Photo Highlights
Click the photo or caption below for photographic highlights of our conference. Be sure to click the "more options" button to view as a slideshow. |
| Google Photo Album - Photography by Gary Graupman |
2017 Building Bridges Presentations
Session One: 9:00-9:50 a.m.
Pronunciation Issues and Remedies for Multilingual Students
John Hart (BC) and Yuri Sakamaki (IELC/CSUB)This presentation addresses several specific pronunciation challenges for the speakers of Arabic, Spanish, Korean, and Japanese. The linguistic reasoning for these difficulties will also be discussed. Furthermore, we will share ways instructors may bring these issues to the students’ attention as well as ways to tackle these challenges.
Constructing a 1A Course You’ll Love to Teach
Pam Boyles, Gloria Dumler, Laura Peet, Ann Tatum, and Julie Willis (BC)Constructing the freshman composition class is a massive amount of work. From choosing textbooks to designing the research paper assignment and everything in between, the process of building a class from scratch can seem overwhelming. Our discussion focuses on all aspects of English 1A, from the practical to the pedagogical. Whether you’re just getting started or are a veteran teacher who’s ready to try something new, you’ll benefit from this exchange of ideas led by our panel of English 1A instructors.
We Are the Makers of Music; We Are the Dreamers of Dreams: Using Literary Theory to Inspire Your Students To Go Beyond Comprehension
Cody Bema (Ridgeview)Students often complain that their English classes are boring because what they are supposed to read does not interest them. However, by incorporating different critical lenses into your course of study, your students will realize that even though they might not have sway over what they are given to read, they can control how they perceive those texts. This session will explore different critical lenses you can present to your students to apply, and thus empower them to live, as Northrop Frye argues, a “conscious life,” as they look at literature with an “ethical and participating aim.”
(Re)investing in Inactivity: Motivating Underachievers to Make the Grade
Keith Kirouac (CSUB, BC)This presentation is a follow-up to one delivered at last year's Building Bridges. It includes a recap of the previous presentation on underachievers with an update regarding the effectiveness of the proposed approach and suggestions for utilizing that approach within our current educational climate(s).
Blended Learning in Kern County through Technology and Canvas
Savanna Andrasian (BC), Lori Campbell (KHSD), and Dan Hall (TC)This session will show how The Kern Learn Program at KHSD uses Canvas to help students complete course work outside of the traditional classroom in a blended learning environment. Moreover, Taft College’s adoption of Canvas and its students’ perspectives will be discussed. Then, Bakersfield College’s adoption of Canvas will show how it impacts the English classroom and online grading while providing resources via an online platform.
Session Two: 11:00-11:50 a.m.
Deaf Students as Emerging Writers: Standards and Best Practices
Tom Moran (BC)Faculty members who encounter deaf developmental writers are often confounded in their efforts to provide instruction. Typically, deaf students are semi-lingual, presenting with profound knowledge deficits, and must communicate obliquely through an interpreter. This presentation will explain the reasons for these difficulties, all of which are unrelated to deafness, per se, and offer simple, practical strategies for overcoming what seems to be insurmountable challenges. Teachers will leave with practical tools to get the job done.
You Won’t Believe What Happens Next: Connecting Social Media Literacy to Academic Literacy
Jacob Whitaker (CSUB)Contemporary educators are dealing with a brand new, seemingly unbeatable monster: students and their addiction to social media. Instead of looking at Facebook and Twitter as a hurdle to overcome, what if we as educators took advantage of the captured audience and used social media as a teaching and research tool? This presentation will focus on looking at the research of how millennials interact with social media and designing assignments that focus on using the literacy of social media as a bridge to academic literacy.
Improving the Reading and Writing Connection
Dale Drennan (CSUB)How deeply do our students understand discipline-specific, college-level reading material before they undertake synthesizing and analyzing information from multiple sources to write an essay? Are we rushing some students to write too soon, i.e., before they really understand what they have read well enough to write about it? Last semester, I used a new strategy to teach my students how to read critically. This strategy required the students to give me evidence of their critical reading via a specific three-part assignment. In this presentation, I will explain this method of improving academic reading comprehension. After the presentation, I will invite attendees to share their ideas and activities on this topic.
Adapting to the Joys and Sorrows of MLA 8th Edition
Gloria Dumler and David Moton (BC)The changes in the new edition of MLA formatting are substantial and are more than the new MLA Handbook can bear! We want to help! In this session, David Moton and Gloria Dumler from Bakersfield College will give a short presentation about best practices for teaching the new MLA 8th edition and lead a group discussion about problems and solutions that come from teaching this much more fluid version of MLA format.
Motivation and Learner Autonomy: Which Comes First?
Phyllis Wachob (BC)The nexus of motivation and learner autonomy is nebulous and hard to articulate. It is difficult for students and teachers to answer these questions: Whose job is it to motivate students? How can learners become autonomous? Can teachers “teach” autonomy and motivation? This session will explore these questions and give concrete suggestions along with demonstrations of activities to motivate students into claiming their autonomy.
Session Three: 1:50-2:40 p.m.
Deconstructing and Demystifying the Socratic Seminar and Other Classroom Conversations: Teaching Kids to Have Academic Conversations by Building Community and Developing Academic Habits of Conversation
Beau Larimer (Independence, CSUB), Julie Paulsen (BC, CSUB, TC, OLPH), and Kacie Ponce (Arvin)In a social-media-obsessed culture, it seems that students in the current generation have never struggled more to develop academic conversation skills. In order to empower students with this skill set, we have developed an approach that focuses on building community and inquiry skills to explore the complex roles in rich academic conversations as learners move from guided pair activities into larger student-facilitated discussions. Our hope is to provide teachers with a concrete framework that equips both students and teachers with the necessary skills to access group discussions, like the Socratic Seminar.
English Teachers Get Lit: Pop Culture in the Classroom
Raheela McGhie (CSUB, BC), Veronica Wilson (CSUB, BC),and Tiffany Wong (CSUB, BC)
This presentation will be an overview of how to use popular culture in the classroom to teach everything from rhetoric to research. We will provide a brief overview of the research, but we will be focusing on how to incorporate popular culture into lessons. Each of us uses different pop culture media to accomplish different learning outcomes, and we will be sharing some of these activities.
Sentences that Sing: Demystifying Sentence Fluency
David Cicoletti (Fresno CC)In this workshop, we'll go over various techniques for breaking down sentence fluency for beginning composition students. Topics covered will include active vs. passive voice, sentence types, conditional verbs, sentence combining, transitions, and templates.
Designing, Teaching, and Assessing Effective Online Courses
Bob Carlisle (CSUB)This presentation will cover the requirements for CSUB faculty to become certified online/hybrid instructors. The use of the QM and CSU QOLT rubrics will also be discussed.
A Continuing Discussion: Transitions from High School to College
Kim Flachmann (CSUB), Pamela Boyles (BC), and Kamala Carlson (TC)This open discussion session will focus on ways to help students transition from high school to college and will include an outline of college expectations and requirements.
