An article that will help you to identify the characteristic elements of critical thought, describe the features of online discussion that support critical thought, and explore the role of the instructor in facilitating successful online discussions.
Discussion Board Rubrics
Rubrics for discussion boards are useful as they provide a basis for grading students on their discussion board posts. Criteria can include participation, content, grammar, etc.
What’s an Unconference? Conferences are about presentations but an Unconference is about conversation…conversations around topics you choose. So, we won’t create the schedule – you will! Tell us what you want to talk about and we’ll find someone to facilitate that conversation OR better yet – tell us what topic you are willing to facilitate a conversation around. We are all busy getting ready for this upcoming year and all faced with many of the same challenges…we have much we can share and discuss so let’s get together and talk! What do you want to talk about? Tell us! Then join the conversation on Wednesday August 14, 2019 in the CTL.
A small group of faculty or staff from any area of the college who come together for at least a semester to discuss a teaching and learning topic that they can delve deeply into during group discussions. Ideation Circles can be around a book, a problem, a project, or simply a topic of interest that will generate conversation, reflection, and build community.
Faculty Cultural Introspection Ideation Circle
Cultural Introspection is a self-examination of the cultural, familial, and community influences on personal values. (Chávez & Longerbeam, 2016)
MCC faculty (residential, adjunct, OYO/OSO) are invited to engage with cultural introspection for teaching across cultures to understand the role of our personal cultural influences in our pedagogical choices, interactions with students, and judgements about values, priorities, and student behaviors.
Upgrade your OER, documents, slide decks, and other content from good to great by identifying effective layouts, accessible content, and implementing proven design techniques.
When: Thursday, 11/30 OR Friday, 12/1 Times: 4:30-5:30pm OR 1:00pm-2:00pm Location: CTL AS-175
Sign up through Maricopa Learn keyword Design Principles.
The CTL has partnered with FSS to offer three days of professional development for faculty and staff. The full program is now available for review. Register before 5PM on 5-10-17. Space is limited.
Residential faculty may earn up to 14.0 clock hours of FPG.
A stipend of $110.00 for the first full day completed and verified through the CTL. A stipend of $137.50 each for the second and third full days completed and verified through FSS. Funding is limited; priority will be assigned by registration date. That’s $385.00 to attend all three days!
Hourly breakdown: ($27.50 x 4 hours x 1 day) + ($27.50 x 5 hours x 2 days)
Participating faculty will need to fill out all necessary paperwork, including daily evaluation and assessment forms. To be eligible for stipends, MCC faculty members must have taught during the 2016-2017 Academic Year and not reached their summer load limit. This includes Residential, OYO, OSO, and Adjunct faculty. HR will check load before processing assignments for payment.
DAY 1 (5/15): GRAB YOUR PACK AND GET HIKING • Session Full
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) will kick off camp with a day filled with learning. Student Affairs staff will find connections with inclusive practices for serving diverse students.
Day 2 is focused on topics that integrate an array of tools for supporting students from recruitment to instruction. Keynote, Robin Ozz, will share current practices and trends for developmental learners.
Day 3 will challenge faculty and staff to engage in refined practices to elevate the student experience at MCC. Keynote, Caron Sada, will introduce the entrepreneurial mindset for community engagement and career readiness. Select sessions will demonstrate alignment to MCC’s GPS and HSI initiatives.
Come to Camp Inspired and create a dialogue among faculty and staff about practices and strategies that blur the boundaries between Academic departments and Student Affairs in order to create a comprehensive, supportive path for students.
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) will kick off camp with a day filled with learning. Student Affairs staff will find connections with inclusive practices for serving diverse students.
Day 2 is focused on topics that integrate an array of tools for supporting students from recruitment to instruction. Keynote, Robin Ozz, will share current practices and trends for developmental learners.
Day 3 will challenge faculty and staff to engage in refined practices to elevate the student experience at MCC. Select sessions will demonstrate alignment to MCC’s GPS and HSI initiatives.
Compensation Available
We have submitted for Pre-Approval for 14.0 clock hours of FPG.
A stipend of $110.00 for the first full day completed and verified through the CTL. A stipend of $137.50 each for the second and third full days completed and verified through FSS. Funding is limited; priority will be assigned by registration date. That’s $385.00 to attend all three days!
Hourly breakdown: ($27.50 x 4 hours x 1 day) + ($27.50 x 5 hours x 2 days)
Participating faculty will need to fill out all necessary paperwork, including daily evaluation and assessment forms. To be eligible for stipends, MCC faculty members must have taught during the 2016-2017 Academic Year and not reached their summer load limit. This includes Residential, OYO, OSO, and Adjunct faculty. HR will check load before processing assignments for payment.
Throughout the month of March, faculty and staff professional development will be available at Maricopa campus and district locations in a number of formats including day, evening and online. Each week, a different region of locations will be offering learning events, i.e. games. Faculty and staff are encouraged to not only attend games (sessions) in their own regions, but also travel to other regions of the Valley. MCC’s CTL is offering a variety of in-person and webinar sessions for this series. View the MCC Spring Training professional development schedule. We hope to see you soon!
Maricopa Community Colleges are pleased to extend CTL services across the district to faculty and staff. Bookmark the CTL Near You website to access a calendar of events for all of the MCCCD Centers for Teaching and Learning. The CTL mission is to serve the faculty and staff through a commitment to exceptional teaching and learning. We offer in-person and virtual workshops, events and programming to promote excellence in teaching and learning inside and outside of the classroom.
The Spring 2017 Spring Training professional development event starts on February 27th. Workshops and trainings for this series are posted on the CTL Near You website.
Grant proposals are now being accepted for OER Development Grants. For more information regarding the OER Development Grant program, please visit our website .
Proposalsare due by 5pm Wednesday, November 9th, 2016.
OER (Open Educational Resources) hold great promise for reducing costs and increasing access to required course materials. Community colleges around the country (Washington, California, Virginia) have joined in with national efforts to increase the production and use of OER materials. Washington’s OER project saved students over $1.25 million in just the 2011-12 academic year, and over $5.5 million since 2011.
The main goal of the Maricopa Millions Open Education Resources (OER) Project is to reduce educational costs for students. Spending less money on textbooks and materials will foster greater access to materials for students, which may enable them to stay on track with completing their courses.
The Maricopa Millions OER Project includes developing a strategic, sustainable OER infrastructure that would include: awareness, professional development, OER development and technical support, marketing and technical structure. In order for OER to be successful at MCCCD, we have established an OER strategic planning and implementation team to establish and oversee specific OER outcomes over the next 5 years.
The driving objective for the project is to save MCCCD students $5 Million Dollars over the next five years through the use of OER materials. And we’ve already reached our goal in 2 1/2 years, but we’re not stopping there.
This Maricopa Millions OER project, through an internal grant process, supports the adoption, adaptation, and development of complete OER course materials for high enrollment courses in the MCCCD. The final product will be OER course materials that can be easily adopted and modified by other faculty (including adjuncts) teaching that course. Phase 1-3 targeted high enrollment courses. In Phase 4-6 we welcomed all courses to be submitted for the grant.
In Phase 7 we continue to welcome all courses to be submitted for the grant with emphasis on courses that meet degree completion requirements for CS, Oral Communication, Critical Reading, H or G. Keep in mind, most math courses and the following courses (ENG091, ENG101, ENG102, RDG091, CHM130LL, GBS151, PSY101, PSY230, BIO156,BIO160, CHM130, CHM150/151/152, HES100, SPA101 and SWU292) are not eligible, as they have already been funded and/or developed.
Proposals are due by 5pmon Wednesday, November 9, 2016. Group proposals will be accepted and are encouraged.For more information regarding the OER Development Grant program, please visit our website.
This program is open to residential and adjunct faculty teaching at the MCCCD and will be open to all courses in Phase 7 of the grant program.
We loved Gold Star – it ran over 5 years and many of you designed amazing online courses using Quality Matters as your guide. Like any program though, it had a life span and in its last semester we had only three applications to the program. So we revised and started a new. We did not abandon QM though – designing a QM course is still a possibility in the new program but we transitioned to eVenture. This program is designed to champion and foster some college initiatives around teaching and learning including: Flipping the classroom for a more engaged class time, OER to reduce textbook costs for students and allow faculty more freedom to design their course specific to their preferences rather than a publisher preference, and many more.
eVenture is intended to be a personal action research project for faculty. The idea being we engage in at least 10 hours of professional development around a topic and then create something for our course(s) based on that new knowledge. This can be learning about Flipped and how to flip (technically) then designing your course and making your online lectures. One of the culminating milestones for our project participants is our eVenture Showcase.
One thing we often heard about previous programs was time to put into the project so each eVenture session includes some summer time to allow for more time without so many teaching responsibilities. The program runs January – June 15 and July 1 – Dec. 15. We just finished our first eVenture program session.
If you did not get a chance to stop by and see the amazing projects our eVenturers undertook be certain you do next time. In the meantime enjoy some photos and be on the watch out for our short eVenture interviews as faculty talk about their work. Whats your next eVenture?
