SASI Innovation Awards
Watch the SASI Innovation Grants Video
The PCC Board of Trustees has provided funds in 2010-11 to help the college achieve its Educational Master Plan (EMP) Project 90 goals in five achievement areas: Transfer, AA/AS degrees, AA/AS STEM degrees, CTE certificates, and Basic Skills sequence completion. The Student Access and Success Initiative (SASI) Request for Proposals provides a structure and process for individuals, cross-disciplinary groups, and campus departments or divisions to access funds to develop and implement new and innovative educational projects that will help the college reach its Project 90 goals.
Innovation Award Recipients
LEVEL III
Design Technology Pathway
Salomon Davila & Deborah Bird
The grant will fund a model CTE & transfer pathway, a professional learning community for students with interest in design careers. The pathway curriculum will apply contextualized basic skills math and English. Using multidisciplinary design problem-solving, students will work in teams applying design technology, math, and English to develop solutions. Curricular development from pathway faculty will focus on success in certificate and transfer possibilities.
Funding Amount: $100,000
Pre-Health Sciences Pathways
Paul Jarrell & Katie Rodriguez
Pre-health science courses are in high demand and often have low success rates. To ensure adequate access and success for this challenging curriculum, the Natural Sciences Division, working with other divisions and departments, will develop structured block programs with accelerated options for highly prepared students. Students in these pathways will be guaranteed placement in courses and will receive supplemental instruction as needed. To increase access to advisement and resources, faculty within the Natural Sciences will develop an online portal for the pre-health sciences, and many courses will be prepared for online delivery. Faculty will work with Distance Education to be trained in online teaching and learning before delivering courses online.
Funding Amount: $100,000
Lecture Capture Technology
Leslie Tirapelle
The grant will provide funds for the purchase of and training in Lecture Capture technology for online, hybrid, and on-campus courses. Lecture Capture combines the instruction, visuals, video, and instructor into a seamless environment that can be viewed anytime, anywhere by students. Faculty can conveniently record, produce, manage, and publish closed-captioned lectures, learning modules, and tutorials – directly from classrooms, offices or other learning spaces. Learning outcomes, engagement and satisfaction are improved when students can access and review lectures and course content as needed. The ability to easily capture high-quality instructional media increases distance learning opportunities, expanding access to impacted courses and reducing strain on facilities.
Funding Amount: $93,500
LEVEL II
Interdisciplinary Contextual Learning Modules
Russell Di Fiori & Valerie Foster
Interdisciplinary contextualized learning modules will be created to enhance the mastery of course content and attract more students to successful completion of STEM degrees. In each module, student teams from more than one discipline will work together to solve a real scientific problem linked to a professional environment. For example, a partnership is being formed with JPL for student teams to access Mars data and images to consider the possibility of past life on the planet. The contextual learning projects will be employed at both the general education and majors level so that students recruited into the STEM majors will have higher success rates in subsequent courses. In addition to increasing STEM majors, cohort learning and peer mentoring will be offered in a hybrid learning environment as students from several disciplines collaborate in mixed online and on-campus environments.
Funding Amount: $48,000
LEVEL I
Community and Professional Learning for the New FYE Course
Monika Hogan
First-Year Experience seminars, which have been shown to increase student persistence, use of campus resources, academic ability, and graduation (National Resource Center), are most effective when they are rooted in a broad base of support across campus. FYE seminars evolve with input and involvement from faculty from across the disciplines, classified staff, and students. This grant will support the creation of a guest speaker series, campus-wide FYE taskforce, and “One Book, One Campus” program to support the new FYE course which will be an integral component of the Title V First-Year Experience Pathway starting Fall 2012. The FYE speaker series and the “One Book, One Campus” Initiative will contribute to and inform our ongoing conversations about who our students are and how we can best serve them, as well as what kind of campus we want to be. The FYE Task Force and “One Campus, One Book” committees will serve in a crucial advisory role as we begin to offer the FYE course for Pathways students.
Funding Amount: $10,000
