Paolo  Soriano,  M.S.      

Rikka  Venturanza,  M.Ed.    

James  Fabionar,  Ph.D.              

California  State  University,  Sacramento  

APIASF – Washington, D.C. June 15, 2016

Curriculum Development and Implementation in an Ethnic Studies Learning Community:

Promising Outcomes and Emerging Research Directions

The Full Circle Project (FCP)

AANAPISI Grant Part F ($1.78 million) five years (2011-2016 )

FCP Academic Program for First-Year Students

Fall Semester

Course/Title Notes ETHN 14: Intro to Asian American Studies One section (100 students); satisfies GE

Area D (Individual and Society)

ETHN 21: FCP First-Year Seminar Four sections (25 each); satisfies GE Area E (Personal Development)

Spring Semester

Course/Title Notes ETHN 11: Intro to Ethnic Studies One section (100 students); satisfies GE

Area D (Individual and Society)

ETHN 96: Contemporary Issues and Social Change

One section (100 students); satisfies elective units

Presentation Overview

Part I: Curriculum Development Campus Context, Research Literature, Key Principles

Part II: Implementation Learning Community Structure; Fall Semester: ETHN 14 / ETHN 21; Spring Semester: ETHN 11 / ETHN 96

Part III: Promising Outcomes and Research Possibilities Quantitative Data on Student Success Outcomes; Student Reflection Themes; Research Possibilities

Part I: Curriculum Development  

 

Primary Concern: Addressing Unique Needs of Program Participants

� Commuter School — Very few students are housed on campus; many API students are from the surrounding region and continue to live with their families.

� Diversity of API Students – Diversity of the population requires careful program planning to take place to meet all participants’ developmental needs. � Enrollment: 30,000 (27,000 undergrad) � White: 30%, Latino: 28%, Asian American: 20%, Other 12%,

African American: 6%, Foreign: 3%, Pacific Islander 3%, Native American: <1

Full Circle Project Student Participants

§  Characteristics –  Largest API groups: Hmong and Filipino (of 17 groups total) –  Higher percentage of first-generation and low-income than

the general population –  75 percent are local residents (compared to 43 percent of all

students) –  Higher percentage arrive needing remediation in Math and

English than the general population of first-year students.

§  Four Cohorts –  Year 1 & 2: 75 participants –  Years 3 & 4: 100 participants

Gleanings from Key Discussions: Goals and Strategies

FCP LCOM

Collaborate with campus partners

(EOP, SOAL, FYE, Ethnic Studies)

Build from existing research on

university learning communities

Align course content with the

General Education Program Bridge concepts in

Ethnic Studies and Asian American

Studies to the first-year student experience

Communicate the learning

community’s goals and identity

Placing Student Development and Ethnic Studies into Dialogue

Driving Questions:

•  What shared characteristics with regard to theory, research, and practice define this body of scholarship?

•  What does the literature suggest about the impact of ethnic studies and related areas of study on the development of students of color in higher education?

•  What educational forms (i.e. courses, programs, organizations, events, interventions, etc.), and practices are associated with positive academic and personal development outcomes?

Method

§  Operational definitions §  Consulted key literature reviews to identify constitutive

elements of both fields, evolve definitions, and surface central terms to serve as search terminology.

§  Keyword searches §  Student development: student development, student affairs,

student activism, student involvement, student engagement, retention, program, and higher education.

§  Ethnic Studies: ethnic studies, critical ethnic studies, Asian American Studies, Native American Studies, Chicana/o Studies, African American Studies, and critical race theory.

Selection Criteria

Narrowed the body of work from 770 to 318 pieces using the following criteria:

§  Focuses on higher education in the United States

§  Takes as its unit or units of analysis undergraduates or programs that serve undergraduates

§  Describes dimensions of the experiences of undergraduate students of color

§  Discusses factors affecting retention and graduation

   Student Development

Ethnic Studies

Themes

•  Race and the politics of knowledge

production

•  Resistance to assimilation through

higher education

•  Community service and engagement •  Mentorship and Connectedness

Knowledge Production

§  Frameworks rooted in critical philosophical thought such as critical race theory, critical feminist theory, and post-colonial theory are common features in the research.

§  Together, these analyses emphasize providing quality opportunities for students to explore how power shapes knowledge and the importance of counter-narratives to understanding the experiences of women, people of color, low-socioeconomic status populations, and LGBTQ individuals.

Resistance to Cultural Assimilation

§  Many undergraduate programs require “diversity courses” such as ethnic studies, women studies, and queer studies.

•  Research on the effects of these courses generally shows a positive impact on the development of all students, dominant groups included, especially when they take more than one course.

§  Scholars emphasize the critical role these learning opportunities play in the positive identity development of non-dominant groups, in particular indigenous, colonized, and displaced student populations.

§  Researchers emphasize building from students’ prior knowledge, personal experiences, and forms of social and cultural capital that often go overlooked in formal educational settings, including resistance to cultural assimilation.

§  Various examples in the literature illustrate how culturally responsive pedagogy, critical pedagogy, project-based learning, and other learner-centered and experiential-focused educational frameworks promote views of student development that position learners as active participants in their schooling.

§  Numerous scholars resist contemporary neoliberal views of higher learning that conceptualize learners as passive recipients of discrete forms of knowledge.

Community Service and Engagement

§  Community engagement strategies in the nexus scholarship include: volunteerism, service-learning, community service, and activism.

§  Forms of student and community engagement, particularly those strategies linked to social movements, often lead to rich understandings of students’ identities, acquisition of new skills, a lifelong commitment to activism and civic engagement.

Mentorship and Connectedness

§  Several pieces place strong emphasis on quality relationships with campus mentors (peers and professionals) to retain students and improve graduation rates. §  A strand of this discussion looks at the role of coping with

discrimination in mediating connectedness. These works are largely comprised of inquiries in psychology and related fields and focus on understanding the relationship among discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation, distress of among college students, and experiences of the campus climate.

§  Related studies also focus on developing friendships with individuals with racial and ethnic backgrounds different from their own. Topics in this domain include social justice and anti-racism allies.

Organizing Principles

§  Facilitates a critical consciousness of the relationship between dominant educational practice and social strata in U.S. society

§  Positions students as experts on schooling and education by providing learning contexts that are culturally relevant and developing activities that build from their abilities to observe, evaluate, critique, create, organize, and take action

§  Encourages peer allies by engaging students in collaborative activities involving social justice and change work, solving problems, and establishing connections to community and campus resources

§  Meets students “where they are” to support them to newer phases in their social and intellectual lives.

Part  II:  ImplementaFon  

FCP Academic Program for First-Year Students

Fall Semester

Course/Title Notes ETHN 14: Intro to Asian American Studies One section (100 students); satisfies GE

Area D (Individual and Society)

ETHN 21: FCP First-Year Seminar Four sections (25 each); satisfies GE Area E (Personal Development)

Spring Semester

Course/Title Notes ETHN 11: Intro to Ethnic Studies One section (100 students); satisfies GE

Area D (Individual and Society)

ETHN 96: Contemporary Issues and Social Change

One section (100 students); satisfies elective units

Fall Semester

(1) Intro to Asian Am Studies

•  1 section (100) (2) First-Year Seminar •  Four sections (25)

•  Focus on Student Development and Ethnic Studies

•  Reflective writing • Leadership Program

Spring Semester

(1)  Intro to Ethnic Studies

•  1 section (100) (1) Contemporary

Issues and Social Change

•  1 section (100) •  15-18 Peer coalitions •  Semi Structured •  Student Directed

Passive Learners to Active Learners •  Online Portfolios •  Contemporary Issues •  Peer Coalitions

Fall Semester: ETHN 21: FCP First Year Seminar

§  The courses focus on strategies of student activists

who fought for Ethnic Studies as a means for serving marginalized communities.

§  Early in the semester, students read about the strikes at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Emphasis is placed on the idea that the students’ opportunity to access higher education is part of the legacy of those who fought for them.

Theme 1: Recognizing Diversity, Striving for Equality

•  Respect for diversity is central to a democratic society.

•  Members of non-dominant groups are not inherently less intelligent or capable of success than those of the dominant culture.

•  Identity and culture as assets to education.

•  Privilege, prejudice, and bias maintain or reinforce social inequality.

Ideas from Ethnic Studies Related Topics for First-Year Students

Theme 2: Linking Knowledge, Power, and Representation

•  Knowledge is socially and politically constructed.

•  Non-dominant groups are often excluded from processes of knowledge production.

•  Perspectives of non-dominant groups are often ignored or misrepresented in formal academic knowledge.

•  Each of us accesses knowledge (learns) differently.

•  Learning in high school is different from learning in college.

Ideas from Ethnic Studies Related Topics for First-Year Students

Theme 3: Questioning the University's Role in Society

•  Universities have historically reinforced social inequality by excluding untraditional learning populations.

•  Universities can be catalysts for social change.

•  History, structure, and culture of US universities.

•  Functions/roles of contemporary colleges and universities

•  Meaning of “higher education”

•  Working with professors

Ideas from Ethnic Studies Related Topics for First-Year Students

Theme 4: Navigating Institutions to Advance and Agenda

•  Clear and purposeful goals are necessary to utilize institutions effectively.

•  Strategizing on these goals requires knowledge of the way institutions work.

•  Selecting a major •  Bridging college and

career •  Exploring passions,

concerns and interests (Contemporary Issues)

•  Locating and utilizing campus and community resources.

Ideas from Ethnic Studies Related Topics for First-Year Students

Theme 5: Building Community to Promote Self-Determination

•  Building relationships within and without racial and ethnic communities is essential for the preservation of non-dominant groups.

•  Building and maintaining healthy relationships

•  Supporting success by making key connections with students and mentors

•  Respecting limits in supporting others

Ideas from Ethnic Studies Related Topics for First-Year Students

Theme 6: Forming Coalitions to Affect Change

•  Complex social problems requires deliberate thought and action.

•  Societal change often requires organizing people with different backgrounds around a common interest.

•  Becoming change agents in the university and society

Ideas from Ethnic Studies Related Topics for First-Year Students

Fall Semester

(1) ETHN 14: Intro to Asian Am Studies

•  1 section (100) (2) ETHN 21: First-Year Seminar •  Four sections (25)

•  Focus on Student Development and Ethnic Studies

•  Reflective writing

• Leadership program

Spring Semester

(1) ETHN 11: Intro to Ethnic Studies

•  1 section (100)

(2) ETHN 96: Contemporary Issues and Social Change

•  1 section (100) •  15-18 Peer coalitions (5-7 students) •  Semi Structured •  Student Directed • Problem-based • Leadership program

Passive Learners to Active Learners •  Online Portfolios •  Contemporary Issues •  Peer Coalitions

Spring Semester: ETHN 96: Contemporary Issues and Social Change

§  The second semester course is a student-led, semi-structured, and project-based. The course is built around students’ contemporary issues and led by the coalitions that were formed at the end of the first semester.

§  FCP faculty, staff, and teaching assistants provide support and guidance.

§  The goals of the course are to offer students active, independent, and collaborative learning opportunities and expose them to common academic forms related to social change such as composing literature reviews, synthesizing research evidence into theories of change.

Part 1: Building Our Coalition

§  The introductory unit involves students laying the interpersonal foundation for working together in their peer groups.

§  Students build a coalition website where they will collaborate on and publish course components and provide weekly progress reports.

§  They engage in team building activities, hold preliminary discussions on their coalition topic, develop group agreements, align schedules to establish weekly meetings, and delegate group roles.

Part 2: Expanding Our Knowledge and Developing Our Focus §  During the second part of the course, coalitions turn to the task

of gathering and summarizing scholarly and popular literature about their topic.

§  The goal of this work is to map different ideas and conversations associated with their topic, identify some shared concerns and interests, and begin developing a common focus for their social change project.

§  On their websites, coalitions publish an annotated bibliography and a synthesis of the research (literature review).

§  To producing these project components, coalitions must also enlist the expertise of a professional campus resource (i.e. faculty member, staff member, research or community center) and with a subject librarian to develop search strategies for a range of resources to review.

Part 3: Strategizing for Change

§  During the third part, students build from their reviewed research to articulate a theory of change, plan a social change project, and prepare a poster presentation, and submit an application to fund their project. These components are published on their coalition’s website.

§  In addition to these project components, coalition members will also develop an informal partnership with an off- campus group, host a meeting with their professor for guidance and reflection, and select a seminal reading to share to be assigned to the class prior to their coalition’s poster presentation.

Part 4: Applying Theory to Practice

§  During Part Four, students implement their social change projects and give a poster presentation.

§  In addition to these components, coalition members document the service project with media, post these items to their coalition website, and research characteristics of an effective presentation.

Part 5: Sharing Our Learning

§  The course concludes with the coalitions presenting their reflections of the semester in a panel.

§  FCP faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to attend and the presentations are promoted as part of the university Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage month.

PART III: Promising Student Outcomes and

Research Directions      

Promising Outcomes

•  Program participants are faring better than the general population of first-year students with regard to academic progress, enrollment patterns, and milestones attainment.

•  Highlights:

§  higher rates of student retention (94.4% compared to 85.7%) §  good academic standing (97.2% have at least a 2.0 GPA

and are not on academic probation or subject to dismissal compared to 81.8%)

§  and higher mean GPA (3.15 compared to 2.77 out 4.0)

Current Program Status: Institutionalization and Continuing Evaluation and Research

•  AANAPISI grant ends October 2016 •  The success of FCP has led to its institutionalization •  Emphasis has shifted from retention to graduation timeline

–  Focus has been on 6-year timeline. Now there is a system and campus-wide emphasis on 4-year time to degree.

•  We are currently balancing institutionalization and research inquiry to see how we can maintain success AND encourage quicker graduation timelines.

Developing Further Research

•  To develop research, we are looking at what our students are experiencing in the FCP learning community to identify the specific mechanisms of their success.

•  We are currently looking at student reflective writing to identify these mechanisms. –  Sources of writing from Semester 1 and 2: Initial and final

course reflections, blog entries, thematic reflections, etc.

Themes in Students’ Reflective Writing

•  We intend to develop systematic investigations from themes that come from the students’ reflections:

•  Emerging themes that come up time and again: Sense of community and belonging Self-concept and identity Time spent on campus Involvement

•  We are curious to see if and how these facets of their first-year experience carry through to subsequent years at Sac State.

“...Class has been a sensitive topic for me. Up until now my educational career has been strictly about receiving the instructor’s information and trying to understand and make sense of it. None of the material that I have learned or thought about relates to my own identity. Sadly, the closest thing to ever hearing about me or my culture in class would be from my history teacher in my junior year of high school, when she mentioned that the Hmong was involved in the Vietnam War. It was only a few seconds hearing about my own ethnic group, but for some odd reason it was enough to warm my heart… I am thankful for learning about myself because it has helped my self-confidence improve. ...I am learning the meaning of diversity and what roles it plays in finding ourselves. I am also learning what defines us. From reflecting upon my experiences and feelings from this class, I realized how much I valued diversity. There is more about me than just saying I am Mien American just like there is more than just saying you are American. I understand that there will always be negative comments when it comes to defining people. At least now I know that there is a deeper explanation to everyone’s identity.”

   Student Development

Ethnic Studies

Themes

•  Race and the politics of knowledge

production

•  Resistance to assimilation through

higher education

•  Community service and engagement •  Mentorship and Connectedness

Question and Answer

James Fabionar, Ph.D. – james.fabionar@csus.edu Paolo Soriano, M.S. – paolo.soriano@csus.edu Rikka Venturanza, M.Ed. – rikka.venturanza@csus.edu