ABP AUH Updates October 2010

Informing you about what is happening within the

Academic Bridge Program in Abu Dhabi

South Campus Update ....................................... 2

North Campus Update ....................................... 3

Curriculum Update ....................................... 4-5

Assessment Update ............................................ 6

Professional Development Committee ............. 7

Research Standing Committee .......................... 8

Academic Affairs Committee ........................... 9

LEC Advisory Committee ................................ 10

The Tech Team ................................................. 11

Design by: Mariyam AlObaidli

South Campus Update

Thanks to everyone for pitching in and getting the year off to a successful start. This

promises to be yet another interesting year leading up to the move to the new campus.

Just a few announcements: Dominic Bending has transferred to head Student Life on the

new men’s campus in Dubai. He is replaced here by Courtney Stryker, who previously

worked at UAEU. Courtney has implemented open office hours to students between 11-

1 on Mondays and Tuesdays. Please let your students know.

I am receiving good feedback on Nooreya’s visits to classes. It’s good that students and

teachers know that she is available to help.

Mariyam will be visiting classrooms next week to gauge student interest in putting to-

gether an ABP student organization, similar to those operating in the colleges, that organ-

izes events, raises money, and provides leadership opportunities for students. I think our

students have much to offer. We’ll see what they think.

In a couple weeks, we will have more information about the new ABP on the new campus,

and I’ll make sure that everyone is informed, and that there is a way to have any questions

and concerns addressed.

Scott Benson

North Campus Update

First of all, welcome to Nour Al Saraj, our temp AA, who is helping out on

the North Campus.

The North Campus is growing through the work of Student Life: currently

6 campus wide clubs are running and 3 sports teams/activities exist. The stu-

dent council room is also being equipped with Wii, PS3 and Xbox. There are

plans for more clubs and activities as the year progresses.

In the ABP, David, Leyla and Sylvia have agreed to look at how our English

classes can include co-curricular activities that extend student learning outside

the classroom. Current ideas include a Photojournalism competition, visits to

the Autism Centre and a critique on international cuisine through sampling the

fare at different restaurants.

Robert Turner

Curriculum Update

Hello and welcome to the October 2010 curriculum update!

The move to semester length courses As Kirk announced at convocation, our program will be moving to semester-length courses. In order to make

sure the change is successful, the ABP management team has been discussing a variety of issues related to

this, such as resource allocation for materials development, assessment and ensuring student success in the

new delivery model. If you have any ideas you’d like to share on this, or if you have any questions, please let

me know.

Piloting of the New L4 book Last academic year the a new L4 book was written. Jay Bidal is piloting this new book with his students on

the North Campus. There are also other L4 teachers on all campuses using portions of the book as supple-

mental material for their class. Once the term is finished, I’ll get feedback on how successful the new book

was. The feedback will help inform decisions for our other new textbooks. If you’d like to check out the new

book, you can find a copy of it (plus the support materials) at K:\English\L4\New L4 Book (piloting ). I wel-

come any feedback you have.

ZUVL website I’m in the process of taking an inventory of the ZUVL website and seeing how close we are to deploying the

online materials. So far about 430 activities have been created for the site, but most lessons are still incom-

plete due to not having all the activity creation templates within the site. I have been working closely with

the programmer to sort out some technical glitches with the site as well. Once re-assignment time becomes

available, work will start on this project again.

ZUVL paper-based materials I have also been making corrections on the ZUVL paper-based materials based on student and faculty feed-

back. These mistakes have been mostly typos and some confusion over the Arabic translations. If you spot

any mistakes in the materials please fill out the form at

http://sites.google.com/site/abpcurriculum/home/feedback.

ZUVL Measure A study was undertaken last year to look at the effectiveness of the ZUVL materials on all three campuses.

The results should be in shortly.

Dave Hughes

Curriculum Revisions Andy and I are still working on the new curriculum. We have been meeting regularly face-to-face, in VCs and

on the phone to get this important project finished.

Grammar Resource We have run up against some technical issues with deploying the electronic Grammar Resource on Black-

board. I’ve been working with the IT department to resolve the issues, but the main Blackboard administrator

was on vacation so a solution has been delayed.

Clickable Textbooks I’ve had positive feedback from teachers who are using the clickable textbooks. Most faculty are saying that

they like the “one-stop-shop” aspect, which is saving them time in searching for supplementary materials.

IELTS Blended Learning Course We are running a pilot of the IELTS Blended Learning Course that was written last year. Several teachers are

using the material to support the IELTS portion of the level 8 course. From the feedback I’ve heard so far it

looks like the materials are going to be a success.

LEC The Learning Enhancement Center on the South Campus has a new coordinator. Her name is Joanna Tillson.

She is looking for feedback on how the LEC can service the needs of our students. If you’ve got any ideas,

please let her know. Joanna can be reached via email, on extension 3357, or in her office in Y131A..

Reading As you all know, reading is a skill that many of our students struggle with. If you can find time to do extra

reading with you students, it would benefit them. To support this emphasis on reading within the ABP, some

supplemental reading books have been ordered for the lower levels. If you’d like to use them with your L2, L3

or L4 class, please let me know. As more funds become available, supplemental reading books for the higher

levels will be ordered as well.

Spellingcity.com I’ve had some people recently asking about spellingcity.com. For those of you who don’t know, this is

a great resource for students to improve their spelling. ABP faculty members on all campuses have

been building up resources to match with our curriculum. The link for the resources for our department

is: http://www.spellingcity.com/zayedu/

As always, if you have any suggestions or comments, please let me know.

Assessment Update Jessica Midraj

Startup Testing: I would like to thank everyone who helped out with the various aspects of the startup/week 1 exams (set-up,

invigilation, marking, etc..). We were able to accomplish a lot in such a short period of time:

Equivalency Exams

North (26 students - 10 passes)

South (92 students - 34 passes)

Placement Exams

North (8 students)

South (20 students)

TOEFL

North (8 students - 5 moved to COL)

South (3 students - 3 moved to COL)

Student Placement: Thank you for your efforts to ensure that students were placed correctly. Over 70 students (North-25 and

South-46) changed levels due to the writing task / other diagnostics. Special thanks go to the Level Leaders

who had a very important and time consuming role in the student movement process.

Accuracy Exams: Based on the successful administration of the Accuracy Exams in Abu Dhabi in Levels 4, 5, 7 and 8 during

Spring B 2010, this term all Accuracy Exams will be administered through Blackboard in Dubai and Abu

Dhabi. The Assessment Office is currently working on creating the tests in Blackboard, and the test will be

ready for volunteers to review by the end of Week 5.

If you are interested in being involved in the review of the exams, please sign up on the K drive in

K:\English\Assessment\Sign up Sheets\Exam Proofing.

Practice tests for the levels along with tip sheets for running and creating Blackboard Assessments are avail-

able on Blackboard: Academic Bridge Program (FACULTY ONLY)-Assessment-Blackboard Assessments

End of Course Exams: The End of Course exams are in final preparations. If you are interested in volunteering to proof one of the

exams, please sign up on the K drive in: K:\English\Assessment\Sign up Sheets\Exam Proofing

Please let me know if you have any comments, questions, or concerns.

Professional Development

Committee

The Professional Development Committee (PDC) would like to give you a few updates on what's happening in the exciting world of PD. 1. To help avoid cluttering your inbox with more emails, the PD website ( http://

zuabpsite.wordpress.com/) has been launched. As much as possible, all PD information will

be posted on this site, so please bookmark it and check back frequently. You can find links

to ABP sites or various other useful sites that have been emailed out, conference links and

calls, and more.

It's still a work in progress, so if you're looking for something particular and can't find it,

please feel free to contact a member of the PDC (members can be found on the site if you're

not sure whom to contact) and let us know how we can best serve you.

2. If you have been accepted to present at a conference locally or internationally, please ap-

ply for funding as you may be able to get some of your expenses subsidized. You may con-

tact Effie Georgiadou for more details.

3. If you have an interest in presenting during the ILA day on December 20th, it's not too

early to let us know as planning is beginning now. Don't be shy! Otherwise, be warned that

PDC members may approach you directly to request a possible presentation. :D

4. Hopefully, you've seen the emails regarding the Language Assessment event sponsored

by TESOL Arabia - Abu Dhabi Chapter hosted on North Campus this weekend.

Please check the PD site for any updates/announcements/conference information/etc in the future!

Tara Waller

Tara Waller

Research

Standing Committee

The Research Standing Committee will have its first meeting on Oct

21. The new chair is Gaelle Duthler. Everyone is encouraged to make a

proposal for the RIF Grants. Important dates to remember are:

If you have any questions about conducting research, please do not

hesitate to contact me anytime!

5Oct - Ethical Clearance applications

1Nov - Application for RIF grants submitted to Department Chair (Kirk)

1Dec - Application for RIF grants submitted to Office of Research

Academic Affairs

Communittee

We've had only one regular meeting thus far this year for the Academic Affairs

Committee. There are plans in one of the next meetings to have a representa-

tive from University College give a report on the comparative success rates for stu-

dents in the Colloquy program before and after the changes to the IELTS exit re-

quirement. There has been some anecdotal evidence that the language level of stu-

dents exiting the ABP has been lower recently, and the committee is interested in

investigating these claims more thoroughly. This might lead to recommendations to

the Provost's Council. Other than that, it's the calm before the storm of program

change proposals from various departments.

Travel Bug:

On Tuesday, October 12th, there was a Travel Bug given in the Y Auditorium by

Jay Bidal on the topic of "Crimea in Peacetime." He talked about his experiences

traveling with his family in the Ukraine, particularly in Kiev and the Crimean Pen-

insula. The presentation was well-attended by classes from the ABP.

On Wednesday, October 13th, Don Glass gave a Travel Bug Presentation on South

Korea on North Campus. This was his second time giving the presentation, after

first giving it last academic year on South Campus. His presentation was again well

-received by ABP students thanks to his interesting pictures, stories, and teaching of

the Korean alphabet.

Please let Jay (South Campus) or Jeff (North Campus) know if you'd like to give a Travel Bug in the future!

Jay Bidal

Peter Forward

Assessment Update

The LEC Advisory Committee and David Hughes met with Joanna Tillson, the new LEC coordinator .

She is very interested to learn more about the ABP and to find ways that the library staff might contribute

to our program. She would be glad to hear:

1. Library staff input which we might find useful

2. Which graded readers seem to be popular with students

3. Would it be more useful to buy sets of graded readers or a wider range of individual books?

4. How class time in the LEC might be improved

Our discussion covered the following areas:

Over-crowded space in the LEC on South Campus

current size of ABP 1,000 means insufficient resources and space

SRA Kits

Current levels given are inaccurate for ABP Levels, 2A is too high for Level 3

The organization of the LEC resources:

Organization needs to be in topic area not by CALL number

Teacher resources would be much better stored in a separate location

Reading material in both Arabic and English exists in the LEC. Is this material useful?

Answer we gave: It could be for some students, but not for many.

Organization of Grammar and other worksheets into boxes with level indicated are a

good addition.

Cassette tapes are antiquated and its surprising that the LEC still has so many audio

tapes when most people don’t have tape players anymore.

She would like to offer specialized classes via the LEC to help with information literacy. Why is

this not part of what we do in the LEC? – Answer: The ABP terms are so tight that most teachers

feel that it is difficult to add in any more to the already over-full program.

New Resources:

New graded readers are a good addition, many non-fiction topics of interest, especially with

CDs

New SRA kits, more colorful and up-to-date topics

Questions we asked:

Can the LEC fund a license to Tense Buster and some other useful study programs online?

Our discussion covered the following areas:

The Tech Team are developing a bank of EdTech and Web2.0 related lesson ideas. These will

show our practices with our students and hopefully give some insights into different possibilities

that are available to us. Some members are also on the verge of starting small action research

projects. We'll be collating those efforts and make them available to you very soon.

If you want to bounce around any EdTech or Web2.0 ideas, please do no hesitate to contact Nicholas Yates or any

other member of The Tech Team. We're here to help!

The Tech Team.

The Tech Team

Nicholas Yates