Adult Ed Staff Development

The 4 Non-Negotiables

Instructors in a department as large as this one can show their success in four main measurable ways. Though there are many intangible results of your teaching, we rely on the following to guide us when offering classes to instructors.

1. Paperwork

A non-credit teacher has a responsibility to do timely and accurate paperwork that fulfills our grant requirements. Persistent errors and lack of attention to detail causes the support staff to work harder than necessary. Likewise, paperwork that is missing or late can jeopardize our reporting and payment to our program. Because of its importance, a great teacher who does a terrible job at paperwork is not a fit for our program.

2. Retention

Does your class retain students with a reasonable amount of attrition? For example, we understand that students traveling for holidays or getting jobs may lower your numbers. Yet we expect that the classes are so interesting, valuable, and attractive that most students will commit their time and not want to miss.

3. Email

With a staff as spread out as ours is, it is essential that we can communicate quickly and en masse. This only works if you take the time to read the emails that we occasionally send to your msjc.edu account. (We do not use your personal or other work email accounts.) Our expectation is that people read and respond to emails within 48 hours of receipt. We will keep the amount of emails to a minimum, so please pay attention when they come.

4. Progress

Students who attend class should improve their skills. Pre- and post-testing measures the progress of your students within the semester. Even if a student does not achieve an entire level of improvement (10 points on the CASAS scale), any amount of improvement is noted. We are looking at the scores as a whole; if they are trending upward overall, that is success.