WLDC Announcement
The WLDC will be open, both in-person and online, at the following times:
- M-Th 8-7
- F 8-5.
After the meeting, Brian Jukes (who is the new WLDC coordinator) sent out a couple emails with further information:
- one email [Subject: WLDC Flyer] includes a flyer that can be posted in your Canvas site;
- the other [Subject: Writing Help for Students] is addressed to faculty, encouraging them to send students to the center.
If you didn’t receive one or both of these emails, let me know and I can forward it/them to you.
SLO Information
There are two important points about SLOs this semester. One is a repeat from last semester, and the other is new:
- In the past, we’ve assessed one SLO per course. This semester, we’re going to assess ALL course SLOs for each course. We had some discussions last semester about different ways to handle this assessment — using Outcomes in Canvas or on your own — but we don’t (yet) have clear recommendations on how to do this. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to talk through options. (I said that we don’t have those recommendations “yet” — this will likely be one of the recommendations that come out of the SLO Norming Teaching Community [see below].)
- As we did last semester, each instructor will enter the SLO results for each student directly into eLumen. As we get closer, I’ll re-send instructions for how to do this. (The consensus seems to be that the process is surprisingly simple.)
Masks and all that jazz
- We talked about the mask policy, which changed yet again later that day. As I write this (11 am on Thursday), all employees, students, and visitors are required to wear masks indoors. I am not sure how medical exceptions work — contact Walter if you have a concern of question about that (I know at least two faculty who have mentioned situations that might warrant such an exception, but I don’t have authority to say anything about this). We also talked about how effectively to teach in masks — how to be heard and understood, how to manage group work when — despite the official advice — social distancing is a good idea. I think the discussion was probably fairly unsatisfactory, as we had many more questions than answers. I hope we can continue this discussion across the semester, both as we come up with strategies and as the requirements/recommendations change.
- We discussed what to do with unruly students who refuse to wear a mask. This was probably a bit more likely to occur when the policy allowed vaccinated people not to wear them. Nonetheless, this is still a possibility. Walter should follow up on official recommendations, but the two ideas we discussed were:
- Canceling class and reporting the unruly student to the dean.
- Calling the campus police (I think this is the official recommendation). For both the Marysville campus and the Sutter Center, that main number is (530) 741-6771 or (530) 741-6772. (Brian Jukes also has a direct cell number you might try if the other two don’t work: (530) 870-1158.
SLO Norming Teaching Community
Shawn, Carrie, and Cassie have agreed to co-facilitate a teaching community to develop a norming process for our discussions about SLOs. I will be working with the LEAD committee to make stipends available for part-time faculty who want to participate in this process. Once that’s sorted out, we’ll put out a more official announcement. But, as in the past, we’ll be following the LEAD committee’s requirements for stipends (e.g., two levels of stipends, depending on attendance).
If you still just drop in for occasional meetings (e.g., if you don’t want to commit to full participation), you are still welcome. You’d be eligible for Flex.
More information to follow, as soon as we’re sure that the LEAD committee will fund the community.
Closing Thoughts
We talked about a few other things (rubrics, increased illness for grandmothers when assignments are due, etc.) but these were unstructured discussions. I wouldn’t know how to report on them.
If you were at the meeting and noticed something I missed, please let me know. And if you have any questions about anything I’ve reported, please contact me.
PS: For your possible amusement
“The Dead Grandmother / Exam Syndrome,” by Mike Adams (Biology, Eastern Connecticut State University – published in the Annals of Improbable Research):
The basic problem can be stated very simply:
A student’s grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of the year.
Complete with diagrams and solutions!