Thank you so much to the following faculty for showing your Accountability with entering attendance so promptly! | |
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LAB FACULTY
Ashton Darrett, Christopher Gross, David Bromley, Gino Tetreault, LaJuan Allen, Larome Myrick, Leyla Lindsay, Melissa Cera-Garcia, Rahsaan Gomes-McCreary, Rana Walker, Sandra Peltier, Sharahn Green Santana, Silas Pinto
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INSTRUCTIONAL FACULTY
Christine Eaton, Christine Haverington, Deborah Stern, Jessica Tabak, Laurel Foglia, Mary Kathleen McGovern, Sandra Fyfe, Theresa Boysen
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LAB FACULTY
Dear Lab Faculty,
Thank you for another amazing beginning to the semester. It has been a pleasure to have one on ones with so many of you and I look forward to meeting with you all one on one over the course of this semester and in person as well. Please let me know when would be a good time to visit you in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Jersey and I am there excited to break bread and honor your incredible work and dedication to College Unbound. For those of you who haven’t scheduled a one on one with me yet, please do so here.
We are excited to have those of you with online cohorts join us in our online gatherings each week led by Sage, Aubrey and special guests. This allows us to talk across cohorts each week, share exciting announcements, have students lead exercises and have relevant and timely discussions that link to the world around us that week. We have done that for our in person cohorts and want to make sure that we do the same for our online communities. Please put this into your syllabus and calendars. We highly encourage you and your cohorts to join us from 5:30-5:45 p.m. each week before you go off to your separate cohort zoom links. For Tuesday night cohorts join here. For Wednesday night cohorts join here.
This week for Lab A courses, you have a Philly contact sheet linked in your moodle page. Here is one with updated info for PVD - just change alumni mentor/instructor. It’s a great resource for us as faculty too!
- Sage
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TEACHING &
TECH RESOURCES
PREPARING SESSION 2
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2/5/23: Book and learning material orders submitted for any materials that students are expected to buy. Use this form.
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2/10/23: General templates and previously-taught Moodle courses will be copied into your Spring 2 shells. If you have a preference, reach out to Lance Eaton.
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2/12/23: Syllabi submitted to Lance Eaton & Karen Casper. This can impact your enrollment (if students’ can’t access syllabi, they are less likely to enroll in your course).
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3/1/23: Syllabus, assignment guidelines and Weeks 1-3 ready in Moodle
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3/5/23: Moodle courses open; announcement sent to students
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3/13/23: First Day of Class
1 to 1s: If you have missed your 1:1 with your students, then be sure to reach out to the student and Lab Faculty ASAP. To locate a student’s Lab Faculty, look at the student’s contact information in Campus Cafe.
Missing Students? If a student has had no or little contact with you at this point and the Lab faculty member doesn’t have any updates or context, reach out to Student Services with a description of what has been going on.
Attendance/Engagement: Thank you for everyone that’s consistently completing the Engagement feature in Moodle–it’s extremely helpful and important. We also wanted to elevate the fact that you can go back and edit past entries. For instance, if a student had an unexcused absence in Week 1 but you discovered something in week 2; you can go back and change that (and we encourage you to do so when it makes sense).
Feedback & Tone
Our students are adults with complex lives and also, many students have negative experiences with traditional education. This means we need to take care in how we give feedback. Moodle gives us the opportunity to give textual, audio, and video feedback as well as help students see more clearly what they need to do. How to Record Video/Audio (2:44 minutes).
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TEACHING & TECH RESOURCES (CONT.)
In supporting student learning, we should be using an asset-based approach that recognizes their contributions and guiding them to improve through resubmissions and conversation. I know it can sometimes be hard to remember, and we’re often busy trying to do so much to support our students, but when giving feedback–especially textual feedback–it’s important to think about and anticipate the “worst possible interpretation” of feedback and how that might be experienced. It’s not that we believe students do or want to experience feedback like this, but it’s inevitable that with text, students (heck, all of us) are likely to project some of our own anxieties and angst onto what we read when it comes to feedback we receive. So we just continue to ask that you take care with how you are delivering feedback and listen to what they are saying in response to feedback as well.
Timely Feedback
We just also want to remind folks that it’s important to give timely feedback to students. It can be contextual within the course but generally speaking, students should have feedback (both commentary and grades) within a week of when they submit. Possibly, it should be sooner, especially if there is an activity due the next week that is in any way informed or can be informative to the student by your feedback. For instance, it’s important to give feedback on Week 2’s discussion before the half-way point into Week 3’s discussion (otherwise, students’ don’t have the chance to course correct).
Beyond that, I wanted to reshare some videos with you that might be helpful right now in getting in and giving feedback to students:
We hope this is helpful and as always, as you have questions & concerns to reach out to us!
- Lance
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TA2BA CORNER
Hi y’all!
As we continue to build out the TA2BA program at College Unbound, we are working on materials that communicate what the curriculum looks like for our students who are pursuing careers as teachers. As a teacher pathway program, it is important that we are both aligned with CU’s core curriculum AND tailored to meet the needs of our TA students.
Please check out this 1 pager for clarification around the CU major, WWL, the Core Project, as well as LIPs & Big 10s. While this 1 pager is designed for faculty (and as a “draft” is not ready for mass distribution), feel free to use the information to clarify any of these curriculum aspects for your students so that we are all using a common language/ framing. We are working on a student-facing version that I will share once it is finalized.
Have Questions? I will be holding office hours for TA2BA faculty & students on Thursdays from 5-6. Sign up here!
- Aubrey
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“As all immigrants, I carried in my luggage a dream to one day go to school and become a teacher. That’s what I did in my country. It has taken many years, but today, thanks to College Unbound, the Providence School, and Equity Institute, this dream is becoming a reality.”
- Ligia Dos Reis, TA2BA/Class of 2022
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PA & NJ CORNER
We are moving right along, it’s already Week 3 of our Spring semester!
Please check out the Student Support page on CU’s homepage. Academic support is available for all CU students!
Meet our Lab Faculty: Leyla Lindsey
Leyla is currently working with the TA to BA program with the School District of Philadelphia in her second semester with CU! She currently works in the Office of Academic Supports for SDP. Did you know Leyla was in the banking industry before becoming an educator? She has a Dr. of Education Degree in Educational Leadership & Management from Drexel University. Leyla is a dedicated educator and an advocate for equitable practices and policies to promote fairness in the world and in the classroom because a system is flawed if it does not meet everyone’s needs.
- David & Melina
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Sincerely,
All of Us at College Unbound, including:
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