 So, the way this will work is I will be up here moderating and Will will be running around the audience with a microphone for you to ask your questions. Before we get started, I'm just going to give faculty a second to introduce some selves to you once again. And again, if you weren't here earlier or you didn't see me waving, I'm Jodi Rubach, program administrator who's working with Project Idea and ELA in the state of Washington. So, Ursula. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear myself. My name is Ursula Voelweiler. I'm an ELA and I best instructor in Walla Walla, Washington. And I've been with Idea from the beginning. So my colleague Courtney, I want to give a big shout out to Courtney. Courtney and I, we were with Idea from the start. We were part of that first wave of colleges and we helped write the first set of modules. And then I stayed with it as also as a reviser. I revised modules and taught it. And now I teach ELA, intermediate ELA. So I use Idea as a springboard for my lower students. And then I build my more advanced courses on top of Idea and that has worked really well. Hi, good afternoon. I'm Shannon Potter from Olympic College. And I was able to join the Idea project in phase two and was very grateful for all of the amazing work that phase one instructors had put into it. And then I was also able to stay on as part of the revision team and see how just to let you know, we are sort of representative of 60 some odd people who were a part of giving feedback weekly through the three pilot phases. So being able to see the final product that came from that real on the ground practice and feedback in real time to bring you this final result. It's very exciting to share that with you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Danica Garcia. I am presently at Washington State University and teaching in an IEP. But I came to Idea about three years ago as part of the phase three pilot at Columbia Basin College. So a shout out to my former dean, Daphne Larius, and my colleague and former lead, Cheryl Clem. And I was the instructor for the pilot and then helped with the broader roll out of Idea as we moved from a full Idea to a tailored and provided a lot of advising and in-house training. So I'm glad to be here with you. And I'm very grateful for all the work of the folks that went before me in phase one and phase two. Hi, I'm Les Rivera from Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. Vancouver, Washington, not BC. You know, Washington State, not DC. Yeah, we're right across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. So anyway, Clark College came on board in the second year after all these wonderful people that were the nine colleges before us did all that work and development. And we were involved in the last two years of the pilot. And then we've been teaching it full time since then. I teach the full 18-hour model in the morning. And then there's another instructor who is an adjunct that teaches the slightly modified 14-hour model at night. And we sometimes, if our enrollment is strong enough, we have an afternoon class that's the full model as well. The thing I really like about it is that it does incorporate just about everything you can think of. And I even use parts of it, particularly from the writing basics grammar module for a traditional class that I teach at night at Portland Community College. So I find that it can really be used in regular traditional classes as well as in the idea class. And I love it. And I'm so grateful to be part of it. I'm Adriah Katka from North Seattle College. I'm just a little bit north of here. And I had the opportunity to be part of idea from the phase one you heard that earlier. What do I need to say? Also have had the pleasure and fortune of being involved through, again, these phases of revisions and refining and bringing the curriculum to where it is today. And I've certainly really enjoyed my work and ability to be able to stay connected with this project over time. I also, at North, have had the chance to teach this in the full model, the 18-hour model that Will has gone over and that we'll talk a lot about over these couple of days. But also, as Les mentioned, have been able to use a lot of these curricular pieces in more traditional type courses and turn those into web-enhanced courses by basing them on idea modules. So even if it's not really a hybrid or kind of blended model, using it as a class-based but also web-enhanced course. So anyway, just really glad to be able to be here with you. I'm going to take a second to pop back to that video that we watched from a model a few minutes ago before the drill mix break. And one of the things that has really kept me very engaged in this work of the project idea has been that little keyword that so many of us, so many of us in this room, would probably list as one of our top goals for our students, which is empowerment. It comes up all the time. And when I see that snippet of Amado, I'm always reminded of how empowered he felt. And the other student that I interviewed that same morning, also, I had written down and have never really forgotten a quote from her. She said, I feel strong and powerful when I can communicate. And man, that really does it for us ELL instructors, doesn't it? There's nothing. It'll get you. And it'll keep you out forever. So anyway, thanks so much for being here with us and for investing your time with us for these couple of days. OK, so Will, do you have any questions? I'm looking for hands, specifically ones in the air. Thank you. So I'm wondering for programs like I know Clark, I met you at TESOL or something. And I remember you mentioning that you were teaching ESL, but you were integrating math. And I was at a math workshop, actually. It was really interesting. But do you break out the students? This is for EFL levels one, two, and three. Is that right? Do you break out the students? Or is it multi-level? How does that work? Hello. My class is a one, two, three, but it's a mix. It's a multi-level class. And so I'm fortunate that I'm able to get a tutor. And so I have my tutor work with those students that are level ones more. And then I work with the ones that are two and three is a little bit more. But a few of them will sit close to where I am at the podium. And so I can kind of see what they're doing and see what they're not doing. And so then when we have a pair work, group work, or whatever, then I take time to sort of assist a couple of those low-level students. I think that it works best from my experience with levels two and three, not as well with level ones. And we have another course at Clark called Foundations, which is a one, two, three class as well. So when I'm able to, within that first week, I try when I can to get at least a couple of the level ones to go back to that foundation's course first and then come back to me an idea maybe a quarter or two later. And I think that's kind of ideal, though it isn't always possible. And it really depended on a campus-by-campus basis on how idea was offered. It is designed multi-level, one, two, three, without any, no activities identified specifically level one or specifically level two. It's a combined class, but some campuses chose to convert, say, an existing level two class to idea. Some campuses chose to have a multi-level one, two, and three class. Others may have converted a level three class to idea. So we left how, once the curriculum was developed, what classes they chose to offer it in up to each individual campus and program? And I'm going to actually open my class up to a little four students as well. So ours will be, hopefully, a one through four. So I also had mixed level classes. And I just want to let you know that there is a lot of flexibility on the part of the teacher when it comes to assessing the assignments that are turned in and the grading rubrics that are there. So although the students would be doing the same assignment, the way you're going to assess how they've met the outcome of that would look very different for my level one student, if they got one sentence, that might be, yes, they completed that for full marks, where if a level three student had written the same sentence, I'm going to be expecting more of the level three. So depending on what the prompt is, but there are rubrics on all of the assignments. And that does give you a lot of flexibility in the class. Next question. Yes, I wanted to know what assessment tool do you use to place students, level one, two, three. CASAS is the predominant testing mechanism. And then each campus also occasionally will do a writing test or some other sorts of assessments that they combine with the CASAS scores in order to determine student placement. Thank you. Question was CASAS reading, listening, or both? Both. Next set of. And yes, I can run a cue. So you raise your hand and I put in my head. He's really good at remembering stuff. Hi, Mark Comer in Yakima Valley College here in Washington State. And I was just talking with Will over during the break about attendance in general. And I'm curious with the idea model if that has had an impact on student attendance as it's impacted, had other positive impacts. I'll just say I feel like it helped to increase attendance. Students were so excited by what was happening in the class and there's a lot more application. As it was mentioned earlier, problem-based and project-based pieces in the classroom. And the technology that's also incorporated in the face to face that we're really excited about. And I will just say for my students in my own experience, when they couldn't come, because of course life comes up and things happen, they were doing the online work. So although I maybe didn't get to see them face to face that day, they were coming and prepared. It was my experience. Just to echo Shannon and the students, especially in phase one I worked with were primarily farm workers or spouses of farm workers. And so during a period of harvest, for those of you that work with farm workers, we all recognize that that is an extremely difficult time. And to add on what Shannon had said, I had students that were unable to physically come to class. It actually, for almost a month or two, did all the online work and then showed up at class in the end and actually had accumulated enough hours for COSIS testing and made significant gains. Ideally, of course, we want to see the students in class. But it's great when they can continue to participate, even though life intervenes with them being there. And attendance was also very positive. Very good. And then in addition to that motivation and attendance, I do want to underscore that idea. I think it's really important that I do feel like this supports retention and has that ability. It's one of those ways that we can often get students back, not necessarily as a calling them home, but really just when it comes down to on a personal level, I think we see a lot of students who will have a period of time that they need to be away. And then they don't come back because they feel like it's been too long. And I couldn't possibly. We see that from many students. And I think this is one of those ways that students can just maintain that feeling of contact, that feeling of connection with you as their instructor, with their classmates through participating in online discussions. It's an intensive kind of class. And we'll be talking. That will come out a lot in our conversations. But because of that, just by its virtue, it quickly builds a sense of community among students that they might not have in other class formats. So I think just in all kinds of ways it really enhances retention. I want to add one other important keyword to the empowerment and that's equity. I think by having that online component, you have that equity piece because they can do the online component as many times as they want. It's not just once. So some students will get it the first time and other students will have to do it three more times. But that really enables them to learn at their own pace even if they miss the classroom parts. They still can keep going at their own pace. In Alabama, we have the open enrollment model. How do you address that? Because I have students coming in. I have new students every week. That's really common. I believe in Washington open enrollment is very common. So at my school, they can come in until week seven. And I did ask for special permission on that class to stop it at week five. As you'll start learning, there's not many more modules that they would be participating in if they're post week seven. So what I found was really key is that when I had a technology coach, when I had the luxury of a technology coach, they were able to work with that student separately before the student came into my classroom. And I identified, as you'll learn later, there's a module that's the first week of every quarter called Intro to Idea. And that really is the groundwork to help them really access the pre-work and be able to do the technology piece. So what I did is I identified key pieces within that first week for them to work through with a volunteer, a tech coach. There were times it was just me in my office and having that one-on-one time with them to catch them up to speed. And then I would just say, your starting point is here. So if you're coming in in week four, you're welcome if you feel like you have the time to go back and look at the previous weeks, but I just want you to start from your day one. And I found that to be very successful. And I just make sure and touch base more with that student on the technology piece, just making sure they felt comfortable accessing that. But that works very well. And it is a challenge, but I think just establishing that starting date for them helped too. I have a concern that if I say, you can't come in, now you have to wait three weeks that they won't come back. Because sometimes it takes a lot of nerve to come in the first time. Courtney or Ursula, how are you handling the students? Are they still working prior to coming in with Jan or something? Can you explain that a little bit? And I will just add one thing. We did also have somewhere else for them to go. So by not being able to enter mine, they just had to wait. They were still welcomed into class. So I do want to add that on. Yeah. So Courtney jump in, but we have, and Walla Walla, we have an orientation that runs on a specific day every week. And so students who come in even during the quarter, they have to do this orientation first. And that gives them a basic understanding of Canvas. And so when they come into the classroom, they already have that Canvas piece down. And so they're just adapting to the curriculum, but not the technology. And that has worked really well for us. And I don't know, Courtney. So, you know, there are ways around it. Some of the programs in Washington are just managed enrollment. And you come in by the first week or you don't come in all summer, more managed to open where students may enter for the first two to three weeks. And then some are completely open enrollment through the whole quarter. Out of 34 providers, we had 33 participate in the pilot project and everyone found a way to make it work with how their enrollment system worked. So. Have you ever experienced students who come to class who haven't done the pre-work? And how do you work around that? Anyone? I'm gonna start. You will notice that very quickly because when you do your face to face, you first do a warmup. Your first activity is always a quick warmup and that's where you will spot right away if somebody did the work or not. So, it happens a lot. As I said earlier, even just with attendance, life happens. There's a lot of reasons that somebody isn't able to complete the pre-work. In my own experience, just setting up the expectation with them, please, if you're not able to do the pre-work, please still come to class. You are absolutely still going to be able to practice and learn and you will gain information. It's going to be definitely enhanced and beneficial if you've done the pre-work and sort of laid the groundwork to come in for doing that. But I'd like to also add that I was quite flexible with my students and very upfront in the beginning about that as my policy. It was more important for me that they come to class and know it was okay to say to me, I'm sorry I couldn't do it last night. And they really took the initiative and they would all say, but I'll do it this weekend. I have time this weekend. And they did. I mean, maybe the occasional one who didn't, but really overall, you saw that they wanted to go home and do it for their own benefit. So I felt like if I could offer them that balance, I was still seeing them come to class and then they were catching up when they could. And I think it also becomes somewhat self-regulating in the classroom. The students start to become curious. Well, why is everybody else able to do this, participate in this in-class activity? I don't seem to understand it. And after a few times of that repeated and you talking with them, well, you remember they do your pre-work. It helps you get ready for class. The students that were a little more reluctant were able to find a way to kind of self-motivate themselves to complete the work. So actually, I had the exact same question there, but I did have another question related. What, with our demographic, we have a lot of students that not only are not familiar with technology, which I understand is the first part of the program is the teaching that. How do you deal with the students that just don't have computers or internet access at their house? One of the joys of the initial pilot was the colleges were able to provide every student with a laptop and 24-7 Wi-Fi. So, our providers had laptops that the students, that they were able to supply the students. Post-pilot, how are you all handling laptops? Could you address that? I find that usually all but about two of my students out of like 20 do have internet access, so that's a blessing. But for those that don't, I just encourage them every day to either stay after class to use the Wi-Fi at the college or go to the library or go to the public library or go to Starbucks or something. And it seems like they're able to do that one way or the other. So that's how it works. But a lot of them do have internet at home, which is really a blessing. Unless Clark is still checking computers out to students via the library, yes? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, all of the laptops that students use, they check out of the library at the college. And we've only lost one computer in four years, so that's pretty good. I found there's an app for Canvas, and so a lot of students were doing the work through an app or just using the mobile browser on their cell phone. And one of the things we talk about with idea is connections to the community. And the need to have internet or access to a computer after we completed the pilot when students were no longer able to take the computers home. I did find students who were signing up for library cards and spending more time on the weekends in the public library as well as the university library. Another option too that should be pointed out is what we described this morning or what we'll describe this morning was the full version of idea that was developed in conjunction with the Gates Foundation. And then I believe he also briefly mentioned tailored idea. And with tailored idea or even full idea, you could run it as a web enhanced class in the classroom only and possibly do one day of computer work, one day of face-to-face work or half a class computer, half a class face-to-face. So it is adaptable. But what was originally described in what we're talking about as full idea is the fully flipped where the students do have the computers. Now that it's open, you can tailor this to meet your needs. We have someone from the audience who'd like to weigh in as well. Yeah, I live in a small rural area where most of my students don't have internet and they do not have computer. Some have phones, but not all of them. So we're doing what Jody said we do tailored. And so I do about four or five modules a quarter. And I'm not saying I take the first hour. I've found that it's easier and my students understand that better. If we go through the activities kind of in class together, those that can do it on their own do it on their own. Those that need help filling in the blanks or more practice on the vocabulary or how to record some students never understand how to record the five words. And it's a lot easier in the tailored program because we can't give the computers out. People don't have internet access and it's just really too big of a problem to deal with. So we just do tailored and it works very well. All right, I've got a queue of four hands. I haven't forgotten you. How do you market this? And what I mean by that, students kind of know if it's a writing class they know what to expect or a conversation class. But it seems like you need to prepare students before they sign up for this class to have that idea of how different this is. We accept all idea-based puns here. It's open. We understand. It happens. You can't help it. All right. So in terms of, there's sort of the marketing or just sort of what you say, maybe an alternate way of saying it's just how do you prepare students? How do you help them know what to expect? And of course that's gonna depend a bit on the model, the delivery model that you decide upon, whether it is, you know, if it is this very intensive 18 hour a week class, it is really critically important for students to understand that doing homework is, it's not a do it if you have time kind of thing, but it really is, that's part of your instructional time. So talking with students about that. But I think let me offer just a few thoughts or a few ways that I've seen some of this marketing or preparation go on. And then I'm sure others can chime in. For one piece that we did on our campus, it was really just a matter of, I think me writing up a half sheet with a description of what the class is and how it just, you know, a really basic written at pretty level two, three friendly language, but to explain what happens in this class and to try to make it clear that this class is all at the same time a language class, a technology class and learning about, I don't remember how I worded it, at some point I'll pull up the document, but it was learning about skills in your life or that kind, I didn't say life skills, but learning about different kinds of topics and giving maybe just two or three examples. We'll learn about study skills. We'll learn about time management. We'll learn about how to apply for a job. These, just offering some of those will show the chart or the big table with all of the module topics. And so I think being able to give students that idea that it's all of these things at once. Again, it's your English class, your learning technology skills and you're learning some kind of thematic content. Giving that is helpful and that can be just delivered through other instructors kind of spreading the word to let students know. Or if you have some kind of an orientation model when students are tested and then they're looking at a list of options for classes that might be available to them at their level, having someone who's prepared to sort of explain what it is as they're explaining other course types. I think those are a couple of ways. I'm gonna pass the mic. I would say our main sort of marketing to it was during our orientation because this class did look quite different to what we were offering as our traditional classes. As in like the schedule was different, how many days a week it met. The technology piece I think was a big seller quite honestly. They were very excited that they were going to simultaneously be learning their technology skills along with the language. So just in and of itself, I think that kind of helped to sell it if you will through marketing. In Walla Walla, if you come to the level one, two, three day class in Courtney's class, you don't have a choice. That's automatically the class. You will end up there. And we have some other classes like we teach during the winter we teach what's called Garrison Night School. And we have a few other options but that's where students end up automatically. And what we've done is we've really focused from the get go on this guided pathways idea that when students come into the college, they are required to decide where they wanna go with all of this. Do they wanna get their GED, their high school 21? Where do they wanna go? But what I've realized as an instructor is that and somebody actually said this at one of these training sessions and it has stuck with me, they can't be what they can't see. And so idea is a wonderful way of showing them the opportunities that they have as they advance in college. And they pretty quickly realize that and it helps them make those vital decisions as, okay, what's my next step? So even if they don't know what hits them on day one, they figure it out pretty fast how valuable this is and then the word spreads through them. Yeah, at Clark College, our morning classes are usually four days a week and we've structured the idea so it's three days a week. So we do three, three hour blocks to get the nine hours. And so that to some students is really a benefit because some students are working more. And so our three day class is better than a four day class and Wednesdays is often early release in the public schools where I am. So we don't have class Wednesday. We have a Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. And so that helps some students be able to have some flexibility as well. So that's kind of a draw for our class. And like everybody said, the fact that you actually get a computer that you can take home and use 24 seven really is a big draw as well. So I think those things are really important. And then the one thing I thought about getting back to students starting the class later during the quarter is that the wonderful thing about this program is that each of the modules are not dependent upon the module before. You do have to have them do the first module, some of it to learn how to use the computer of course and then a couple of other things. But for the most part, they can step in at week four and they don't really have to have done the module in week two and three. So that really makes a big difference. And I try to pair up a new student who comes a little bit later into the course with students that are level threes that are higher so they can work with them. And so that really helps. Plus I have the tutor and I can work with them after class if they have time to stay. So there's a lot of ways that this class really has a lot more flexibility I would say. Just to tap onto what the others have said. I think the peer to peer marketing aspect was huge. As we started to expand at Columbia Basin and I was teaching in the mornings in the section, I'd see students coming by the classroom kind of really poking their heads in and really looking to see why everybody else had all these computers out and what they were doing and why they were doing this other. And there was a lot of, you know, they'd be poking their head if they got a few minutes early to break, they'd be sticking a head in and there'd be a lot of chatter in the hallway afterwards and other students coming in and kind of asking me or not sure if they could ask me but a lot of peer to peer marketing I guess I would say from the organic of focus of it. And the students thought it was fun and it took a few weeks for them to be convinced that it was fun if they were new because there's so much learning that goes on the beginning but they liked it and I think that is something that we cannot, no matter how we try to market or attract students if they're not engaged with what they're doing in the classroom, all our other marketing efforts really don't work well. So I think the peer to peer marketing was huge and later there's been a departmental wide adoption of the curriculum. I think you might have lightly touched on this but are you able to count their hours when they're on the computer at home and how do you do that? One, I would strongly encourage you to figure out what your state's distance policy is in Washington we allow either a learner mastery or clock time or teacher verification. ID is based on the learner mastery model and I'll show demo this tomorrow afternoon but Canvas can be programmed in the grading scheme so at the end the students get a percentage for every module that equates to hours and at the end Canvas will give you a final grand total of those hours. I would never wait until the end of a quarter to report hours because then you could be missing students for post testing but it does vary a little bit because students can always go back and do work maybe when they have the aha moment a couple weeks later so the hours could fluctuate by week but they do get hours per module based on the percentage they earn. You're in the queue, I've got you. I'm gonna try to articulate my question. I'm not sure that I have it very clear in my head yet but I'm really curious to know particularly for those of you who started with phase one at this point in time are you able to identify as you've evaluated your students identify factors that contribute to their lack of making significant gains. I'm really curious about this because I'm not sure if I inferred this or will intended this but what I hear is this is better than the traditional ESL approach to language teaching and I'm kind of pushing on that at the moment and so I'd like to know if you've been able to think about or evaluate in your program so far. Those things that are either barriers or factors about your student populations that are preventing them from succeeding in this type of curriculum. I know some things that have helped with idea are the fact that we have the rigor. There is more intensity and the students are in class for longer hours but it's also giving the students the opportunity like we were saying if you can't make it face to face you can do the online. If you get behind on the online you're in your face to face class. So there's two ways for students to access the material the fact that they can continually go back and have access and repeat that material over and over again. So with learner mastery it might take one student one time for 15 minutes and they might understand the concept. Another student it might take them three hours but it's a level playing field because they're getting hours based on the percentage they're earning. So if the student who got it in 15 minutes maybe isn't having to redo it and redo it to just a crew a set of hours where the student who might not get it right away can keep going back. They can come in they can work with their instructor they can work with a volunteer. I think that's a big aspect of it but I also think it's really raising the bar and showing students you know it's not okay just to come to class and chit chat with your friends maybe or to take the same class. And I mean we do have a progression policy here of three quarters but it's not okay just to keep repeating the same class and doing it and hey this is stuff you can actually take and use every day. So we do have some topics like financial literacy and such that would be found in a textbook but these topics were all brainstormed by Washington faculty and it's like what do you want your students to know so they can move. So students are reacting better to the topics also. Barrier wise you know maybe if they needed the computers and didn't have them or things but we were able to mitigate a lot of those barriers by providing the internet access by providing the wifi. I mean we do have some rural areas where it's still a challenge but we've also made the adaptation from going fully flipped hybrid to having the tailored model that could be done in a web enhanced class to mitigate those barriers for the students as well. Anyone else. Another thing I think is really good about it about this particular course is that it's designed for four quarters for the whole year and that means that even if the student which a number of them do take the course more than once because they can take it three times and at Clark College a fourth time if I do an application which is always accepted. They're the first module which is intro to idea about the use of computer and canvas and the last module the end of quarter projects is always the same but those eight modules in the middle are different each quarter. So even if they're taking the class two or three times you're getting completely different information. They're using the same format so that really helps them because that becomes comfortable with them because they know how to do it but they're getting new information every single week throughout a whole year of four quarters which I think is really fantastic. I think there's two to jump on to what the others have said there's two points that I was kind of that reflecting on as I was listening to the other speak. One I think that's really key is that the fact that there's an asynchronous component that students can be doing their work distance at two o'clock in the morning or five o'clock or whatever time it happens to suit them whether that's just in 15 minute chunks as they have time available. So I think that's really beneficial in honoring the way that our students live and the complexities of adult life. I think that's the first half. The second half when we're talking about rigor as I've been reflecting again on the modules and the type of topics we teach and now I'm teaching in an IEP program. And the topics I'm teaching in an IEP that are covered in the textbook are the same topics that we're looking at with this idea curriculum. So we're talking about raising the bar and having students college and career ready. I think that that is huge and the students are also recognizing the students that our parents are recognizing. Hey, the way you're teaching this is the same way my kids are being asked to do this at school. So getting that engagement from the students because I see the validity in what they're learning I think helps with reducing barriers. For me, the big piece is contextualization. And I think, and I used to teach ESL the traditional way and I taught grammar. And I think it's the same with math. Unless you contextualize grammar and math students it doesn't stick with them. They don't see the relevance of it. And I think the beauty with ideas that everything is contextualized. It's in a context that students live and breathe every day. And so the grammar all of a sudden makes sense. The math makes sense. And that's where I have seen the biggest aha moments for me compared to the traditional model. I had a question. So my name is Wanda Billingsley. I'm the Dean of Education at the Monroe Complex, Correctional Complex. And so those of us in prison education we have some unique barriers. Some similar to our students who may not have the economic ability to have computers and access the internet. Ours is more legal. So in a prison setting they are not allowed to access the internet. So that's a huge barrier for us. So I guess I'm more interested in picking your brains about how would you conceptualize this in a prison education environment? I heard some ideas about ways to offset some of the access issues related to computers and mainstream. But then what about restricted environments like this? Brian will actually be providing instructions on how to bring the idea curriculum into a corrections family environment such as downloading the videos and relinking them. As MP4s you'll have to convert Google Docs to Word Docs, et cetera. But he had asked that I collect in that Google Doc in the classroom any corrections specific questions so we can work together to figure them out. But there is a way to do it in corrections without internet access. I guess my question is I have a variety of students. Some come from professional backgrounds but I have some that come that maybe only went to third grade in their home country. How does that affect their ability? Not only do they have no English they have no academic skills at all. I would say that I also have the privilege of teaching at one of the providers as well as that. I have students in a level one class who have a second grade education who are trucking right along with and I have a different web enhanced curriculum that I'm using. I've seen them need a little extra assistance and help but those students in particular sat down and typed a 10 sentence paragraph by themselves the other day and I offered either I could type it for them or they could sit down and I mean they knew how to do it and it turns out they have the technology skills in their own language. They have phones granted if they ask me for help everything's in Spanish or Chinese or something and I was like can we put your phone back to English because I don't know what I'm reading to tell you what buttons to click on but they're getting the work done but I really would say the one thing we generally say the idea is that the students low in English and low in technology I'd probably find something for them to do to skill build to transition them into an idea class. I wouldn't take students who are zero across the board unless that was really the only option and then you'd probably want to have volunteers or someone who could work with that student one on one and provide support in the class but if they have a little English and a little technology they should be okay and again they might be able that might have to take the class a couple of times where in every time they'll get something a little bit different. Shannon. And then also just to go back to something that Ursula said earlier about the contextualization of the units for those students because absolutely I have students who come in maybe with a second grade education. Some of the units that just came to mind are study skills, time management, there's a stress management as they might be stepping back into school for the first time in a very long time and just learning how to juggle those responsibilities. So kind of woven into the curriculum I think there's a lot of supports to help those students in particular kind of learn what it is to be a student, how to be a successful student and that's just a part of the course that I think helps. I'm giving Lessa heads up that in about 30 seconds I'm gonna ask him to talk about something about foundation, so just think about it. But before that, to give you time to warm up I will also offer just another perspective on that which is to say that for many students and actually for many of our faculty when we're looking at a model like this that's innovative and really quite different from what many of us are used to either as from an instructional perspective or from a learner perspective. There's some things we have to undo or some kind of concepts that we have to sort of break through a little bit. Like no, no, this can be what learning English is too. It can look like this. And for a student who doesn't have a lot of preconceived notions about what that educational format would look like, nothing to undo. It really, you know that's, I don't wanna say blank slate. I mean, nobody's a blank slate. That's a ridiculous concept. However, it's just maybe let's say open door, right? And so a student who doesn't have that background may just be really open to, oh, this is how I, great. Let me do it. Let's have at it. Okay, now I'm gonna ask Les to come back and talk. He mentioned earlier something that I think is really important and I almost always end up asking you or Brad or Monica to talk about this because at Clark they do have a really neat model that I was pleased to be able to go and observe at one point for a day or two some years ago where they do this kind of, they call it a foundations class. And this is not only for their lowest level kind of pre-literate learners, but really for anyone in those kind of beginning levels. But it's pretty unique. And I like the way that you have it working in tandem with idea that it's sort of another route, but it really is kind of, Jodi mentioned the idea of doing something as a sort of skill builder. And it's another thing that could serve, this kind of model could serve as sort of an on-ramp to a program like this. Would you mind talking about it for a minute? Yeah, at Clark College, the foundations class is also one, two, three, like ideas are one, two, three in terms of the level. The difference is that the foundations class is a little bit more beginning. And so the students that need a little more time to work on alphabet, a little more time to work on real basic reading skills and do a lot of intensive, pair work intensive small group work and a little bit of work on the computer. So I think ideally, if a student is able to go through foundations at least one time, they would get enough of those basics down hopefully. And they can take foundations two or three times, then if they came to idea, they'd already know how to use the computer a little bit because they do about an hour or two every week of some work on the computer and foundations and their reading ability and just their comfort level with English language would be just a bit more. And like probably a lot of other programs, we have some other things that support our students such as tutors and some instructors actually that run a conversation hour every day that students can access after class. And so I try to encourage my students to go to that conversation hour if they can after class to help them reinforce their speaking ability and practice it more. And then we also have another class on Friday morning which is a two hour class that's a literacy class for levels one through four. And so if they're in idea and they're still really struggling, I try to get as many as I can to also go to that Friday morning class so they can get a little more help with reading, a little more help with writing. And just the more practice they get, the better, right? So we have as many options as we can put together in a week usually to help students. Well, I'm just gonna point out one other thing too. At the end of every module and you'll see this as you work through the curriculum and the focus sessions, there's extra practice also. So students who are ready to move ahead might go explore on their own or students who might need to work on additional grammar skills that were in that module or review the vocabulary or in some of the technology modules, typing, tutors and whatnot, we've tried to provide access to some of that. So if you do need to provide extra support to your students, you don't need to go track that down, we've tried to find some of it from you. I mean, by all means, you can add your own things to it but we did try to provide some additional supports also. Hi, Chris Cotto from Schmecke Day Community College in Salem, Oregon. Self-proclaimed data nerd. So I love looking at the control group and the test group and I love all of the comparisons between EFL level gains between the ones that were in idea versus the traditional classroom. And I was wondering if you have any, even if it's just anecdotal data about the employment side of things. So after the exit of the program, the ones that went through the idea modules, whatever version they went through, what were any of the employment stats or the employability stats for the test group versus the control group? I think most of this will be anecdotal and some of the students that you heard in the video, obviously we did not specifically look at but that's a very interesting thing to look at is, were we able to track that? But it's not one of our grant requirements. So it's something that hasn't been on the radar but I'm sure everyone's heard of students even in the opening video you heard from, well one Julie Palomeo, the instructor who said her student came and turned in her laptop because she was able to fill out her job application and find a job and then one of the students that was interviewed had gone to an interview and gotten a job. So I mean we do have the anecdotal evidence so does anybody want to share about particular students? For me, I teach ELA level four and up and when I get students from Courtney's classroom, there's just a vast difference. I mean they just sail through it. Maybe one more quarter in my class and they're often to pre-college English and then college English. I have students coming from her classroom to my classroom and after one quarter with me, they're ready to take their three month nursing assistance class and pass it. So I can see that just the students coming from her, they're used to the rigor, they're self-driven. It's a completely different focus than students coming from the outside. I first have to create that routine with them. So I think they're just moving much faster up and out. All right, does anyone else have anything to add to the employment first? No. Okay, I'm back to my cue. I have a question about how you arrange the hotspots because that's an issue for many of our students is lack of, even if they had the computer, they don't have access or hotspots at home or wireless. So the hotspots originally in the pilot, each provider received funding depending on what phase they came into the pilot to provide that laptop and that hotspot. What happened with the hotspots is every provider through their IT department negotiated. So some had Sprint hotspots, some had AT&T, some had Verizon hotspots. The price, even within the providers, varied depending on the regions. We had one Eastern Washington provider that where they offered the class, there is no Wi-Fi. A hotspot was not working. They actually had arranged something and I don't know all the ins and outs, but the dish network came and installed dishes for the hotspots at students' houses and they were able to somehow get reimbursed through the college for the time they were in class. And again, I don't know all the ins and outs, but I do know that had happened. That money's gone away in Washington also, so a lot of what we do now is show our students where the access points come from. But we do have an email in writing from Octay that says that our federal grant funds can be used to purchase hotspots as part of an instructional package. So they would consider, say a Chromebook, a hotspot, a corded or cordless mouse, a headset in a case to be checked out and checked back in that would be considered part of the instructional package. So there are possibilities that way. Again, we're not requiring the hotspots in Washington and haven't for over two years and it seems to be working well, but we do have that option if we do have students in need. Anyone else? Also in Seattle, some of the public library branches apparently have hotspots that they're willing to lend. I don't know that that's by policy, but one of our teachers managed to negotiate that. And in some cases they're also, I've heard of public libraries checking out computers to students. So I think it just depends on your area and checking out those resources. And I'll just quickly just add one quick thing onto that. If you're lucky enough to have resources on your campus and I know we're all coming from different situations, whether it's a CBO or an offsite, but really going back to maybe something Danica said about connecting with the college community and making sure they know where the computer labs are and knowing how to connect to Wi-Fi. We are fortunate that we still have the laptops from the initial pilot. So I do have laptops to check out to them, not with the hotspot, but really trying to connect them to places both on campus and within the community where they can make that connection. And that's helped for quite a few. Will, before you grab another question, we have 10 minutes left. So if we can finish up the queue and then we'll try to get to some of the questions in the document over the next couple of days and have a few more Q&A sessions. Okay, the queue is hot, I've got four left. So let's start working through them. Talk fast. I have, I've been looking forward to actually looking at the material to get a better sense of, you know, how I would use it in the classroom. I did have a question about the pre-work that the students do at home. And I guess it's about the mechanics of do they get feedback before they come into class on whether they're on the right track or not? Because, you know, two things I could see happening, if not, is that they would come in thinking they knew something they didn't, and then, you know, they're thrown for a loop when they get in here. Or just the frustration of not knowing, because we tend when we're using computers to expect, if not instant feedback, you know, soonish feedback. And so that's my question on that. Andrea or Danica, who was with Mike? Just to briefly answer that, a lot of the pre-work is auto graded. So the students do receive instantaneous feedback and they can repeat the quizzes or the activity as many times as they need. There is, as we will mention, the important word, learn activity. There is one activity in a learn that is instructor graded because it provides pronunciation feedback. So that just depends on how quick your instructor is able to give feedback on an activity, but they do get instantaneous feedback. And also, discussion boards would need to have instructor feedback given, but we have a rubric in there. So in some cases, it could just be click, click, click in the rubric, and the instructors can decide how much feedback or how much correction they want to do. Andrea, you look like you wanna say something. Yeah, Udo is just, I will just add a little bit, a little bit more on that, though I know we have more questions, but essentially, before they come to class, they'll get some feedback on what they've done and then some will be maybe extended out over time. And some of that depends, I guess, on your instructional schedule. If you're meeting daily, then you may have students who, if you meet in the morning, they may do their assignment in the morning. You as an instructor aren't gonna get in there before you see them, but it just depends sort of on your cycle. But it's worth knowing, and you'll see much more of this in our focus sessions that we'll do this afternoon and throughout tomorrow. Essentially, in their pre-work, they will likely have two or three type of input kinds of activities for some presentation. And then they'll probably have one or two kind of practice slash little bit of production type activities. And with those, anything that's a submission task, as Danica mentioned, it'll typically be something that's auto graded. It may be rubric graded, in which case they'll be waiting for their instructor. So yeah, they will get some, I just want you to know that some of what they do as pre-work is just receiving. It's just receptive. And then some of it will be maybe one or two submission tasks. I have a question and maybe Les could help me. I'm in a similar situation as Judith where our students, we used to do the pilot and they had, they got to take the laptops home, but now we're doing a modified version at our school and we're doing the same thing where we do the pre-work in class. A lot of us do, not everyone, but out in the community with the more low income students who don't have laptops and wifi. My class does quarters that way. We have continuous entry and most of our classes are level one through three or level one through four combined in the community. So when the new students come in and we're doing the pre-work all together, I'm running around, we don't have a tech coach and having new students just do the flashcards while everyone else is working through the whole learn and maybe moving on to the discussion. I would love, I don't know if any of you have that situation or anyone else here today has that situation. I'm trying to figure out is there, are there ideas on how to deal with that? Or not, no. Julie, are you asking for ideas on how to get them past getting stuck at the top of the learn without moving on or I wanna make sure I understand the question. I have an hour maybe to do the pre-working class. So if I have brand new students who are level one and have high level threes who've been there for a year, they're like zipping through the learn and then the low ones are only doing flashcards and maybe that's all I can expect of them. I've observed classes in the community with the same thing with some of the assignments they're copying the paragraph and typing it. Rather, I don't know if we just make the best of it or if someone has ideas on how to handle that when they don't have wifi access outside of class. Well, let's talk more about it as sort of as the day and the two days go on. But just one real quick thing that I'll offer is keeping in mind that so many of the handouts and things that would be the same information that's gonna be presented in Canvas are available to us through the Google Drive. We'll get there, I promise, we'll get there, we'll get there. And so a lot of those things will be things that you could download and provide in a handout form or in a packet form so that students could have other access to that same kind of content and then when they see it on the computer that could be their first or their second, it could be the first time they see it or the second time they see it but they can look at it at home on paper in addition. Prior to class or after as a follow-up just so that they can get it in multiple modes. That's a quick answer, yeah. I have a follow-up to the person who raised the question about employment outcomes. So we've been doing IDEA for a few years and because it's, you can mix and match the modules and customize them for your own purpose. Our classes are all work focused. So we've selected the IDEA modules that are solely employment related and as part of the class, we do mock interviews where we bring in real employers from the community. So as part of the tailored idea, you're able to customize with 20%, use 80% of the IDEA curriculum, customize 20%. So the mock interview events is part of the customization we do to enhance the employment outcomes. I know I have one hand here but I do think I forgot a hand. It does happen on occasion. So raise your hand again if you were the hand that I forgot. I will forgot to raise your hand. Okay, here? Nowhere else? So we have got two questions left and I think that'll be just perfect. So I'm curious if the curriculum actually is aligned with the college and career readiness standards. It's aligned. So it will meet every WIOA requirement. There is math is integrated into every modules. We've correlated to the CCRs but rather than correlating to a specific CCR, we correlated to the anchor standards to leave room for scaffolding. And so there's an example instructional guide in the conference program but you will also be seeing instructional guides throughout the focus sessions with the curriculum but there's math, there's the technology, the CCRs, everything is in there. The only thing we did not do is include the ELPs because we felt they were scaffolding and we're supposed to be teaching to the CCRs so we're leaving it up to programs to bring in the ELPs. My name is Diana and I'm here from Seattle, Goodwill. And I wanted to add from all of you that are in Seattle if your students have a Seattle Public Library card they can get a hotspot for free and they loan them for three weeks. We are lucky at Seattle Goodwill that we have a partnership with them and they allow students to keep their hotspots for three months and use for free. My question is you are giving them to students a laptop, a hotspot for almost a year. At the end of the year, they are thinking that they're gonna keep that computer and you're giving them those tools. What happens at the end? They're gonna come to you and they're gonna say, can I keep the computer? How can I get my own computer? Well, one thing I would say is they were checked in quarterly and in most cases by the libraries at the college because that would be the entity who could place a hold more easily. They have been checked out of basic skills directors offices in some cases, in some cases e-learning or the IT department, but there's use agreements. So the students were checking them back in. They were being re-imaged, they were being updated because some colleges put them in deep freeze so things that we need to rent canvas would no longer work. So they were in the habit of bringing them back on a quarterly basis and turning them back in. And I think it was pretty clearly communicated. I'm not saying no one misunderstood, but for the most part it was really clearly communicated that we were loaning these to you as part of your learning. They were coming back to us. Does anyone have a situation that may have been like she just described? No, and I will actually add, I've had students and I know I'm not the only one who have said thanks, but no thanks. I would rather not take on the risk of borrowing that computer. And if they have the ability to do so, would research and get help to purchase their own low cost if need be device so that they can do it. So it's actually been almost the opposite. Yeah, but I do have to say in all these years very few have been lost, damaged, stolen. I think maybe I've heard of six instances and we're going on six years now. So they're coming back, students are taking care of them, but yes, I have heard a lot of the cases where can we just use ours? Cause we don't want to sign this use agreement, which in some cases is intimidating. I saw kind of a hand go up and down, so did we have one more question? We can take one more, it's right here with Margie. It's right here. I'm Margie from Goodwill Easter Seals in Mobile, Alabama. We seem to have a little different problem from what you're describing of the low level people. We have doctors and accountants and people with professional degrees. How did the modules fit with them? Can they be modified to, because they're not going to go for their GEDs or go to college? You, now that they're open, I would say look at the topics and see what might fit the needs of your students cause I'm assuming they have degrees from their countries but they're coming in and just need the English. I would look and see which ones might speak to them the most to get them started. The other thing is, because you have a template now to do this, you could very well work with a group of instructors and use the model to bring in some of your own modules following, you can take the Canvas background pages and edit them and make them what you would want also, but that's a joy of it being open. You don't necessarily have to follow our structure. You can take and tweak and modify or just use the format to develop your own. I will add that again, I will always come back to this idea of there kind of being three distinct things going on when we're teaching in this model and one is the language education, one is the technology skills building and the other is the thematic content. And so every student is getting really a different experience every quarter depending on what they come in with. And we can talk more and probably will about how this is a really differentiation-friendly, differentiation-leaning kind of instructional model just because of that. There's so much going on at once, but rather than that being making it something that's too big to attack, it just means that it's really rich. And so for a student who maybe has the tech skills already, but they need the language and they can learn some new other kind of skill in their life depending on the content of the theme of that particular module. So as Jodi said, you can prioritize certain modules over others, maybe say, well, I think our people will already know this content theme, but we can spend less time on it, but they can get some language attached to it. Maybe there are some other themes where that one might be new for them. Let's work on that. It's a US history module. Let's do that one that could be really useful and then they'll also certainly be getting the language and the tech skills to go along with it. So I do hope that you'll be able to find a good use for it as well. And one other thing I really like about the curriculum, I'm sorry, because I can't see over there, about the curriculum is that this is really connected to life, adult learner life. So when we're talking about the themes and as you saw just briefly and we'll be walking through more later, those students who come in with professional backgrounds or higher education, they can still really get the language they need within a framework that they'll find relevancy to their life. And just to mention one thing, I had there's a math basics unit. Anybody else was like, math. I was very scared about math being included. I'm like, I'm not a math teacher. And I also like how it's woven in here, but there is one module called math basics. And I had a class of students who were obviously very good at math and we made it through the whole module really quickly when we were looking at like how to do math, but the word problems were a huge stumbling block. So I just found the sweet spot within what was already there and had to modify a little, but I could take the base of what was there and make it work for them. And they loved the unit because that's what they needed from that piece. So I don't know if that answers some of it. There are some modules that will require a little bit of preparation on your part because you have to adapt them to your local situation. And you can always do that. One great idea, things that I do a lot in my classroom is I bring in speakers from the community so that they can add a little bit of just extra challenge. And so we take it just to another level by bringing somebody in who's a real expert on a subject. Okay, so we're going to wrap this Q&A session if there's something, and I do realize that when we give the opening presentation the morning, it's kind of like getting hit by a fire hose and it's just information overload. As you're working through the sessions today and over lunch and whatnot, if you do have questions that pop up, please do put them in the Google Doc. We will loop back around to them. And the Google Doc is organized by opening and then by each session individually so we can try to keep the questions kind of differentiated. So please don't hesitate to use that. Will and I have a couple announcements. So I believe, and I have to say a huge shout out, there were only four Canvas invitations that were not accepted this morning which made us all very, very excited because there have been times when we've done these where we've had 20, 30 people who still need help getting in Canvas in the morning. So much appreciation to that. If you still need help getting in, please do see us at lunch because you will need to have access for the focus session after lunch.