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Speaker 1: OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network

Nikki Middleton: Hi everybody. Thank you for joining. We're from Grossmont Adult Education, and we're just going over our site plan. We're on the DLAC Academy with O-town. That's Digital Leadership Academy, and so we're sharing with you what we have so far and what we're moving towards. I'm Nikki. I'm our program specialist for Grossmont Adult Ed.

Jenna Hanson: I'm Jenna. I'm our distance learning teacher.

Barbara Van Dyken: I'm Barbara Van Dyken, and I am an ESL teacher and the digital literacy integration specialist.

Jennifer Owens: And I am Jennifer Owens, the ESL director.

Nikki Middleton: And if we could just kind of hear from our group today where everybody's from. You're from Sacramento. OK.

Audience: Oakland

Nikki Middleton: All right. Great, you're welcome

Audience: I might be in the wrong room. So I double-checking--

Nikki Middleton: Anybody else?

Audience: Oh, go ahead. No I'm from the OK.

Nikki Middleton: All right, welcome. Well, thanks everybody for coming.

Jenna Hanson: Here from this guy here

Audience: In San Diego

Nikki Middleton: And for everybody on Zoom, welcome as well. So we just wanted to start with a little bit about our site plan. In designing our site plan, we knew a few things already, and then we've learned several things over the last few months. So because of the team that we have, we decided to focus mainly on our ESL program, and then kind of keep an eye for what could be a template for technology, integration, and considerations across other programs. We do have a pretty impacted ESL program right now, mainly in three areas.

So in our entry point when students come in for orientation, in our 0 to 1 or literacy levels, and then also in our intermediate advanced levels. We also have limited space. So we have to work with the facilities that we have. So utilizing our leadership to think about new ways that we could expand we have to account for hybrid and high class options that we don't currently offer. And then also share facilities with programs that maybe are underutilized right now.

We also have limited staff, so we need to max out what our teacher's strengths are, and consider their availability. And then in all of that though, so keeping a student centered focus on college and career goals for where our students want to go. So we also know, and I think, know more and more that we need to understand that this plan is going to impact other programs because we're asking them to accommodate us, share students with us, and we need to collaborate with them so that we can work CTE, work with high school programs for our language learners and in implementing IET. So I'll hand it over to Barbara.

Barbara Van Dyken: OK. So we've got to-- look we have a whole list of them right here. Where we want to identify our learners prior knowledge and skills. We want to know what they know about technology. Whether that be to operate their iPhone or smartphone, or if they're familiar with iPads or computers. So we really want to ascertain where they are in their prior knowledge of computers.

We are also looking at developing their digital literacy skills, and those are linked to our Grossmont Adult Education Technology outcomes. And we want to do this by integrating language learning because in our ESL program, many of the students are-- they're just learning English. And so the ideal is to get them on programs on the computer where they're actually improving, there apps that are helping them to improve their language learning.

So that's another thing we're looking at. We're looking at what the learner access to materials, access to technology. If students don't have access, we want to know about it, and we want to help them to make the connection so that they have the tools that they need to access online resources. And we want to do this in an environment or in a community that cultivates continual improvement.

And also be sure to have regular assessments of how the students are doing. Are they actually learning from this particular app? How are the improvements in their language learning? And on all of this in a very supportive learning environment or community. And Jen?

Jenna Hanson: So these are some of our learners and pictures of our learners. A lot of these are distance learning students-- are distance learning students that graduated from the program. They're holding the certificates. As you can see we serve a large population of students with-- from all over the world. Over the years, we've had immigrant influxes of refugees come in. When I first started, it was all Hispanic, 100%. And then I remember we had a huge Russian influx of refugees come in 2010, 15.

But right now we serve primarily Afghanistan. Students from Afghanistan and Iraq and Hispanic. Jennifer's going to go over the demographics a little bit more later. But our students are from all walks of life, all over the world, all ages. A lot of your students are-- I'm sure-- and their goals are varied. Some they just want to learn how to use a computer and digital. Literacy some want citizenship, workforce readiness, college and career, language acquisition, communities-- so they have varied goals. And so then I have a video.

So these are some videos of some students that are talking about why this investigation is important to them. We're not going to play all of them, but go ahead and hear from one of our students.

Iftikhar Zarina : Hi. My name is Iftikhar Zarina. I am from the United States. This class helped me a lot, because I can practice my lessons every day. I request my teacher to send me a lesson that I want, and make my own study schedule. And I can do it from home. I like distance learning course because I have children.

I have a very busy life. Based off my normal schedule, I can make my own schedule to do my homework. Thank you very much, my teacher. God bless you. Bye

Jenna Hanson: So currently our distance learning students, we do have the special circumstance for students that really need it because they do work full time, or they're on call, or they have health issues, or they're taking care of someone, or have young children, or babies, or they can't attend in-person classes. And then we have our distance learning students who-- they want extra homework. They want extra lessons. So they're attending classes in-person as well, and doing both.

So it's more of like a support, and I get a lot of teachers contacting me saying, this student-- they need this and that. So I can give them lessons that will help them achieve their goals. Specific lessons that are tailored to what they need. So we would like to-- can we do some work out?

Nikki Middleton: I was just going to put one because I only have a limited amount of time and I'm like--

[chuckles]

Is there one in particular that you would like to?

Jenna Hanson: Just pick one Jennifer.

Jennifer Owens: It's short.

Jenna Hanson: OK.

Jennifer Owens: She's been with me for a while.

Speaker 2: Hi. My name is Behashfta Hafisi. I'm originally from Afghanistan. I came to the US since 2017. I have been to this learning class since 2019 with teacher Jennifer. This class helped me to improve my English. Also this class helped me to learn how to use the computer.

Also, I like this distance learning class because at the same time while I'm doing my homework I can watch my children too. And this class is very helpful. And I want to continue this class until I get my like a certificate or something from my teacher. so--

Jennifer Owens: She is so shy. This was so hard for her. And she was super shy and embarrassed, but when I explained to them what it was for, and that it helps them and helps our school and helps other students, they all went for it. It was really cool. So I do want to hear one more? A short one?

Jenna Hanson: OK. This is really short.

Hilda Coral: Hi. My name is Hilda Coral. I am from San Diego, US. I like distance leaning online study because I work full time in my--

Jennifer Owens: She's actually a caregiver that works full time and she works like 60 hours a week. So-- and she's killing it in distance learning. I'm just doing lessons every day. It's incredible. So those are some of our learners. We have quite a few. These are some of the standout ones. There's really extra good students for distance learning but I will give--

Jenna Hanson: This is just a quick snapshot of just one particular demographic of our students. We just kind of selected out the most frequent student languages. So this kind of gives you an idea of the students we serve. We have 36.8% are native Arabic speakers, 35.4% Spanish, 10.5% Farsi, and 3.5% Pashto, then the other 13.5% are the others all combined. We do have translators in our program. We have one translator that speaks both Farsi and Pashto, and we have a Spanish translator and we're in search of an Arabic translator.

This isn't a job posting announcement. Just that we're in the process of doing that. So we have since July 1st, we enrolled 2133 students in our program. So I don't want [inaudible] OK. And then here again. It's just the same information on the chart for disability. And this-- when we started this, I kind of just took the tech survey that we all give our students.

So everybody familiar with what I'm talking about. The one that comes out annually. And I just went through and I sorted through and found the ESL responses. And I was just looking as we're going forward planning for different types of options for students where students at, what do they have, And I think some of these are important factors. And as we're going forward and doing our planning. One of the ones I found really interesting was 20% of our students said in the survey do not have a quiet place to study. So at some of our centers we have incorporated a Student Center, and we're in the process of creating one at our ESL campus.

And so this could just be a place where students have to go if they don't have a quiet place at home. 71% of students said they do not have a device to study online. So as we're going forward to- this is an important, whether it's identifying what the devices they need, but these are questions and issues that we need to address going forward. And 13% of the students said they do not have WiFi or internet at home. Again another important factor If we're creating a digital distance learning program. With various components, these are important pieces of information to take into consideration as we move forward.

OK so as far as recruitment goes, getting the word out is definitely a challenge, I think, because our programs can tend to be siloed. I don't know if anybody else experiences that at their school. And so if we have a CTE program with language support, that we're calling IT, and someone comes in and they're advanced to our ESL program, they mean they may not hear about it when they reach the front counter.

And same goes for high school completion program or our transitions to college. So we know that as far as recruitment goes, we need to make sure that the word goes out across programs, and that we continue to find new ways to do that. And I do think being part of DLAC and having a team that includes our teachers and our ESL director is going to be one big piece of making that happen going forward.

We are looking to, I think, really focus on our beginning high ESL students and what we're looking at creating HyFlex and/or Hybrid and HyFlex classes so that those students could participate in those. We have a chance to work on their digital literacy and then really our lower level students could be in-person, but with continuous technology support in our lab.

Most teachers are taking their students to the lab to work on technology every single week. So we're really hoping that those students would be more and more prepared as they move up through beginning high and above to be in some of our hybrid classes. We do currently and Barbara will talk about it in a little bit, have a beginning low to high hybrid class.

So we do want to make that available to the lower levels but we also want to be really aware of what's working at other schools, and what's working for our students at the very beginning of their language learning. And then we also want to make sure that our students, who are able to go into our classes with language support, have the digital literacy that they need to be successful in those classes, because a lot of times those classes don't stop to support them.

So we're also starting some new classes that will be kind of pre-classes like foundational classes and computer basics, and then be more intentional about our digital literacy pieces in our vocational ESL classes, so that students get a stronger preparation piece at that level. Oh, and I wanted to make sure that I talked about working with transition services.

So we do have a very strong transition services program at our school. So we have a transition specialist that's focused in each program we offer, but also that can work across programs. So so making sure that-- transition services knows about all of the classes that are available, and that we really collaborate with them to make sure that students don't really see-- that they see a seamless process of support to get into the classes that they need.

And then orientation and assessing readiness. So we have an ESL Introduction class. It's two weeks. Right now we're also taking a look at some of our programs that have successful orientation, specifically our health occupation center. They have a two day orientation process. We're looking at-- could that be a better fit for our more advanced students, than spending two weeks in an introduction class. Would that get them into their class faster? Would that get them into an IT class faster?

So we're working with a two week introduction class but also looking at other models that might be a better fit, especially as we're bridging our students into other programs. Currently in our ESL intro we offer-- we do take care of the process assessment, and then we also want to make sure that we have a digital literacy assessment going on in the introduction, so that we can find out right away what students can do and if they'd be interested in a hybrid class.

And then it's really key that they're meeting with their teacher, that they're meeting with transition services, and that we know what is their part of learning look like. What is everything that they're bringing to the table? So that we're honoring what they've done before, and maximizing it, so that they could go into the right path.

Barbara Van Dyken: OK. And yes, so registration and accessibility. So the idea is that we're designing a-- ideally we're designing a student-centered process. So we're working towards the students being able to register online as well as in person. And that I think that will streamline, or we think that that'll streamline things a little bit better for our students. Also incorporating in our orientation, a digital literacy diagnostic score, that will assess their readiness for digital distance education and blended learning or yeah, OK.

[interposing voices]

Barbara Van Dyken: All right, those are your-- and if they don't meet the requirements, we're going to look for ways to help them to get there. We'll take a look at a prerequisite for the classes for students that are interested in distance learning and blended options that maybe they are not ready yet. And next one here. OK. All right, so hybrid classes. I teach a hybrid class right now with beginning low to high students, and we meet twice a week on Zoom, and twice a week in the classroom.

Right now we are so fortunate to be meeting in the computer lab at our Foothills site. And, by the way, but my director and my hierarchy here. I want you to know that those students, they love working on the computers because going into that lab twice a week, and getting on the computer. Most of them don't have that much experience. Turning on a computer or accessing resources using a bigger format.

That-- the biggest format they have is a smartphone , and so for them to get on to a bigger monitor is liberating for them. They get to see for the first time what this learning looks like in a bigger frame, so to speak. And so one of the main things where we're headed with the hybrid classes is communication. Communication is really the key. Keeping contact with them, either through email or in Canvas

All of these students are enrolled in Canvas and they're required to complete a certain amount of work in Canvas to become oriented towards that learning environment. Most of them are accessing Canvas on the phone. So they're seeing a teeny tiny little Canvas. But when they get into the computer lab, Canvas becomes bigger and it gets a little bit easier for them to understand how to move through the program.

So in Canvas they're wonderful tools. There's announcements, there's email, there are things-- you can time them. And these are ways to keep the communication going with them consistently. Every day or not every day, but a couple of times a week at least. And when I send them a video through campus, it lights up their life. Their lives. They think, Oh, you're teacher Barbara. She's in my living room with me.

So this communication is really, really important. And it's a crucial aspect teaching strategies. So when we have these classes, we really need to figure out how are we going to teach in this online environment. How do we take what we do in the classroom, which we may be experts at a live classroom, and put that in the environment of, say campus or on Zoom?

And since the teaching strategies I have are using-- I use a Google Slide presentation with every Zoom, and that keeps us on track. That's basically our lesson plan in Zoom embedded support. And what we mean by that is, supporting students and teachers in learning campus and learning what this educational environment looks like.

Teaching teachers how to teach in an online environment. And progress-- always, we need to measure our progress. What's working, what isn't working. And then assessment. And who's next? I think what happened--

[laughter]

Yes.

Audience: I'd love to hear what you're doing with campus, so yay. But I also wanted to ask what you're using for your digital diagnostic-- the digital literacy diagnostic.

Barbara Van Dyken: Well, the digital literacy diagnostic is-- it's basically a survey, and I have it both in the Doc form where they fill it they can fill it out online. I can print them out. They can fill them out in the classroom. That's probably the best place to kind of hold their hand through it, especially the students that are beginning low and beginning high, and just find out what they know and don't know.

And there are questions on there or I can turn on a computer. I can hold the mouse. I know what click on it means. I know-- and it gets-- the questions get-- there's like, I think 32 questions. It's a little long. I think they get a little more difficult. They're the more difficult tasks as you go down the page.

Nikki Middleton: Barbara, you developed it when you were teaching the digital literacy class, right? But there's-- and there's also one that you've utilized through North Star. Is that accurate? Because North Star has one too, I think. And some of your students I think that--

Barbara Van Dyken: Yeah. So but-- my main go-to is that. You can tell when you work with them online. You can kind of get an idea of what they know and don't know when you get with them in the classroom. Some of them cannot hold a mouse. Some of them can't click on the trackpad. It's because many of our students-- what's familiar to them is rural Afghanistan, where maybe the closest thing to chewing gum, might be for a sore tooth or something, might be a herb.

That they're-- this is so foreign to them. And so you can find out right away, who is struggling, and who isn't. And then you can figure out how to support them in their digital literacy, and becoming literate in this environment. Any other questions? Nope? OK. Great! Jenna Hanson?

Jenna Hanson: So one of the reasons why we joined DLAC and started this adventure. One of the many reasons is to find a compatible resource for distance education with our LMS, which is campus. This is a lot of language up here, but something that meets a lot of these needs. Finding an online curriculum for various levels, because in distance learning we serve various levels of the multilevel.

It's also a very large class. I mean, I've honestly I've had up to 250 students. That was when I had 10 off sites that I was visiting. So a lot of the students were dual enrolled but on average, there's probably over 100, 140. Yeah. So it's a lot-- it's a large class with a multi-level class and currently, each student has an individual class. I'm trying to help them reach the goal. So they're getting individual lessons, and they're all different levels.

So it's a little bit challenging and hard to keep up with. At the same time, I'm searching-- we're searching for something that is compatible with LMS as well, which is Canvas. Which is awesome. But to serve the needs of the students currently and how it's structured, it's a challenge and that's kind of one of the reasons we're here. Yeah, so finding an online curriculum for various levels, meeting various student goals, and a large class, tailoring and modifying lessons. I already talked about a lot of this.

Right now I do have a website that I use, and it has a calendar on there where students can make appointments with me. So I'm accessible to them. And I have a QR code which is blocked, I think. So I don't know if it's-- I don't actually open it. But on there, there's a lot of online educational resources. OERs. I have a whole page of them that you guys are welcome to look at, that I've put together over the years. So actually, we've all compiled over the years. And I've checked all of them so they're all. Current it's a very, very long list but it's helpful, and so I use a lot of supplemental materials.

I have a digital literacy assessment that I give them, that's online that they can do too. But yeah. Curriculum that's user friendly and geared towards adults is also a little bit difficult to find as you guys know as ESL teachers, and can be monitored by the instructor any time, anywhere. Is accessible to the student on any device. Like Barbara was saying a, lot of them are using their phones. So you something that's compatible with that. So if you'd like to look at my website or anything, you can go ahead and click on me. I don't know if-- can anyone try--

Nikki Middleton: It open up.

Speaker 2: So what have you found for advancement of students [inaudible] in English for ESL.

Jenna Hanson: Currently. I'm using Ellii which is ESL library. The digital component of Ellii As one of my main platforms. Also Reading Plus, and I touched on Burlington a little bit and Northstar.

Jennifer Owens: So what is it reading with?

Jenna Hanson: Reading Plus, Yeah. Since that's a higher level program. That's usually geared to the higher levels but they enjoy that one quite a bit. Are there any more question?

Audience: I do have a question. About how long does a student stay with you? Can they continue semester to semester?

Jenna Hanson: They can. I mean, sometimes with any of our students, have to kind of push them along a little bit. Bahishfta, that really shy girl. She's been with me for quite a while, and when it seems like it's-- when they're ready to move on, I kind of move someone, help push them to go towards their goals. Like it's time to go. I think we all deal with that as Adult Ed teachers. They want to stay with you, sometimes a little bit longer than they should actually.

But on average, I would say, probably a year, depending on where they're at when they start with me. A lot of them are-- they're pretty high in their English and their capabilities, so they're going to get a job sooner, and get their citizenship sooner, and reach the school sooner, and then probably leave. Some of them, if they're a little bit lower when they start with me, they're with me a little bit longer. Obviously, if they're in our in-person classes and with distance learning, they're going to move a lot faster. So just--

Audience: How do you guys canvas for Indigenous studies and keeping track of your individualized conversations that you have?

Jenna Hanson: That's-- see that's the struggle with me right now. Barbara would--

Barbara Van Dyken: We're in the pre-phase for that. So we're trying to move to Canvas Long Distance Learning.

Jenna Hanson: Barbara would be able to answer that better than I would if--

Barbara Van Dyken: So what was the question one more time?

Audience: So how do you utilize Canvas to keep track of the individual meetings that you have or study student?

Barbara Van Dyken: Well, what I do is, I go in and under people-- are familiar with Canvas?

Audience: Yes.

Barbara Van Dyken: OK, so you go into people, and you can take a look and see how much time they've been spending on each task. And that's pretty much the way that I'm doing it, and seeing where they're spending their time. now--

[interposing voices]

Audience: --them assignments underneath there-- you have assignments that you do, and I think you can see that assignments when you go to people.

Barbara Van Dyken: Yes. but much of what I'm doing--

[interposing voices]

Audience: Yeah she's saying, how do you track individuals?

Jennifer Owens: Do you how often do you have a suggestion. This is our LMS coordinator. Do you have a suggestion for tracking notes? Like would you put it under an assignment or a submission maybe?

Barbara Van Dyken: Make it to Excel or--

Audience: You could, I mean, it would be probably a function of teacher feedback on an assignment. So you can create an assignment or whatever, and then you could-- sorry?

Barbara Van Dyken: OK. Go ahead.

Audience: Yeah I think you could do something like that with teacher-- would this be a great function basically.

Barbara Van Dyken: When it comes to Canvas, I'm sorry-- I feel like a neophyte. Even though I know how to put things up there and I know how to look and see what they're doing, there is so much that I'm not tapping into yet and so it really drives home the point of getting as much training as you can in it, so you can really master the medium. So I think I'm like-- you probably know way more than I do about it, but this is why it's important for us to get together and talk about these things and show each other the nifty little tricks. Did you have that--

Jennifer Owens: You know what? Well, there is a user manual for Canvas, and PDF file is 668 pages.

Barbara Van Dyken: It's information overload.

Audience: Is so huge.

Barbara Van Dyken: Yes.

Audience: You listed resources. You mentioned something called Ellii. Can you spell that out, or is it--

Barbara Van Dyken: That's the old ESL Library. So E. L. L. I I.

Barbara Van Dyken: They did a name change recently. And it's an excellent resource. It is just it's-- they've got so much there.

Jenna Hanson: The digital component is really good for remote learning. Yeah, it just needs to be compatible with Canvas. Maybe soon. Maybe in the future.

Barbara Van Dyken: So keep moving on here.

Jenna Hanson: And so that kind of brings us to where we are with our distance learning program. So we just had our last review last year and something, I think, for most of our ESL program, including the distance learning component, is really looking for alignment. And so currently we're using ESL library, but we really need to have some sort of mapping of what it looks like in a level. So that if a student is beginning high in our distance learning program, they would have something that aligned with our in-person classes.

So if we stick with ESL library, then we would need to have something documented of how a student would move through the program, and what-- that might take different branches, but right now, it's not aligned with our other ESL classes. Something like Burlington. I worked with many years ago, for vocational ESL but we had a recent presentation, and they have core courses that are in our ESL line and would be pretty easy for us to align with our current ESL classes.

So that might be something that makes a little bit more sense for us as we try to align our distance learning program. And we already have Burlington seats that might work nicely with the number of students that we have on our DL caseload. Currently, and we met with Burlington, like their EL Civics is not Canvas compatible, but I guess their core is more Canvas compatible or closer.

But it still seems like we would need to embed a link and take a student away from the Canvas page, which is what we're hoping not to do so. So we're looking at that and then as far as Northstar goes, that's also something that we use and we really want to look at how can we align the digital literacy aspects of Northstar, alongside our ESL curriculum. So then we could kind of put that alongside in-person, as well as distance learning classes for that DL component.

We have this year-- had-- our ESL programs have been working through PLCs on a program right pacing guide to align our ESL levels. So that's a work in progress. But they've been able to kind of show time frames, show competencies, identify objectives, and then really hopefully get closer to a project-based focus where they have activities that are primary assessments.

And then we're not really believing that our book is a curriculum. That's really just a tool towards mastering those competencies. So that's something that we hope ultimately, we could find something for DL that matches up with the work that we're trying to do for our in-person ESL.

Barbara Van Dyken: All right program materials. I program measurables. Yeah. OK. Surprised? All right. So improved digital literacy skills. This is something that we can measure. We can say, OK, this is where they are now, and then three months from now, six months from now, it's probably maybe four months. We can measure it and see how they're doing.

And we can also measure their language proficiency from today, in three months from now, after using a particular program. And we can also-- because we've got the computer, and we're in a digital environment, we can-- it's very easy to measure these things. You can see how much time they're spending on a task, what they're doing. And if they're engaging or if they're just laying on the couch. Positive feedback from learners.

Do you like this? Yes teacher, yes? No, teacher. No. I don't know, teacher. So positive feedback, reduced barriers to learner learning. Are they able to access the information? Are we taking away those barriers that are keeping them from getting to the curriculum that we're offering them in the online environment? We're looking for a consistent participation, and so we're questioning what is it that we have to do to ensure that they are online regularly.

And then another measurable would be how many students are completing the program. How many are getting a certificate? How many are moving up in it maybe from low beginner to high beginner? How many are moving up that way? And was there anything you wanted to add? No, OK good. OK

Nikki Middleton: So this slide is called administrative issues and I have to say that, my objective and my goal always is to be a support in whatever way I can to be such amazing teachers. I don't know if when I say that working with them is an absolute pleasure. They're all very genuine, and what you see is what you get. And students are always at the forefront.

And as an administrator, that makes my job so much easier because they're genuine in what they do. They care about the students. They go above and beyond, and Yeah, I mean it is just such a pleasure. So one of the things that-- when I started and I've only been in my job since June 1st, so I still say that I'm new. I get to say that for like a year, right?

[laughter]

So one of the things that always takes--

Barbara Van Dyken: Only 6 months? Oh, shoot.

[laughter]

Nikki Middleton: One of the things that we tried as a pilot in July is that first goal that you see there. We are trying to expand, not only student use of Canvas, but teacher use of Canvas. And I know for myself, I mean, I taught in academics for 15 years and we had a new Mr come in saying that digital literacy. And I'm like, what? I don't know what to do with that.

So when I started my job, I thought, I want to create what I wanted when I was a teacher. Which is someone like Barbara, who teaches with me at least a day. So what happened or has been happening is, classes come into the computer lab which she said like this, and I made up a title for her. She didn't get a pay raise or anything fancy with it but we [inaudible]. Oh.

Barbara Van Dyken: It's coming.

Nikki Middleton: She's our digital literacy integration specialist, which is totally made up and not by any means legit, except the fact, except for that the fact that, the six months that we've been doing this, not only has Barbara to teach a digital literacy class, but she would serve 20 students and I said, why can't we expand that out and rather than just 20 year meeting with 150 students a week.

And so Barbara works with the teacher. She-- they have built or improved Canvas courses for most of the teachers that she's worked with. So not only are students going in and learning Canvas and how to use it, but the teachers are simultaneously. And I think a lot of teachers were Canvas shy. We kind of--

Jennifer Owens: Still are. We're getting better.

Jenna Hanson: Thinking COVID, we all kind of scrambled to survive. And that term, we build the plane as we're flying it. So it's been my priority to make sure we build the plane first, before we start flying. And participating in DLAC has afforded us opportunity to really examine that. Look at what we need. Look at what our students need. Look at the resources we have, and how can we build this plane. Get things set up and then kind of roll it out so that teachers are comfortable.

Teachers know or know what's going on. So that they can help students better. I think it's just in my opinion, the best way. Oh I look at-- I skipped right to number two all of a sudden. So again that's this core right here. We have some teachers like Barbara said, not everybody is into all of the digital technology and all that. But I think the key is letting them spread the gospel of digital integration and digital literacy, and how to use technology in a way that helps students and helps teachers at the same time.

So our strategy is to start with our core group, and just let it organically spread out, which I think that it will. And I think it has even just doing that integration specialist. One last thing too, is Nikki had mentioned at the very beginning, we have limited space. We just had three new buildings added to our site which is super great. But we still have a little bit-- of limited space for how much we have. So we're really looking at having more hybrid options to maximize classroom usage.

And so part of what we're building now, hopefully rolling out for the fall. I don't think they know that yet, but and hoping try to have more of those hybrid digital options where we can have two days in-person, two days on Zoom, like or some kind of synchronous on Canvas or whatever it is that Barbara is doing right now. So administrative issues, my job is easy by their professionalism and their knowledge, and their dedication to our program. So I'm grateful for that.

Audience: So may I ask you one question? Is the hybrid or the HyFlex is adult education committed to adapt this the hybrid and flexible HyFlex class?

Nikki Middleton: In our organization Yeah, we can.

Audience: So you'll be able to see a lead in [inaudible] because I understood that we have to be 100% face to face now after the pandemic. So I just wanted to make sure--

Audience: I could--

[interposing voices]

Audience: I can speak to that a little bit just because that's where I'm living right now it's just a lot of-- I'm doing a lot of advocacy in my district. So pretty much adult education is unfettered by the bounds of 80, 86 which only applied to the academic year 2021, 2022. So at this point, we're no longer-- agencies are no longer bound by that to my knowledge, although you may want to double check.

Although just based, on my research it really comes down to what your County and your district-- what their policies are in regards to distance learning. I know I had the right-- I wrote basically a research article to convince my board or my district to open up one section of HyFlex, which is what I teach in the morning. So it really depends. We have to kind of talk to your district. See what would--

Audience: I ask that question because I am really into this technology. They use it but they just flat out and told me that we have to be 100% face to face because the pandemic is over. So what I feel there are all these things, now it's in the face to face. So I'm just curious how you get approval. And so I want to just-- and I would say Jenna has been doing distance learning for way before COVID.

Jenna Hanson: Yeah, and I think a lot of it is maybe just how it's-- there certain funding guidelines that have to be followed. And I think if you're very specific, but you might want to ask somebody else, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just curious about my County but I know our school is not supported. Supportive. Yeah and like I said, we've had a distance learning independent city option occurred way before COVID. And not just COVID related. Yeah no way even before, we had since the 90s.

Barbara Van Dyken: I know your health occupations. Our health occupations also has a hybrid option for at least three of their programs. So maybe--

Jennifer Owens: I know because I have to get board approval but it's a school wise. It's not permitted. So I don't bother to go get I mean I have to get accreditation from California State Board or the nursing department, and the CNA is a CDPH, that's different.

Audience: Yeah and the school was. We belong to the school district. So I like to know if the school district gets a commission, I would implement, definitely. That--

[interposing voices]

Barbara Van Dyken: I'll ask somebody higher up than me, and we'll get back-- we can get back to you and we'll find out. I mean, we can help you with that. And it might just be based on whatever the parameters are for the district or the area.

Jennifer Owens: I do think it's a district board though. And if you're referring to COE Accreditation that's maybe a separate thing that you'd have to ask the theory, right?

[interposing voices]

Jennifer Owens: Same letters. VOA can definitely be running different learning programs.

They could be running hybrid, Hyflex all that other case, you could do all of that. It's really based on a district decision. And often the district is focused more on C12, and then they're automatically looking at those ads. Sometimes you can make a case to do something differently. Sometimes.

Audience: Not identical. So the conference, they're all encouraging these Hyflex and the blended. But then when I come back to campus and they will not allow me. So I got like a really--

[interposing voices]

Definitely, so I'm just wondering on how they got approved. So I can implement it. It sounds like it's your district.

Barbara Van Dyken: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for helping with--

[interposing voices]

Barbara Van Dyken: So we just kind of according to our whole site plan outline, we did want to share some of our action steps and what the timeline is that we're looking at right now. So this spring, I think today's presentation was a marker for us because we wanted to really have kind a general idea of what we thought was possible for us as far as the site plan goes. We had that additional Burlington meeting.

For us, finding something else that we already had approval for, that we could possibly use for alignment for distance learning was a big. Part of my job is new too as program specialist. So working with something within that kind of group of materials. That for Civics, and that also could be a tool that we use working with our IT students, was something we wanted to find out how up to date it was.

We have a new bridging classes or classes will be presented as a bridge classes. And that is kind of a new menu of opportunities for our intermediate / advanced students to consider if they hadn't before or hadn't even known about them before. Moving into our evening classes, high school completion classes, sitting in classes with language support. Our students are already in those classes, but it's often not presented to any ESL student that just walks in.

And then this summer, we really want those new class offerings to be student facing, so that students know about them, and are registering for them. And we'd really like to see through our work in DLAC. How distance learning could be a support for our IT classes. So students coming to us, either they've joined the CTE class and decide they're going to step out and give themselves more time, or they decide that they're ready with language support.

Could we offer steps that they could take to prepare themselves? So just one example. I'm working with a student right now who is in our CNA course, she decided that she wasn't ready. She wanted to step out. So she has time for an in-person class. But she also would really benefit from contextualized distance learning, which is something within the Burlington modules, especially because we don't have right now a contextualized medical preparation class.

So we want to be able to offer multiple steps for a student to prepare themselves for the CTE course they're going to enter. And then training and professional development for our ESL teacher. So this will come through our professional learning days, that are consortium designs with our leadership.

And we have a Canvas. a time for us teachers to join for one on one meetings, and then professional development through their PLCs. So we just wanted to also give the last few minutes, if you have any more questions or suggestions for us. Ideas that could help us or that's worked for your schools.

[interposing voices]

Audience: An ESL introduction class was mentioned that's two weeks long. Could you go into more detail as far the hours and what you do in that introductory class, and are they actually registered for that class or it's just prior to your registration.

Nikki Middleton: So Barbara and Jenna?

Barbara Van Dyken: The orientation is to-- before they can take any classes, now they come in and they have to take a 2 week orientation. We want to get a baseline on the cost of score for them. We also want to introduce them to our campus, to help them to become familiar with the environment that they're in.

And it's a two week course. And it combines both-- well, when I taught it, ESL games, preparation for taking the CASAS test. Because that can be very grueling. And for the teacher, kind of, ascertaining who can actually take the courses test and who would go right into a pre-lit class. So that two weeks we're identifying their levels.

Audience: And is it-- like 4 days a week?

Jennifer Owens: So it's four days a week process versus four days a week for two weeks. They are three hour sessions. We offer a morning, afternoon, or evening. And other components, in addition to what Barbara said, there is a writing assessments that take place from the teacher, and then the students leave the class with a portfolio of writing samples.

So when they get to their assigned class, their new teacher now has not only their reading and listening courses score, but they have some writing samples as well. They also have digital literacy. If they don't have an email account, we help the teachers get an email account assigned to them. We're always kind of looking-- that just started in July.