feels so nice to help others.

Finally, an option that requires the least amount of work from the teacher, but can be very rewarding to the student, is to have students choose their own service learning project and work independently. In Bergen County, there is an organization called Bergen Volunteers, which has a website where students can find local volunteering opportunities (www.bergenvolunteers.org). Students can also contact their local libraries, their children’s schools, local hospitals, etc. In my classes, I have offered this as extra credit, or as one option for “Real World English” which is worth 5% of their grade. Most students do not opt to participate when it is done this way. Students report this is because they do not have time, or they do not have transportation to get to the service learning location, but the ones that do participate report that they value this experience. I have tried to make it easier for ESL students to do service learning by providing them with a list of locations where our students have volunteered before. Many students lack confidence to reach out to organizations on their own, so I created a sample email and phone conversation transcript they can use when contacting their organizations.

Of the three projects mentioned, results have shown that providing students with service learning options on campus, and doing the project during class time is the best way to get students to participate. Self-starters will find opportunities off-campus, but this may be challenging if they do not have transportation. If teachers expect students to do service learning outside of class time, they may consider allowing those student to skip one class assignment, like an essay or speech.

Service learning at Bergen Community College is an area of pride. Due to many outstanding projects over the years, BCC has been placed on The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll several times. We currently have about 650 students who participate in service learning every year. 86% of ESL students who did service learning in my classes last year said they would like to do it again.

I hope that through teacher and student initiatives, and an increased awareness among faculty, students, and the community, that the number of ESL students and community members who benefit from service learning will continue to grow.

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References Brinton, D. M., Snow, M. A., & Wesche, M. B. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Krashen, S. (1982). Language two. New York: Oxford University Press Maloy, J., Comeau-Krischner, C., & Amaral, C. (2015). Building a human rights curriculum to support digital service-learning. In a. Wurr, & J. Perren, (Eds.), Learning the language of global citizenship: Strengthening service-learning in TESOL. (pp.246-273). Champaign, IL: Common Ground Research Networks. doi:10.18848/978-1-61229-815-3/CGP. Minor, J. M. (2001). Using service-learning as part of an ESL program. The Internet TESL Journal, 7(4). Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Minor-ServiceLearning.html Phipps, C. E. (2006). Matching ESL and content classes for successful community college service-learning. The CATESOL Journal, 18(1), 48-57. Retrieved from http://www.catesoljournal.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/CJ18_phi pps.pdf Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Perren, J., Grove, N., & Thornton, J. (2013). Three empowering curricular innovations for service-learning in ESL programs. TESOL Journal, 4(3), 463-486.

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n 2017 Bergen Community

College Scholars’ Dinner Keynote Address

Stacey Balkan Assistant Professor English

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A writer who I admire deeply, Rebecca Solnit, recently wrote of hope—specifically of “hope in the dark” by which she meant the ability to find light amidst the dystopian nightmare in which we now find ourselves. The erosion of our civil rights and the destruction of the university system notwithstanding, the earth is warming exponentially, the seas are rising, another ice sheet has drifted into the Arctic, and it is likely that we will surpass the proposed threshold for atmospheric carbon well before we had anticipated.

Adding to this, humanities programs across this beleaguered nation are facing an existential crisis on par with that of our denuded environment; and all the while, the EPA is being slowly dismantled, while the NEH and NEA are on the chopping block.

In short, hope ought to be reserved for fools.

Nonetheless, Solnit persists: “Hope,” she remarks, “is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.”

I can only hope that any influence I may have had or perhaps will have—in the classroom, or through my scholarship—may bear fruit. But I do, in fact, see my-

2017 Bergen Community College Scholars’ Dinner Keynote Address

self as an optimist, albeit one who believes in the primacy of acting and of getting involved. To believe in the Humanities in 2017 is in fact to be an optimist; and to believe that there is any hope for this species is surely also to be an optimist. I am guilty of both: my field, formally, is something called the Environmental Humanities, which is an emergent field that seeks to reunite the natural and social sciences—to replace the Cartesian perspective that has long undergirded our modern worldview with an Anthropocene narrative that sutures human and environmental histories within a comprehensive earth systems theory. I trained as a postcolonial ecocritic, which means that I study the ecological legacy of colonialism through literary works penned by persons living in the Global South; and my research and teaching interests lie at the intersection between postcolonial literary criticism and environmental studies.

I see myself as a scholar-activist in my humble efforts to follow my mentors—political and environmental activists, who also taught me that a good teacher and an effective advocate must spend many (many) hours in the library; because in addition to a willingness to fight for this planet and for my students, I must be able to withstand rigorous criticism and to pierce the veil of rhetoric, however thin, that is attempting to destroy both. This planet is not for sale, our students are not customers, and I would need the requisite intellectual edification to fight on both fronts.

I began my tenure here at BCC in the fall of 2005 while I was also still working at the helm of a local organization I had recently founded called “Cyclists for Peace.” At the time I dreamed that I might return to graduate school to complete my PhD in English. I had in fact began a doctoral program in Environmental Management, but as my friends here know, my interests persistently drift between the two fields. It wasn’t until the early years of this millennium that the American academy began to recognize the intersectional field of Environmental Humanities, and I would have to wait.

But I was hired for a tenure-track position in English, and would now teach five classes per term—five classes! As such I was an enigma: to my colleagues at other institutions, I was at best a curiosity—a party trick. At a recent dinner party, a friend from CUNY introduced me as the “one who teaches five classes…” …she then added the qualifier “every semester!” Alas, we teach five classes, and for some of us that means five composition classes.

But since 2005, I began and completed a PhD in English—a PhD in a traditional graduate program that did not make concessions for “non-traditional students” like me. I have also managed to publish. There is a bunch of titles in tonight’s program that are but a comic gloss on the herculean task that is publishing with a teaching load like ours. But any achievement that I might boast did not come despite my many classes, even though it felt that way at times. I want so much to exalt my role as a teacher—to inspire my comrades here tonight as teachers and scholars; but to speak only to inspiration would be a lie. The past dozen years have been extraordinarily difficult; and many times I have questioned my

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ability to do much of what I seem to have done.

Nonetheless, I have cultivated a scholarly life here at BCC in large part because of the unrelenting support of my colleagues, and of course the BCCFA, but also because my scholarship is not mutually exclusive from what I do in the classroom. Indeed, a robust pedagogical practice cannot be emptied of scholarly edification.

When I began at BCC, as an Environmental Humanist with a background that boasted a rather esoteric reading list—I hadn’t read Updike, but could easily toss out a few Nurrudin Farah titles—I had to get to work. It isn’t, and surely wasn’t, enough to have a grounding in postcolonial theory to teach, for example, world literature; I had to immerse myself in the burgeoning debates that have revitalized the field in the past dozen years. I had to return to Kant with the hindsight of a decade with the Subaltern Studies movement. And I did. And my first class was magnificent. That spring, my students and I devoured the annual PEN World Voices festival: we met Daniel Alarcon, Guillermo Arriaga, and Salman Rushdie; and they were alive to the vitality of literature for the first time in their lives. And when others chided my naïve idealism with comments that only confirmed the bigotry of their offensively low expectations, I persisted. Yes, community college students could spar with the best of them. The first article that I published during my tenure here was a piece on Alarcon’s City of Clowns—a novella that I taught in a class that I helped to create. It was a wonderful collaboration with my friend and colleague Jessica Datema, who edited the collection in which the piece first appeared.

But I always longed to teach in my field—something that seemed anathema to the broad-based spirit of the community college curriculum. My field is not “English” tout court; it is indeed postcolonial environmental literature, and my path was clear. After spending my first few years preparing rigorous curricula for our general education courses—composition included, which seems always to be an afterthought (I was, for one, and still am of the mind that compositionalists are the only ones with license to teach the course), I created courses in eco-composition and environmental literature. The first was a bit easier from a bureaucratic perspective: I joined the Science Infusion Program and was given the opportunity to collaborate with another friend, Rob Dill: he taught my students about the perils of climate change and the mangroves in Amitav Ghosh’s novels; I taught his students about the eco-poetics of John Clare, A.R. Ammons, and Muriel Rukeyser.

And then the optimist in me decided to create our Environmental Literature class, this time despite the institutional and cultural resistance: surely we didn’t need another literature class? Yes we did. We also, however, needed a course that could teach students like ours about what environmental justice meant. Because not unlike the communities across the Global South about whom I primarily write, our students live in sites plagued by toxicity—places like Asthma Alley in the Bronx, or the polluted Passaic River whose tributaries run by their homes, its detritus nestling into the limited green spaces where they played as

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children.

Environmental justice, both in the classroom and on the political battlefield, means teaching our students why environmental stewardship is vital—not merely as a means of wilderness preservation, a Thoreavian perspective that has long undergirded American environmentalism—but because our environment, whether in the Global South or Global North, is populated by individuals like them. But it isn’t enough to have them read journalistic accounts about the horrors of Paterson, or Bhopal for that matter, or to watch an occasional documentary; literature and the arts allow for the cultivation of empathy, and so my students read novels that dramatize the effects of our toxic global landscape on the local populations who must bear the heaviest cost for the material prosperity enjoyed by putatively “developed” nations like ours.

Last semester, we read a wonderful novel called Animal’s People, which documents the life of a fictional survivor of the catastrophe at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal where tens of thousands perished instantly after plant managers opted to prioritize profit over human life. The novel forces the geopolitical, ideological, and philosophical forces that undergird such development projects into sharp focus; and it forces the reader to come to terms with the uneven histories of development that have long required the sacrifice of communities like the citizens of Bhopal.

My students read the novel alongside Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract and John Stuart Mill’s essays for the East India Company—essays that praised the beneficence of the colonial occupation and which applied Mill’s famed utilitarian calculus as a justification for colonial genocide. We consider how the foundational political philosophies that ostensibly sanctioned the colonial project in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are re-instantiated in places like Bhopal—just another form of developmentalism sacrificing the very same populations. And we ask why such a model can persist and whether it is mirrored here at home.

Like the citizens of Bhopal, why don’t communities in Paterson matter as much as communities in Paramus?

We also look at documents like the Paris Agreement on climate change and Pope Francis’s wonderful encyclical Laudauto Si and ask why it is that some communities will be so easily sacrificed when the waters rise. Why, for example, would we concede to the Paris Agreement’s proposal to limit atmospheric carbon and thus global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius when such a rise amounts to a death sentence for nations across the continents of Asia and Africa? And with this we turn back to Hurricane Sandy: why did some communities suffer more than others? And we then look back a few years farther to Hurricane Katrina: why did so many suffer then? And who suffered?

These are the questions that drive my teaching and my scholarship. My dissertation, now my current book project, investigates these sorts of questions tracing the legacies of colonial and Enlightenment-era political philosophies within current private property regimes that continually rely on dispossession and human

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suffering. I read novels like Animal’s People, among others, in this light.

But to return to the primacy of scholarship as it pertains to my work both in the classroom and within the beleaguered environmental justice movement, I have committed myself to investigating the longue duree of climate change and the socalled Anthropocene, because time is running out and we must take a much more informed stance: we must recognize the political and intellectual traditions that have landed us here; and if we are going to be effective as teachers and as activists, we must first be scholars. We must indeed know what the hell it is we are talking about. …When I started at the college it was the fall of 2005. Hurricane Katrina had just decimated New Orleans, and Cyclists for Peace was conducting fundraisers and blood drives to attempt in some small way to help. At the time, as an activist and a teacher, my role was clear. But it was in an Environmental History class at the CUNY Graduate Center some years later when I read Craig Colten’s wonderful book Unnatural Metropolis: Wrestling New Orleans from Nature, that I began to connect my training as a postcolonialist with my passion as a teacher and an environmental activist. I soon realized that all of the flag waving amounted to nothing if we didn’t understand, for example, the French development scheme that built New Orleans in the first place—the absurdly hubristic notion that we might avoid the fate of 2005, and that our technology would somehow save us. It never has, but because we persist in imagining new forms of technology as a sort of panacea to environmental (if also educational) crises, we need to return to the eighteenth century…to scrutinize the short-sightedness of development programs that seem only to have been emboldened in the neoliberal era.

And to pretend to teach our students about something called the “environmental humanities” we need to understand the stakes of those terms—the historically limited notion of an “environment,” and the even more limited notion of the “human,” the latter cultivated in an Enlightenment ethos that made little allowance for most of the world.

With that said, I would like to close with a comment about those very stakes— that is, with a comment about the material consequences of ideological pronouncements that were forged in the cauldron of Enlightenment-era colonialism and which persist in justifying the dispossession of persons like many of our students. I am terrified by what is happening to our institutions. I don’t mean Betsy DeVos, but the empty euphemisms that are destroying education, and which only embolden figures like her. Meeting students “where they are” ought not to be a euphemism for eroding the critical framework of the academy, which it is worth mentioning is yet another means of bigotry. Meeting students “where they are” ought to mean giving them the tools to critically assess their worlds. Our students, who have been grinded down by non-stop testing and an egregiously marketbased approach to educational reform, and who have had precious little opportunity to even once enjoy the pleasure of a novel for pleasure’s sake, deserve scholars who will shatter their limited foundations and give them a world that is new and wild, and that allows them to finally transcend “where they are.”

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