Common Core State Standards, Meet the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing: A Risky, Rewarding Tale of Course Re-Design Endora Feick, Columbia State CC Lauren Ingraham, UT-Chattanooga 1

Today’s Session Focuses on… 2 Course CreationCourse Rollout Course Responses

Course Creation 3

4  C2C States: Colorado Florida Hawaii Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts North Carolina Oregon Tennessee Washington

5 CoreToCollegeMission

Subverting the C2C Mission We focused less on the CCSS and more on what we knew to be based on best practices and appealing to college composition faculty. 6

CCSS WPA Framework Kolb’s Learning Theory Three Key Influences on Our Course Re-Design

Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing 8 Habits of Mind: curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition. Identifies crucial writing, reading, and critical analysis experiences students need. Endorsed by the National Council of Teachers of English, National Writing Project, and Council of Writing Program Administrators.

Kolb’s Learning Theory for Adults

Highlights of the New Composition Course  Rhetorical Approach  Module-based  Continual reflection and revision  Built using open-source materials almost exclusively 10

The Rollout Journey: From “Deciding Committee” to Pilot Testing

Key Challenges During the Rollout  The “Deciding Committee” misperception  Running interference between a super-enthusiastic Alignment Director and skeptical faculty 12

Pre-Pilot Spring 2014  2 instructors (1 at Nashville State and 1 at UT-Chattanooga)  Three “firsts” occurred: → Best Portfolios Ever → Lowest number of DFWs ever → Two of the sections had no DFWs, a first for the instructor 13

Skepticism Remained Among Faculty and Administrators 14

Fall 2014 Pilot Sites  Tennessee State University  Volunteer State Community College  Nashville State Community College  University of Tennessee at Chattanooga  16 sections total

Experienced Instructors  Embraced Course  Few or No Changes Newer Instructors  Added lectures on writing thesis statements, developing paragraphs and writing linearly (as opposed to recursively). 16

Final Reflections: Framework was Crucial to Success  Consistently, students and faculty pointed to the course’s use of the Framework as key to its success.  Pass rates and other quantitative measures of student success were relatively stable in pilot and non-pilot sections of the course.  Instructors reported much higher levels of student engagement in the pilot sections which they attributed to the course’s focus on revision and reflection. 17

18 Instructor comments: “ The majority of students are fully engaged and appear to understand the writing process better than previous classes have.” “ The pilot program’s emphasis on reflection gave students a tangible sense of their skill level and what they need to do to continue their development beyond the scope of the class.”

Major Insight Extensive and ongoing professional development is necessary for this course re-design to be successful.

Five Things to Know Before You Try This at Home 1.Accept the Mars/Venus phenomenon. Higher Ed and K-12 people live on different planets and speak different languages. Respectful communication is key. 2.Go out of your way to be transparent about the process and dispel falsehoods quickly and firmly. 3.Use an invitational approach with Higher Ed people (i.e., this is an invitation to an opportunity, not a mandate). And mean it. 4.Don’t let an important stakeholder hear about the initiative from someone below him/her on the organizational chart. 5.Understand and respect “re-design” or “initiative” fatigue. Faculty are really tired of non-faculty and/or people with no experience teaching particular courses asking faculty to re-imagine their classes.

Putting It Into Practice Plan a Full Class Period that Addresses All Four Stages of Kolb’s Learning Cycle 21

Questions and Conversation Lauren Ingraham University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Endora Feick Columbia State Community College (Tennessee) 22