Shift Forward January 2014: E-Learning for Educators

Are you a teaching professor interested in empowering yourself to make the digital transition?  Would you like to learn more about instructional design, integrating technology, online copyright, information literacy, and media creation?

If so, you might be interested “E-Learning for Educators,” a Continuing Education program offered by Renton Technical College.  In addition to being fully online and designed for audience of community and technical college educators, the end result is a certificate in eLearning design and development.

Teacher Hacks: Professional Learning as Life Hacking?

I  recently skimmed through this article– “99 Life Hacks to Make Your Life Easier.”  One that struck me particularly vividly was this one: “Rub a walnut on damaged wood furniture to cover up dings.”  I haven’t tried it yet, but every time I look at my coffee table, I remind myself to pick up a few walnuts from the bulk bins at the Olympia Co-op and have a go at it.

White House to Honor Peninsula College Educator as “Champion of Change”

Today, November 21st, the White House honored Peninsula College educator Brian Walsh as one of ten national “Champions of Change” for his creative approach to using technology to enhance learning.

Watch this event here! 

Best Practices 2013 Presentation Materials Available

The presentation materials from the 2013 Best Practices Exchange  are now available on the SBCTC website.

If you click on the link, you will find

• a copy of the agenda
• brief descriptions about each presentation
• the slide decks from each presenter

You can also access Davis Jenkin’s keynote presentation: “Starting with the End in Mind: Building Guided Pathways to Student Success.”

In addition, you can find the presentation and summary materials from the previous years’ events.

SBCTC Webinar Series: Call for (Self) Nominations

My eLearning counterpart Alissa Sells and I are putting together a series of webinars hosted by the SBCTC.  Held on the 1^st and 3^rd Thursdays of the month from 2:00 to 3:00 PM, each webinar will begin with five short presentations using the IGNITE format (5 minutes, 20 slides at 20 seconds each—Enlighten Us, But Make it Quick) and then open up for Q&A/discussion among presenters and participants.  We encourage speakers from all disciplines, departments, and roles—faculty, staff, administrators.

Please take a few moments to skim the list of topics below: if you are interested in presenting (or know someone who had something vital and transformative to add) please send names and contact e-mails to me (jwhetham@sbctc.edu).  Of course, if you have topics you’d like to propose for additional webinars (or for next year’s series), I’d love to hear those as well.

SBCTC Webinar URL: Building a Common Foundation

Please join us on Thursday, December 5th, from 2PM to 3:30 PM for a webinar: “Building a Common Foundation”: The Process of Creating Transcript Grids for Placement.”

Two experienced GRCC faculty leaders will provide participants with an overview of the process they used to collaborate with high school faculty and create transcript grids that place recent high school graduates using multiple measures, including grades earned in specific courses and overall grade point overage (GPA).  To ensure that this innovation is truly more accurate, GRCC has been tracking the students placed by transcript.  Laura Moore-Mueller, Math faculty, and Marcie Sims, English faculty, will share the highlights of their much-revised process of creating placement grids and share the preliminary data from the Math department.

I hope you will add this Blackboard Collaborate session to your calendar and participate in a lively and informative discussion!

To Join the Session: Please Click Here

First Time Users of Collaborate: Please Click Here

All Users: Please test your login early (the room will be open at 1PM).  Please do not forget to run the audio set up wizard when you login so you can test your audio.  Java just released a new version, so please update your Java before logging in.

Participants new to the issues regarding placement may also be interested in viewing/listening to a previous SBCTC webinar: “Writing Placement: A Tense Interface.”  An experienced writing professor, Wendy Swyt (who also serves as the Arts and Humanities Division Chair) provides a highly interactive and nuanced review of the national conversation around the complexities and complications of writing placement.

Fall Association Conference

How do we form partnerships with local industry? How do we better prepare our students for STEM related careers?

Join us at the Fall ASSOCIATION Conference

PIPELINES and PATHWAYS to BUILDING STEM

November 22, 2013

Lake Washington Institute of Technology

Featuring:

 MESA (Math, Engineering, Science Achievement) Panel

K-12 Connections in STEM

Authentic Research  in ComGen (Genomics Research) at Bellevue College

Undergraduate Research and “Ready, Set Transfer” Program at Seattle Community Colleges

Plus more Science, Technology, Engineering and Math related discussions which are important to ALL Washington community and technical college leaders.

REGISTER TODAY

 Participants from member colleges pay only $175 which includes continental breakfast and lunch.

Contact Kati Hays with any questions: chays@columbiabasin.edu

Webinar: Understanding Accelerated Learning Across Secondary and Postsecondary Education

Monday, November 25, 2013, 1-2:30 PM EST

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional development organization based in Washington, DC, provides learning opportunities for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working on youth and education issues at the national, state, and local levels.

As we strive to create an education system that is responsive to the needs of all, we must foster pathways that afford students the opportunity to move through secondary and postsecondary education at an individualized pace that meets their academic needs. Accelerated learning serves as a promising tool to provide such opportunities to students. This webinar will discuss the CCRS Center’s recent brief, Understanding Accelerated Learning Across Secondary and Postsecondary Education and will feature a description of the categories of accelerated learning developed in the brief and presentations from programs profiled.

Speakers include Joe Harris, Director, College and Career Readiness and Success Center at AIR; Jennifer Brown Lerner, Senior Director, American Youth Policy Forum; Melinda Mechur Karp, Senior Research Associate, Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University; Louisa Erickson, Program Administrator, Basic Skills, Washington State Board for Technical and Community College; and Thomas Acampora, Field Manager, Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University.

Register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/835431377.

Faculty Learning Communities 2013-2014

It gives me great please to announce our Faculty Learning Communities for this year!

SBCTC Webinar on Transcript Placement: Building a Common Foundation

Please join us on Thursday, December 5th, from 2PM to 3:30 PM for “Building a Common Foundation”: The Process of Creating Transcript Grids for Placement.”

What’s Wrong with COMPASS or ACCUPLACER ?

According to a press release from the Community College Research Center (CCRC), two studies (one of a large urban community college system and one of a statewide system), found that “a significant number of students entering community colleges around the country are at risk of being inaccurately placed” in developmental English or Math.  The research “indicate[s] that a quarter to a third of students assigned . . . based on standardized test scores could have passed college-level courses with a grade of B or better.”