Faculty Meeting (10-11:00 a.m.)

Faculty Development Workshop (11-1:00 p.m.)

Spanish-American Institute

January 20, 2001

Convened: Mr. Dante Ferraro convened the faculty meeting at 10 a.m.

Attendance: A copy of the sign-up sheet is attached.

President’s Report:

1. Beepers and Cell Phones—Mr. Ferraro asked faculty to please encourage students to turn off beepers and cell phones when attending classes.

2. Smoking Regulations—He also asked faculty to remind students of school compliance with NYC smoking regulations, including not smoking in outer hallways and school entrances.

3. Student Attendance—Mr. Ferraro also encouraged faculty to complete attendance forms in a timely fashion.

4. AOS Degree Application—Mr. Ferraro indicated that the Institute’s application to offer AOS degrees had been sent to Albany before Christmas. However, he reminded the group to please refrain from discussing with students the possibility that the Institute would soon offer college courses and programs. He reminded the group that approval to do so might be years away.

Dean’s Report:

1. Department Chairs—Dr. Prager announced that the following had graciously accepted Department Chair positions---

· Lilliam Hernandez (Accounting),

· Radha Krishnamoorthy (English), and

· Khalid El Harmassi (Computer Technology).

2. Conferences and Professional Memberships—She also announced that the Institute had recently taken out faculty memberships in the American Accounting Association and would send two faculty members to the forthcoming TESOL conference. She encouraged faculty to apprise the administration of other organizations and conferences in which they might be interested.

3. Informal Classroom Visits—Dr. Prager indicated that she would like to begin to visit classes informally in the next few weeks to familiarize herself more directly with the Spanish-American Institute’s students and curriculum.

Faculty Development Workshop:

The faculty development workshop on “Incorporating Media into the ESL Classroom” took place from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Faculty discussed ways of dealing with the challenge of turning the passive experience of watching a video into an active learning experience for students. Faculty brainstormed possible pre-video, mid-video, and post-video activities in small-group sessions and shared these ideas in general sessions. In addition, the group reviewed and analyzed the multiple active language learning strategies suggested by the authors of material accompanying the sample video.

At the end of the session, Mr. Ferraro indicated that the Institute would like to purchase more videos and materials that lend themselves to active ESL teaching strategies. Faculty were asked to make suggestions about material they would like to purchase.