LATEST NEWS...

The new STARS website will be coming soon. Please direct all STARS related questions to the Director of Professional Development, Deborah Harrington at (818)-947-2569.

Academic Freedom

Click on the following links for more information about Academic Freedom!

Students for Academic Freedom:

www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org

American Association of University Professors response:

www.aaup.org/statements/SpchState/Statements/billofrights.htm

Complete Report on LAVC Survey Results:

www.lavc.edu/research/News.html

LAVC Student Rights Survey Power Point Presentation

LAVC Student Rights Power Point Presentation

Also, look for a complete STARS website in the near future!

THE FIPSE STARS GRANT

Project Director: Deborah L. Harrington
818. 947. 2569
harrindl@lavc.edu

"The learning college places learning first and provides educational experiences for learners any way, anyplace, anytime"
              
Terry O'Banion, A Learning College for the 21st Century

Who: The Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and the Students, Staff, and Faculty of Los Angeles Valley College

What: The Comprehensive Program Grant, totaling $341,555

When: Now and for the next three years Why: Every Valley College student is here to learn and learn well

How: An open entry program bringing together students and faculty in order to discuss, develop, monitor, and evaluate effective learning strategies, goals, and outcomes, thereby creating a more learning centered institution

Los Angeles Valley College is the proud recipient of a very prestigious, highly competitive grant. The grant is to improve success, retention, and program completion rates for all students at LAVC by recruiting faculty, staff, and students to join the Strategic Team for the Advancement and Retention of Students (STARS). The motivation behind applying for the grant centers on the premise that students need to learn to become better learners--and that the way students do this is by taking more responsibility for their learning. A couple of stumbling blocks stand in the way of students learning to do this: 1) Students need course/subject specific help in learning how to learn, and 2) There is simply not enough time in class to mentor students in effective learning strategies over the course of a content-packed semester. The awarding of this federally funded grant from the Department of Education will go a long way towards helping LAVC surmount these stumbling blocks standing in the way of more effective learning.

STARS will bring together its participants both in and out of the classroom. The grant money will allow STARS to hold seminars and workshops with leading national and international experts as well as in-service sessions in order to encourage a focus on how students learn and how different teaching and learning approaches can impact student learning. Students and faculty will meet regularly both in and out of class in order to discuss and monitor their learning. The idea is that STARS students--with the help of faculty--will learn to set goals for learning and to monitor their learning progress; in this way, STARS faculty will help students to better understand the process of learning itself.

For most STARS students, the true motivating factor in trying to become more engaged and successful learners will come from spending more time with faculty in intellectual yet socially engaging pursuits. As one student who participated in a small STARS pilot marveled, "I had no idea that teachers cared so much about my learning." For her, it was inspiring enough that faculty members had taken time out of their regular duties to focus on ways to improve learning and to engage with students in developing a culture of success. This fostering of mutual self-respect and awareness amongst STARS faculty and students is the most important and exciting challenge that faces the STARS FIPSE grant project--and hopefully this type of student-centered redirection in focus will move LAVC more and more into the vanguard of learning centered educational reform.

Instead of fixing the means—such as lectures and courses—the learning paradigm fixes the ends, the learning results, allowing the means to vary in its constant search for the most effective and efficient paths to student learning. Barr and Tagg, "From Teaching to Learning—A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education"

The STARS FIPSE grant project assumes(1) every Valley college student is here to learn and learn well, so, (2) every Valley student can be a STAR.

The STARS project assumes that for students to begin to take responsibility for their success they also need to feel they share responsibility for helping to define the direction their learning takes.

The STARS project assumes that if both students and faculty routinely engage in dialogue about how and why learning matters-especially in terms of how course studies are relevant to real world issues and real world contexts-then more strategies to increase the meaning of class work (i.e. the "time on task") will naturally evolve.

STARS FIPSE Grant participants will

Discuss and adopt together a few key learning goals, i.e. "Big Ideas," to focus on per semester

Create a game plan for practices they will put in play in order to foster deeper knowledge of these "Big Ideas"

Evaluate the learning processes involved in grappling with these "Big Ideas"

Keep a log of the way that the learning process evolves over the course of the semester

Meet together outside of the classroom to engage in further activities and dialogue about how learning works across the curriculum

STARS/FIPSE Retreat Information

For More Information about FIPSE please visit Department of Education:
http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml