October 11, 2021 Meeting
Agenda
Taft College Distance Learning and Education Committee
AGENDA
Monday October 11, 2021
12:10 pm – 1:00 pm
Via Zoom
https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/93857206982
Call to Order
Public Commentary
Action Items
1. Approval of September 20, 2021 Minutes ACTION
2. Location of Next Meeting (November 8, 2021) ACTION
Information Items
3. Accreditation Update INFORMATION
4. DE Updates INFORMATION
Old Business
New Business
5. Distance Learning Approval Forms ACTION
a. ENGL 1501
b. ENGL 2600
c. ETHN 1510
d. ETHN 2110
e. ETHN 2280
f. HIST 2212
g. HIST 2230
h. HLED 1531
i. HLED 1535
Discussion Items
6. Effective, Regular and Substantive Feedback DISCUSSION
Other
Adjournment
Next Meeting: November 8, 2021
Minutes
TAFT COLLEGE DISTANCE LEARNING AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
Minutes for
Monday, October 11, 2021
12:10 – 1:00 pm
Via Zoom
Call to Order: Bledsoe, 12:10 pm
Attendees: Amar Abbott, Marianne C. Bishop (non-voting), Adam Bledsoe, Heather Cash, Candace Duron, Geoffrey Dyer, Kelly Kulzer-Reyes, Leslie Minor (non-voting), Joy Reynolds, Jason Page and Brandy Young
Public Commentary: None; no guests
Old Business: None
Approval of Minutes
September 20, 2021 Minutes submitted by M. Bishop
Minutes approved by unanimous consent
Location of Next Meeting (November 8, 2011)
Bledsoe: At the last Academic Senate meeting, it was mentioned that Assembly Bill
361 passed. For us to continue to meet via Zoom during a declared emergency, we need
to have a standing agenda item that we’ll discuss and vote on regarding our next meeting
being held in Zoom.
Dyer: Responding to Dr. Minor’s question about being in compliance with the Brown
Act regarding publication of our meeting locations, home addresses, etc., Dyer clarified
the following. AB 361’s provisions include that the public be able to comment in real
time; that we not require folks to submit comments in advance. If our Internet goes
down or connectivity is disrupted, we pause the meeting and don’t do any business
until Internet is back up again and our accessibility policy is clear. As long as
we’re under a state of emergency and once a month we discuss and decide whether or
not the state of emergency continues to impact our ability to meet safely in person,
we don’t have to publish all the addresses where we’re going to meet on the agenda
(e.g., no notices outside our office doors or at home where we’re using Zoom). For
more information (from Dyer): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB361
Duron moved to hold next meeting via Zoom; Kulzer-Reyes seconded. After roll-call,
motion passed.
Information
Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges Visit (Bishop)
• From September 27th through 30th, the Accreditation Visit team conducted an external
peer review of Taft College virtually through Zoom. They analyzed and verified the
information TC provided in the Institutional Self-Evaluation Report (ISER).
• The team recommended to approve accreditation for Taft College for seven years.
We will start preparing about two years before the next visit.
• Xiaohong Li, our accreditation officer and liaison to ACCJC evaluators, coordinated
with Bishop to identify 5% of the randomly selected online and hybrid courses, per
ACCJC requirement. Bishop worked with Bledsoe (our resident Excel expert) to generate
these random courses for Fall 2021. After Li submitted the information, evaluators
requested for the random courses for Spring 2021 instead. Li generated the list of
courses using SPSS. DE staff (Heather Cash, Sara Jewell and Bishop) and Li collected
examples of student feedback from instructors for these courses. Li submitted these
documents to them.
• Dr. Bishop and Dr. Minor were interviewed separately by some of the evaluators regarding
distance education.
• At first, Bishop was told they might ask about Cranium Café. But they asked her
about NetTutor instead. For the benefit of the committee members, Bishop provided
this update:
o Most TC Counselors completed an @ONE training on using Cranium Café/ConexED. While
not required, many counselors took the class since the district offered salary credits
upon successful completion.
o Many of them started using it but when the pandemic happened, Cranium Café’s platform
had a lot of technical issues, perhaps due to too many users at the same time, so
counselors switched to using Zoom.
o Cranium Café subscription was not renewed by the VP of Student Services Severo Balason.
o Bishop provided evaluators usage stats for NetTutor. From Sept. 8, 2020 through
Sept. 25, 2021, there were 788 total sessions our students had with NetTutor. Majority
of these students were taking English and Literature courses (n=459 sessions). Students
taking Math courses were the second highest users (n=205). Pyschology (n=31), History
(n=25) and others followed.
o The 264 distinct students/users received assistance with their paper submissions
(n=452), engaged in live tutorials (n=318), were able to drop-off questions (n=12)
and had scheduled tutorials (n=6).
DE Updates (Bishop)
• The Plagiarim Tool Exploration Group composed of Kulzer-Reyes, Debora Rodenhauser,
Dr. Jennifer Altenhofel. Dr. Reginald Clemson and Dr. Chris Chung-Wee are considering
SimCheck to replace Turnitin (also owns SimCheck). Using their Canvas sandboxes, they
submitted some of their students’ papers to SimCheck and found it to be a promising
alternative to Turnitin. It’s cheaper and has the features and functionality they
needed.
• DE staff had several communication with Turnitin administrators and support staff.
• Heather Cash installed the SimCheck LTI in our Canvas instance.
• Turnitin recently enabled Draft Coach (similar to Grammarly). Turnitin recommends
that Draft be used with Google Docs. Cash coordinated with ITS staff to implement
Google Docs. However, it appears that the use of Google Docs may be problematic for
our faculty and students.
• Bishop found out that Turnitin is considering integrating MS Word with Draft Coach.
She informed the faculty-explorers about this and they decided to wait until then.
• Bishop dropped in Zoom Chat the substantive change from the California Community
College Chancellor’s Office. It’s reminding us that if there’s any program that’s
50% or more that’s either distance education or correspondence, that we should inform
our accreditation officer and that ACCJC should be informed about it too.
New Business
ENGL 1501
• Dyer: To address Abbott’s question about resources, Dyer wanted to make a distinction
between TC resources such as Student Resources and Basic Needs, and the general college
resources (outside of TC).
• Reynolds made a motion to submit the form to Curriculum Committee for approval.
Kulzer-Reyes seconded. After roll-call, motion passed.
ENGL 2600
• Young moved to submit the form to Curriculum Committee for approval. Abbott seconded.
After roll-call, motion passed.
ETHN 1510 and ETHN 2110 (Intro to Race and Ethnicity)
• Minor: 2110 was a SOC class initially and was rejected by the Cal States as being
too specific to Sociology and not general enough for Ethnic Studies. We’d like to
have an Intro to Ethnic Studies course and that’s 1510. It’s more interdisciplinary.
Intent was to cross-list ETHN and SOC that could meet Area F requirement. ETHN 2280
is a new course.
• Kulzer-Reyes brought up use of the words “Latino/Latina” instead of LatinX (approved
by the state) as an English phrase in the COR. Minor noted terminology such as “American-Indian”
instead of “indigenous” are also stated. It’s related to the age of the materials.
Instructors/ division are aware of the issue; it cannot be bypassed so worth mentioning
again to the division.
• ETHN 1510, ETHN 2110, ETHN 2280, HIST 2212 and HIST 2230
o After much discussion, the following motions were provided:
o ETHN 1510: Kulzer-Reyes motioned to have the instructor update the course name to
correctly match the course number (ETHN 2110 is Introduction to Race and Ethnicity)
and to address how online oral presentations in question #4 of the form will be done.
Abbott seconded. After roll call, motion passed.
o ETHN 2110: Abbott motioned to have the instructor submit the COR along with the
form and if the COR contains presentations, group projects or in-class writing assingments,
describe how those challenges will be addressed online in question #4 of the form.
Kulzer-Reyes seconded. After roll call, motion passed.
o ETHN 2280: Abbott motioned to have the instructor answer question #4 of the form
regarding how presentations, group projects, and in-class writing assignments will
be done online. Kulzer-Reyes seconded. After roll call, motion passed.
o HIST 2212: Kulzer-Reyes motioned to have the instructor address how presentations
and in-class writing assignments in question #4 of the form will be done. Abbott seconded.
After roll call, motion passed.
o HIST 2230: Abbott motioned to have the instructor address how presentations, group
projects, and in-class writing assignments in question #4 of the form will be done.
Reynolds seconded. After roll-call, motion passed.
HLED 1531 and HLED 1535
• Bledsoe mentioned that these courses were previously approved under an emergency
approval for hybrid. Instructors are requesting to approve them as traditional. Kulzer-Reyes
motioned to bundle these two courses and forward them to Curriculum Committee for
approval as a hybrid course only. Dyer seconded. After roll call, motion passed.
Committee members agreed to hold a special meeting within the next several days
to discuss the course forms that were returned to instructors.
Since it was time to adjourn, Bledsoe stated that the topic on student feedback
on the agenda will be discussed at the next regular meeting.
Next Meeting and Adjournment
Bledsoe moved to adjourn the meeting at 1:00 pm and to hold a special meeting in the near future.