PIP 1996-2000 Final Report

I submit this Final Report at the completion my 1996-2000 Professional Improvement Plan cycle, my third PIP cycle since joining the COCC faculty in 1988. See also:

(1) Summary and Assessment of 1996-2000 Professional Improvement Activities & Goals Achieved

GOAL 1: Develop my skills and instructional resources for using computer technology and multimedia in the classroom.

a. Build a base of multimedia presentations, course materials, and electronically-enhanced instructional activities and resources for my own and my students’ use in my current courses.

b. Work with colleagues on related instructional projects and resource development.

Goal #1 Summary & Assessment

I have become proficient in using instructional technology and multimedia to diversify my teaching techniques and create new instructional resources for my students. To accomplish PIP Goal #1, I have regularly engaged in training activities over the past four years, paralleled by expanded access to and frequent upgrades in computer hardware and software. Most valuable are the competencies that I’ve gained in using FrontPage, PowerPoint, Image Composer, multimedia classroom audio-visual equipment, and Micrograde. These skills—supported by ongoing research and materials acquisition, and productive collaboration with gifted colleagues on many projects and presentations--have enabled me to build a significant body of multimedia and web resources for my courses since 1996. Experimentation has yielded increasingly effective methods for integrating these resources into my classroom instruction. Of these resources, I judge my COCC websites most successful: they have gained local, regional, national, and international recognition, continue to elicit steady electronic correspondence and engage me in unique and productive dialogues.

Recently (in May 2000 web research), I was delighted to discover that the Library of Congress Learning Page: Internet Resources: Area Studies: Subsaharan Africa (June 1999) contains an annotated link to my HUM 211 “African Timelines – Five narrative timelines of African history, enhanced with links to sites providing more detailed information. From Cora Agatucci of Central Oregon Community College.” http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/resource/area/africa.html
“The Internet resources in this directory represent selected Web sites, compiled by the Social Science Education Consortium [http://ssecinc.org/], that are rich in content that supports humanities education, are broadly accessible to the educational community, and are sustainable over the long term” (Library of Congress Learning Page: Directory of Learning Resources, June 1999: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/websites/html [accessed May 2000]).

In the final year of my current PIP cycle, I was awarded a Winter 2000 Sabbatical Leave and a CCHA-NEH grant (with Kathy Walsh and Bart Queary) entitled “Cyber Rhetoric: Creating an Online Learning Community in the Humanities.” Fortunately, these professional development projects overlapped productively, culminating in my creating and teaching a new special topics course Hum 299--“Student Perspectives on World and Multicultural Writers – Writing for the World Wide Web”—in Spring 2000. This capstone experience has both stretched and deepened my expertise in applying computer technology and multimedia to instruction. This expertise I will be able to put to a new use in Spring 2001, when I will teach a combined televised-modem version of English 103 for Open Campus, and in June 2000, I participated in COCC training sessions on FrontPage 2000, Digital Imaging, and Interactive TV.

GOAL 2: Continue to implement proficiency-based instruction and strengthen the coherence and effectiveness of student learning across the curriculum.

a. Identify appropriate student learning outcomes and proficiencies in writing and humanities courses, working with Humanities and other cross-disciplinary faculty as desirable to build consensus and strengthen curricular coherence.

b. Continue to adapt my instructional objectives and methods to proficiency-based instruction and criterion-based assessment consistent with these student learning outcomes and proficiencies.

c. Support colleagues in Humanities and other departments working toward similar goals to strengthen the coherence and effectiveness of instruction and student learning across the curriculum.

d. Continue to support inter-institutional Oregon educational reform efforts, as opportunity and time allow.

Goal #2 Summary & Assessment

I have supported both the College’s and the State’s long-range goal of conversion to proficiency-based instruction and assessment. Over the past four years, I have worked to achieve this goal at the course, departmental, college-wide, state and regional levels. My professional activities at COCC have ranged from defining course competencies and benchmarks, piloting assessment methods in the Humanities Department, and ongoing revision of my courses to implement competency-based instruction and criteria-referenced assessment; to leading Academic Affairs in evaluating the coherence and educational effectiveness of our degrees and programs, in coordinating the Committee’s work with that of Chairmoot, and in reviewing the Academic Plan. My state activities in support of Oregon Educational Reform have included service as Chair of the Oregon Writing and English Advisory Committee and as PREP Content “Champion” to define proficiencies for Communications: Reading, Speech, and Writing; as well as participation in inter-institutional CIM-CAM and PASS Planning meetings. Training and service as an Accreditation Evaluator for the Commission on Colleges, Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges have educated me in understanding and applying revised accreditation requirements emphasizing educational effectiveness, and I have shared what I have learned with COCC colleagues and committees through in-house workshops and FirstClass conference postings. I have also delivered several presentations based on experiments in proficiency-based instruction in my content areas at regional and national conferences.

At all these levels, the transformation to proficiency-based instruction and assessment remains work in progress. I was long ago converted to the value of this transformation, and I believe that my participation in the proficiency-based educational movement has enabled me envision a new, more authentic kind of student-centered teaching and become a more effectively student-centered teacher. I am satisfied that I have accomplished what I could toward advancing this process, when viable opportunities arose and when I had something useful to contribute over the past four years. Aided by Humanities departmental committee work, I can see immediate gains in my students’ learning outcomes in my own courses. I can now articulate what those learning outcomes should be, and continue to adapt course syllabi, assignments, activities, and evaluation criteria to students’ achievement of those outcomes in most of my courses.

GOAL 3: Investigate new currents in teaching composition and writing across disciplines, and provide leadership and support for writing, WIC and WAD faculty.

a. Pursue directed reading and research projects, and seek appropriate professional development opportunities.

b. Provide support and leadership for the Humanities Department writing program faculty through continued service on the Composition Committee.

c. Provide support and leadership for faculty in other departments using writing in their courses through programs such as WIC and WAD.

GOAL 4: Continue to develop effective cross-cultural instructional materials and approaches to teaching multicultural and global culture courses, and to support the goals of multicultural and international education.

a. Refine teaching strategies and build instructional resources for Hum 210, Hum 211, WS 101, WS 102, Eng 105, and Univ. Center-EOSC Engl 390 (Multicultural Literature).

b. Pursue directed reading and research projects, and seek appropriate professional development opportunities to keep abreast of new theories, pedagogies, and resources for cross-cultural studies in the humanities.

c. Work with colleagues in the Humanities and other departments pursuing similar ends.

Goals #3 & #4 Summary & Assessment

These two PIP goals were primarily designed to deepen and broaden my expertise and currency in writing, literature, and humanities, and I judge my 1996-2000 PIP activities to be successful in making me a better prepared teacher in my fields. To accomplish these objectives, I have conducted directed research, acquired and created new instructional materials, sought and received sabbatical and grant awards, published articles, attended and given conference presentations, served as reviewer and consultant for national and local publishers, and maintained professional memberships and subscriptions. These professional activities are detailed in the documents listed at the beginning of this report, and the skills and knowledge that I have gained from these professional experiences have been regularly integrated into my courses.

My individual accomplishments were often stimulated and supported by my colleagues. Collegial collaboration was central to the “methods” that I originally projected for achieving PIP Goals #3 and #4. And I have been fortunate in finding willing and eager colleagues with complementary projects, goals, and affinities to work with me over the past four years. My 1996-2000 professional activities have included participation in COCC’s WIC, WAD, and MIC programs; organization of WIC/WAD in-house workshops, creation of webpages devoted to interdisciplinary writing and intercultural topics; team teaching, coordination of guest faculty presentations in my courses, and support of visiting scholars and programming; joint conference presentations and collegial work on other instructional projects; teamwork on instructional committees and task forces like Academic Affairs and the Humanities Dept. Composition Committee; and sharing of resources and expertise with colleagues within and outside Central Oregon—even internationally, thanks to my websites. These activities have enabled me to learn much from my colleagues and to contribute—I hope--to others’ professional development, as well as strengthen the coherence of our students’ education at COCC.

As with PIP Goal #1, I consider my sabbatical research in Cyber Rhetoric and WWW writing, my participation in the CCHA-NEH grant, and my teaching Humanities 299 as capstone experiences in achieving PIP Goals #3 and #4. Not only have I benefited from working with my co-recipients Kathy Walsh and Bart Queary, but also from team-teaching with Barbara Klett and Cat Finney, and from developing course competencies and field-testing assessment tools with interdisciplinary Reviewers (Barbara and Cat, as well as Jon Bouknight, Jack McCown, and Patricia O’Neill). Certainly, the Hum 299 course experience has extended my own and my students’ knowledge of world and multicultural topics, and developed our skills in writing effectively for the World Wide Web to present our knowledge to the cyber-community at large. As exciting as the quality of Hum 299 student webwork produced in Spring 2000, is the interest of interdisciplinary COCC faculty and community professionals in Hum 299 course resources and WWW writing and research skills. I now feel well prepared to help ensure that writing for the World Wide Web becomes a permanent part of COCC’s curriculum, and I am convinced that these skills will become increasingly essential across the college curriculum and real-world professions during the twenty-first century.

(2) 1996-2000 Professional Improvement Activities & Goals Not Achieved

As concluded in Part (1) of this report, I believe that I have accomplished all four of my major 1996-2000 PIP goals-- to the best of my professional abilities and given the professional opportunities afforded me. However, I use Part 2 of this Final Report to (a) correct a statement made in a previous PIP Update, and (b) explain personal circumstances that have prevented me from continuing another professional activity since 1998.

(3) Evaluation of the Faculty Professional Improvement Program

Overall, I am enormously grateful to the College, the Faculty Forum, and FPIRC for requiring COCC faculty to develop, justify, and carry out a coherent program of professional development every four years. And even if it is never quite enough, the PIP funds available to full-time faculty—and most recently to adjunct faculty with approved PIPs on file—are substantial enough to encourage and enable COCC faculty to pursue ambitious professional development goals. In addition, I applaud FPIRC for delineating criteria and fair procedures in making awards for our increasingly competitive faculty Sabbatical Leave program. Finally, I appreciate the fact that the PIP Final Report asks for a “Summary” and “assessment” of PIP activities and goals accomplished at the end of a cycle. Retrospective analysis and evaluation has been very productive, if challenging, for me--and much more appropriate than a detailed reiteration of all PIP activities completed, and already reported and documented in previous reports, over the past four years.

Of the 1999 revisions made to FPIRC guidelines, I question only one requirement: that PIP Funding requests be submitted for approval “before the expense is incurred and the activity takes place” (under “Funding Approval Process”). I think I understand FPIRC’s general rationale for this requirement: for example, the benefit of knowing in advance that PIP funding has been approved to a faculty member whose participation in a particular PIP activity is possible only if PIP funding support is forthcoming. However, it is not always possible to anticipate – and apply for PIP funding support in advance for - all the good professional development opportunities that may come one’s way. If a faculty member has already expended personal funds on a professional development activity, and that activity is worthy and meets PIP funding requirements, and the faculty member has unspent PIP funds remaining in her/his cycle – I fail to see why the faculty member should not be able to apply for PIP funding support after the expenditure has been made. One is in a much better position to detail exactly what has been spent, as well as why and how it has been spent, after, rather than before, the fact.

This single complaint aside, my dealings with the committee over the years have been very positive and encouraging. Thank you, FPIRC, for discharging your responsibilities so promptly and conscientiously!

(4) Documentation and Evaluation

As noted at the beginning of this report, Documentation and Evaluation for PIP Activities completed since Fall 1998 to support this Final Report and my PIP Update (Fall 1998-Fall 2000) have been submitted under separate cover. I also refer you to my Winter 2000 Sabbatical Leave Report, submitted 24 May 2000, and accepted by FPIRC in Spring 2000.

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URL of this webpage: http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/PIPSab/PIP9600FinalReport.htm
Last Updated: 23 January 2005