Sustaining a Culture of Inquiry

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Sustaining a Culture of Inquiry

• Julie Bruno, Facilitator
• Jeffry Lamb, Solano College
• Tracy Schneider, Solano College
• Jenny Simon, El Camino College
• Gregory Stoup, Canada College

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Jenny Simon

• El Camino College

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How does a college sustain the motivation to
do outcomes assessment?
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• Build a critical mass of experts
• Integrate build on what you already do
• Give people interesting questions vis-à-vis
  outcomes assessment
• Celebrate accomplishments

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Tracy Schneider

• Solano Community College

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How does a college integrate a culture of inquiry
into its outcomes assessment, planning, and
accreditation?
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Everything is based on inquiry.
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Dialogue is the focus.
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Connect at every level
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Integrate calendarsand documents.
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Keep accreditation in mind.
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Gregory Stoup

• Canada College

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The Dynamics of Inquiry
Inquiry in complex systems like higher education
is a highly social process, not solely an
intellectual exercise. The process is composed
of many small acts, carried out by different
people at different points in time.
Gregory M Stoup, Cañada College
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Inquiry is not just about generating data

• Learning emerges from an ongoing conversation
  about things that matter with both passion and
  discipline
• Parker Palmer
• The Courage to Teach

If you want to learn you have to take part in the
conversation
Learning is founded on evidence and inquiry
Gregory M Stoup, Cañada College
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The role of evidence
Data do not enter a vacuum and suddenly
illuminate a hidden truth.
Data join the narrative that experts have
developed through years of observation
practice.
The narrative explains and reacts to the data and
the two coevolve to shed new light on the issues
we study.
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Designing the right venues
The goal is to draw people into regular
conversations that develop into distinct
communication forms that then lead to action.
Gregory M Stoup, Cañada College
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At one level we want to support inquiry everywhere
Have rising book costs forced students to take
fewer classes?
What is the completion rate for MESA students
compared to other STEM students?
How do students receiving a C grade in English
perform in History?
Do our Learning Communities help to increase
student success?
Does a students math background effect
performance in my economics course?
Do students on Financial Aid persist at higher
levels?
How many students make it through our ESL
sequence?
Do students taking library orientation do better
in English?
What are the basic skills needs of students from
our feeder high schools?
How many high school grads visiting our campus
actually enroll?
Does joining a student club help increase a
students persistence?
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But we have to carve out time to address big
questions from multiple angles
Placement Office Does our math placement prep
program help students place higher in math and do
they succeed when they get there?
Tutoring Office Do basic skills math students
that come to us within the first four weeks of
the semester do better than those that come later?
Math Instructor Would an accelerated
curriculum/program lead to higher levels of
student learning and persistence?
How can we increase the percentage of students
completing the pre-transfer math sequence?
Math Faculty Would it be helpful to build
opportunities for our students to meet with
faculty informally outside of the classroom
would that improve student success?
Counselors Would pre-transfer math students
perform and persist at high levels taking fewer
or more units?
Student Activities Are there clubs or activities
we can create that might improve persistence
among pre-transfer math students?
Outreach Can we work with our feeder high
schools to identify early on which students are
most likely to require math remediation at
college?
Book Store Would providing more open source
material for developmental math courses help
students persist longer?
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Inquiry framed toward action
Domain of possible solutions to the question at
hand

• Process of inquiry
• Not a search for an absolute truth rather a tool
  for making better-informed decisions.

Answer the questions that eliminate dead end
solutions
Gregory M Stoup, Cañada College
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We cant get immobilized by ambiguity or too many
choices
What to do when you reach the limits of your
research and yet still face multiple choices in
how to proceed ?
Trust your intuition chose !
Gregory M Stoup, Cañada College
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Often when there are no clear answers we need to
experiment
As part of our inquiry we need to encourage a
culture of experimentation
When it comes to improving performance
enlightened trial and error trumps
strategy-guided actions
Gregory M Stoup, Cañada College
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Where does Inquiry begin?
At its core Inquiry should start with one
fundamental question
What are you curious about as a professional ?
Gregory M Stoup, Cañada College
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Jeffrey Lamb

• Solano Community College

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Forms

• Pathway to action/funding
• Integrate
• Keep SLO/SAOs and College plans vital
• At Solano
• Program Review and 3 Year Plans
• Operational/ Strategic Proposals
• Organic response from BSI and VTEA

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Agendas, Minutes, and Reports

• Everything is Evidence

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MyGroups

• Centralized Accessible User Control

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• Participation
• Organization
• Transparency

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Sustainability
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A Tour

• http//techlr.pbworks.com
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vdMqjdnt5bpM

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The Back-up
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