Faculty Development Committee Year-End Report, 2009-2010
Committee members:
Lori Austin (Faculty)
Rola Bekdash (Faculty)
Cheryl Bell (Faculty)
Stephen Brower (Faculty)
Megan Dempsey (Chair, Faculty)
Erin Kislan (Administrator)
Antonella Pompo (Faculty)
Tracy Rimple (Faculty)
Submitted June 1, 2010
What worked well in Faculty Development 2009-2010:

A variety of workshop styles, including outside speakers, panel sessions consisting of
RVCC faculty and students, technology demonstrations and facilitated discussions

Utilizing suggestions from evaluation forms to plan topics for future workshops

Delegating responsibility for spring workshops to pairs of committee members. In the spring, the committee stopped meeting during Forum Committee Meeting time to allow members to participate more fully in Middle States Committees. Each of the four spring workshops was planned by a team of two committee members, so no member was overburdened throughout the semester.

Advertising workshops during Committee of the Faculty meetings let faculty know what topics were coming up so they could plan accordingly.

More Community Development programs were coordinated with other constituencies on campus who planned major college events.

An end of year survey of faculty to determine topics of interest for future workshops.

Evaluation forms were all compiled by the chair to ensure consistency in format.
General recommendations for next year’s Faculty Development Committee:

Plan an in-person meeting at the beginning of each semester to delegate workshop responsibility to committee members and discuss workshop topics. Otherwise, do not meet formally, but work in pairs to prepare workshops. This will allow committee members to continue to focus on Middle States Committee work.

By September, establish a calendar of Community Development events for the entire academic year and advertise to the college community. This may prevent overlap scheduling of major college events.

More actively solicit feedback from faculty regarding what topics they are interested in.

Explore ways to utilize the new Faculty Development website for promoting workshops, sharing workshop information with those who could not attend, and highlighting faculty accomplishments.

Try new workshop formats, including: more hands-on active workshops in which participants work on their own lesson plans, assignments, etc; round-table discussions.
1

Suggestions for specific faculty development sessions for next year:

In-depth presentations on specific technologies (Smartboards, social networks, etc)

Best practices sharing of lessons that have utilized technology

How to enhance students' sense of personal responsibility while supporting them

How to help students develop study & learning strategies

Use of rubrics or holistic performance-based assessment

How to get students to think critically

Teaching techniques for Millenial students

Session about students who take online courses and what they are looking for

How to utilize portfolios for assessment

Logistical process of applying to conferences
Faculty Development sessions organized, Fall 2009-Spring 2010
Sept. 22
“Using Graphic Organizers to Support Students with Learning Disabilities (guest speaker, Kathy
Rotter, organized with Judith Impell, Coordinator of Disabilities Services)
Oct. 27
“Helping Students with Reading Disabilities Understand Assignments” (guest speaker, Kathy
Rotter, organized with Judith Impell, Coordinator of Disabilities Services)
Nov. 24
“Exploring Options for Course Evaluations” (discussion facilitated by Megan Dempsey)
Jan. 26
“Students with Asperger’s in the College Classroom” (guest speaker, Vincent Varrassi, organized with Judith Impell, Coordinator of Disabilities Services)
Feb. 23
“Technology in the Classroom” (Bill Crosbie, Melanie Morris, Derek Weber, Tracy Rimple)
Mar. 23
“MAPP General Education Assessment” (Jacki Belin, Ellen Lindemann)
Apr. 27
“Attending and Presenting at Conferences” (Domenick Stampone, Bill Flynn, Marianne
Baricevic, Tatyana Stepanova, Laurie Reynolds)
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Community Development sessions organized, Fall 2009-Spring 2010
Sept. 8
“The RVCC Experience: A Panel of Perspectives” – Panel of student speakers discussing academic and social life at RVCC, followed by faculty/staff discussing upcoming events/projects
Oct. 13
“Getting the Facts, Dispelling the Myths about H1N1"
Nov. 10
“Abilities Expo Panel Discussion with Mark Malone”
Dec. 8
“Holiday Chorale Performance” presented by the RVCC Chorale, led by John Sichel.
Feb. 9
Robeson Lecture, “Meet the Author, Sana Butler” – author discussion and book signing for
Black History Month
Apr. 13
Honors Colloquium
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Below are summaries of most of the Faculty Development sessions and some of the
Community Development sessions.
Faculty Development, Sept. 22, 2009.
Feedback:
Did the session meets is objectives?
Yes
Partially
Unsure
No response
21
1
2
1
What do you think worked well?

10 positive comments about the speaker in general (“She was great”; “very good speaker”; etc)

Provided many good examples of graphic organizers

Gave me a lot of ideas to try

Offered varied, numerous approaches

Good explanation of why graphic organizers are necessary
What suggestions would you recommend?

3 comments to provide graphic organizer samples to take away

How can this be applied in a college setting without too much spoon-feeding

7 comments to project graphic organizers on screen or email after session (they were emailed by
Megan the next day)

More hands-on using ones we’ve developed or brainstorming in groups to create them

Information could have been delivered in 20 minutes, not 1 hour

Not enough time spent on practical application

Need examples more relevant to college level work

Not relevant to my courses & geared more towards elementary/high school

Was uncomfortable to hear college students referred to as “kids”
Ideas for other workshops:

Managing the social (inappropriate, disruptive) issues of students with ADHD, Asperger’s,
Bipolar, etc

Someone who can speak more directly about dealing with Asperger’s in the classroom

Next one on disabilities should be on Asperger’s and behavior issues

How to enhance student sense of personal responsibility while supporting them

More related to helping students develop strategies

Have Dr. Rotter come back and model the use of graphic organizers

How to assist students while not creating busy work for other students
Compiled by Megan Dempsey, Chair
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Faculty Development, Oct. 27, 2009
Feedback:
Did the session meets is objectives?
Yes 14
Partially
Unsure
0
0
No response 0
What do you think worked well?

The discussion on boxing important info

Concrete examples (3 comments)

The information about font & spacing (2 comments)

COLA was very helpful (2 comments)

Knowing about the bold & italics problem

Entertaining and informative

Great handout
What suggestions would you recommend?

An example of directions that are not reader-friendly or an exercise to improve poor directions

Give the full citation for the article from which the COLA chart comes

Focus more on adult students with LD

Could have been distributed via email instead of faculty development
Ideas for other workshops:

Using the Smart board

Tougher disability issues like Asperger’s, anxiety, etc

Use of rubrics or holistic performance-based assessment

Resources & technology for students with low vision or other reading difficulties

How to get students to revise/edit more effectively & see the value of it

Reading comprehension strategies for students with learning disabilities

Bring Kathy back for more
5

Compiled by Megan Dempsey, Chair
1.
Do you think we should select another tool for evaluating courses/instructors?
Yes 20
No 0
Unsure/Maybe 4
2.
How necessary do you think it is to use a tool that allows comparison to other institutions?
Very necessary 2
Helpful but not essential 16
Not necessary 4
Not sure 2
3.
Would you prefer to use a form that is available from and scored by a third party or that is created and scored at RVCC?
Third Party 5
RVCC 13
Not sure 6
Recommendations for considering a new form:
A.
Comments about the process

Have an open discussion about it, then a focus committee, then come back to the whole body

Change to something that will actually help us

Have a discussion and make a decision about how the instrument should be used. Is it possible/unrealistic for it to be both formative & summative

Figure out our needs first, then figure out tool

Clarify the purpose of the evaluation form – to evaluate teacher, course, or both? And how it is
 used
B.
Comments about the form

8 comments: Need open-ended directed questions; maybe 4-6 of these; will provide more expansive comments
6


4 comments: Keep questions simple

2 comments: Ask # of hours student spends on course & expected grade

2 comments: Keep short; less than 30 questions

2 comments: Use some of same evaluation questions that are on the peer eval form

Have course-appropriate questions

Open ended questions only

Results should be easier to understand
C.
Comments about evaluation in general

Evaluate professor’s delivery & effectiveness of methods/materials; how well course met it’s objectives

Can a rubric with a narrative piece be considered

Should evaluate teaching, not the course objectives

Some method to correlate evaluation scores given and students course behaviors/grade

Consider using 2 types – one statistical; one written and open-ended given at another time

Use forms for assessing courses separate from those assessing instructors

Return to “partners” model as a complete to the forms (not mentoring, but partner conversations)

Needs to make a more fair comparison of teaching effectiveness across departments/disciplines
Compiled by Megan Dempsey, Chair
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Feb. 23, 2010. Presenters: Bill Crosby, Melanie Morris, Tracy Rimple, Derek Weber
Feedback:
Did the session meets is objectives?
Yes
No answer
26
1
What do you think worked well?

Learned a lot about new technology

Multiple presentations allowed for a lot of information in a short time

Very good demonstrations (4 comments)

Camtasia – awesome

Topic choices nicely linked together with variety of how to use tech to improve student learning and experiences

Polling & Youtube

Learning about the 2.0 apps that are FREE

Youtube & Virtual lecture

Seeing the actual videos/products

The creativity was great

Examples and willingness to be part of an ongoing conversation

Having a presentation on various technologies for comparison

Liked the interactive nature

Plan to contact at least one of the presenters for more specifics

Snippets and willingness to advance beyond what was presented

Twitter!
What suggestions would you recommend?

More detail needed to make it feasible

More background on what Twitter is & how it works for those who are less tech-centric

Didn’t understand the presentation on Delicious

Show beginners what the technology is and how to find it

Show explicitly how it is used in the classroom

More time (2 comments)

Offer suggestions for direct application

4 speakers was too many
Ideas for other workshops:

The relationship (quarrel?) between media studies and critical media literacy

More like this/More technology/One technology each month (3 comments)

An in depth presentation on one tool (2 comments)

How to embed a youtube video into a powerpoint presentation and other such basic stuff

Best practices sharing of lessons that have utilized the technology

Stats on how technology increased concept retention

Smart Boards in the classroom
Compiled by Megan Dempsey, Chair
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Faculty Development, March 23rd, 2010.
Feedback:
Did the session meets is objectives?
Yes
No
20
0
What do you think worked well?

The Q & A session provided the best information (2 comments)

Administrators handled the faculty questions very well

Handouts were helpful

Overview of the evaluation process

All questions were answered

Powerpoint and 2 presenters worked very well

Questions from the audience were good and enlightening

Discussion
What suggestions would you recommend?

A demo/sample would have been useful

Anticipate questions and have more answers available

Practice/sample questions would have made this more concrete

It didn’t work for me because it was directed at faculty members whose classes are taking the test

Show sample questions
Ideas for other workshops:

Tools and techniques for dealing with the everyday problems of faculty – gradebooks, makeups,



 etc
Outside lecturers for faculty in civics areas, public policy, funding issues
Assessing the assessment; each dept. look at the assessment as it pertains to their discipline
A follow up to this session with the results, etc.
See the outcomes of the ETS test
Compiled by Megan Dempsey, Chair
9