Practices of Promise
PEG BALACHOWSKI
ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
EVERET T COMMUNITY COLLEGE
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#EvCCThisIsHowWePlay
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Disturbing the Universe (O’Banion)
“Doing more of the same will just get us more of the
same.”
“disruptive innovations” and “deeper engagement,
scalable interventions”
◦
Community College Week Point of View October 2012
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Modeling Engagement (Nicholas Longo)
“Faculty need to model the kind of engagement we
want to see from our students.”
Longo, N (2011). Re-Thinking Our Roles:
Engaging Faculty for Student Engagement
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Modeling Engagement
Support for faculty engagement is from hire to
retire.
These practices support faculty efforts to increase
student engagement and success.
A vibrant culture of student engagement and
success is really a large effort and involves many
stakeholders (re: Strategic Plan).
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Current Emphasis – Student Success
What would it look like to have an
initiative on faculty success?
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Strategic Priorities
•Student Success
•Innovation and Leadership
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Innovation and Leadership
•We infuse innovative learning and state-of-the-art
pedagogy into all course offerings.
•Our infrastructure supports innovative instruction,
prepares students for technologies of the future,
and links education and training to high demand
career paths.
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Practices
Innovations Academy
Annual Teaching and
Learning Retreat
Student Success
New Faculty Teaching
Academy
Title III Associate Faculty
Academy
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Innovations Academy
Annual Teaching and
Learning Retreat
Student Success
New Faculty Teaching
Academy
Title III Associate Faculty
Academy
ARTICULATION AND TRANSFER COUNCIL - JANUARY 23, 2015
Genesis of IA
“We infuse innovative learning and state-ofthe-art pedagogy—such as an emphasis on
critical thinking and collaborative learning—
into all course offerings.”
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Innovations Academy
•One week (four days) in summer
•One coordinator, three facilitators (internal experts)
•Sixteen participants
•Taught exclusively by active learning
•Seed money from BOT, now institutionalized
•4 IAs in 3 years
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ASSESSMENT & REFLECTION
three
Take one new technique from
workshops
that you learned at the IA. Develop an activity for
your classroom using each technique. Create a
rubric.
Assess how your change impacted student learning.
Write your own reflection on all three of the
activities, what you learned about your teaching
practice.
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ASSESSMENT & REFLECTION
three
Take one new technique from
workshops
that you learned at the IA. Develop an activity for
your classroom using each technique. Create a
rubric.
Assess how your change impacted student learning.
Write a reflection on all three of the activities and
what you learned about your teaching practice.
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Fall 2014 IA
Faculty were required to visit a class of someone
outside their discipline.
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FUNDING
•Coffee each morning and afternoon.
•Participants paid $1000 after reflection is
submitted (and only then).
•TOTAL COST = $20K and change
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RESULTS
Priceless
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Year 1
16 = 1296
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By Year 3
63 = 5103
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Innovations Academy
Annual Teaching and
Learning Retreat
Student Success
New Faculty Teaching
Academy
Title III Associate Faculty
Academy
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Nice campus …
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But sometimes you just have to get away!
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FIRST RETREATS (2003)
•Focus on building partnerships
•Individual courses & faculty
•Developing curriculum
•Budget of $2,500
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The Original Model
Going to work after work
More like a business meeting – what’s the
purpose of a retreat? To advance!
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Repeat the retreat?
•The challenges of keeping it fresh!
•Collaboration + Innovation = COLLABOVATION
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MISSION STATEMENT
The annual teaching and learning retreat
provides opportunities to share
BIG IDEAS & BEST PRACTICES
by creating meaningful interaction among the
campus community.
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It’s Midterm:
Do Your Faculty Look This Relaxed?
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Annual Teaching and Learning Retreat
2015 is the 13th annual retreat
Run on a shoestring by eLearning team
New themes that have emerged:
◦ONE: The power of one idea
◦From One to Many – What Inspires You?
◦RED: From hot topics to cool ideas
◦What are you afraid of?
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TAG LINE FOR 2015
Your greatest fear holds your
biggest growth.
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Enlighten us, but make it quick.
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ON A SHOESTRING
Total Cost: < $3000
Covers lodging, food, materials for up
to 70 people
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Food: $725.00
3 meals, mocktails, coffee, tea and snacks
Lodging: $1600.00
Cabins, kitchen, and main hall use
Supplies: $200.00
Additional supplies, printing, welcome packages
Total: $2525.00
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Food: $725.00
3 meals, mocktails, coffee, tea and snacks
Lodging: $1600.00
Cabins, kitchen, and main hall use
Supplies: $200.00
Additional supplies, printing, welcome packages
Total: $2525.00
70 employees renewing, re-energizing, and learning:
Priceless
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Attendance
•65% Faculty
•16% Classified
•19% Exempt
In 2014 42% of attendees were first time
retreaters
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Colleague Insights
Synergy + shared brains =
All lead to innovations and new
possibilities!
Magnified creativity & Multiple
viewpoints
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Colleague Insights
We are all teachers.
We are also all students.
We learn from each other just as we
teach each other.
If we don’t come together, how will we
continue to learn?
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Innovations Academy
Annual Teaching and
Learning Retreat
Student Success
New Faculty Teaching
Academy
Title III Associate Faculty
Academy
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New Faculty Teaching Academy
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MISSION STATEMENT
The New Faculty Teaching Academy will serve as an
agent for innovation and transformation, and will
seek to foster excellence in teaching and learning
practices. Toward this end, the Teaching Academy
will be designed to provide opportunities for
professional growth to new faculty.
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RATIONALE
•Induction into the Academy is an investment in
retention, integration, and continual individual
growth, with the central goal of improving student
learning.
•Mentoring relationships offer an opportunity for
reciprocal growth and learning.
•A successful program is integral to the
implementation of other campus initiatives.
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GOALS
•To purposefully welcome new faculty;
•To provide on-going support for the work of
new faculty, including professional
development;
•To increase institutional scholarship;
•To increase reflective practices.
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FOCUS ON THREE AREAS
•Promoting teaching effectiveness and innovation, both in
the traditional classroom and online/hybrid;
•Facilitating academic paths to success in teaching and
leadership, supporting new faculty in professional growth
and development of exemplary teaching practices;
•Strengthening teaching and developing opportunities for
leadership on campus and in our profession.
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GETTING TO KNOW
THE CAMPUS 2-DAY ORIENTATION
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TIME (Oct 8, 2013)
“What’s the key to effective
learning? One intriguing
body of research suggests a
rather riddle-like answer:
It’s not just what you know.
It’s what you know about
what you know.”
Annie Murphy Paul
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MONTHLY DISCUSSIONS
•Assessments (Formative & Summative)
•Rubrics
•Student Evaluations
•Course climate
•Mastery
•Best practices
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EMPHASIS IS ON REFLECTION
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METACOGNITION
The gift that keeps on giving.
Donna Wilson, Ph.D., in Edutopia
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“The Boss of My Brain”
Explicit instruction in
metacognition puts students in
charge of their learning – no
matter who the students are.
ARTICULATION AND TRANSFER COUNCIL - JANUARY 23, 2015
Innovations Academy
Annual Teaching and
Learning Retreat
Student Success
New Faculty Teaching
Academy
Title III Associate Faculty
Academy
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Associate Faculty Academy
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TITLE III
Retention Innovations to Strengthen
Advising and Academic Programs
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EvCC is committed to providing support and training
for all new full-time and associate faculty so that they
are able to:
•Develop and post to Canvas a course syllabus which
includes EvCC established course objectives and outcomes
•Demonstrate in the syllabus the alignment of student
learning objectives with assessment strategies using
Quality Matters standards
•Engage students through use of a welcome message in the
Canvas classroom
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EvCC is committed to providing support and training
for all new fulltime and associate faculty so that they
are able to:
•Submit a BIT report to document student behavioral issues
and concerns
•Provide feedback to students through use of the Canvas
grade book
•Select objectives on the IDEA survey faculty information
form based on established course outcomes
•Complete a written reflection and assessment of the
Academy
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1 QUARTER ACADEMY
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MEETINGS
Initial meeting and mid-quarter meeting F2F with
mentors (mentors are from different department)
Lunch provided; discussion appropriate to time of
quarter:
◦Week 1 - Getting started
◦Week 5 - Student evaluations
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ASSIGNMENTS
•Sample BIT report
•Syllabus in Canvas
•Welcome page in Canvas
•Grade book in Canvas
•Quality Matters (QM) “light”review
•Selecting IDEA Objectives (Student evaluations)
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SUCCESS - FAILURES
QUARTER
ENROLLED
COMPLETED
REPEATS
Fall 2013
21
15
6
22
14
10
3
12
3
1
1
Winter 2014
Spring 2014
Fall 2014
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OBSTACLES
•No shows
•Faculty overwhelmed first quarter
•Unfamiliarity with LMS Canvas
•Faculty who are strictly online/teach evenings/at
different campus
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COMMENTS
It feels good to have a Mentor that you can go to in order
to get answers to questions that come up during the
quarter. As an Associate Faculty, you don’t always have
access to another instructor.
I am very thankful for this course. It showed me things that
I was not able to learn in my department, specifically how
to use canvas. This course helped me feel more confident
and navigate my way.
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The Academy (mentors and meetings) helped me learned
more about grading, grade book, engaging activities,
teaching with the end in mind, plus-delta, and other
elements that helped me serve our students better.
I feel a lot more comfortable teaching the classes and
serving students than before attending the academy.
Sharing the similar situations with other associate faculty
and getting advice from the mentors help me to raise my
confidence to a comfortable level.
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Next Steps – Big Ideas
•Clarifying observation vs. evaluation
•Classroom coaching institute
•Campus book club
•Re-branding Innovations Academy (adding IA
for online instructors)
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Next Steps
Building on what we do well…but can do
better.
Roadblocks:
◦Participation
◦Money
◦Too many committees (no equity in work)
◦Too few tenured faculty
◦Too few tools
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Can’t get me to do anything.
The silent majority
I raise my hand for everything!
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Hiring Procedures
•Hiring Committees
•Agreement on what we are looking for in our
faculty
•Interviewing hints
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Faculty Success = Student Success
What would it look like to have an
initiative on faculty success?
Our students will only be successful if
our faculty are successful.
ARTICULATION AND TRANSFER COUNCIL - JANUARY 23, 2015
Faculty Success = Student Success
What would it look like to have an
initiative on faculty success?
Our students will only be successful if
our faculty are successful.
ARTICULATION AND TRANSFER COUNCIL - JANUARY 23, 2015
Q&A
mbalachowski@everettcc.edu
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