KCPDC Workshops

The following workshops are being presented by the Kansas City Professional Development Council during February. These are free to KCKCC employees. To register contact Nancy Gordon at ngordon@ kckcc.edu or at 913-288-7140.

Legal Aspects of Supervision

When: Thu, February 5, 1pm – 5pm

Where: KCKCC

Description:This course familiarizes supervisors with the sources of the law, unlawful employment discrimination, justification and defenses to employee complaints, and considers preventive measures and proper language. It reviews sexual harassment and steps a supervisor can take to prevent it. After this workshop, participants will be aware of the varied complex responsibilities and will understand the impact of diversity on the legal aspects of supervision.

Diversity in the Classroom (FDP Core)

When: Fri, February 6, 6pm – 9pm

Where: Ottawa - Rm 303-305

Description: This course provides an introduction to multicultural education aims and methods as well as a look at the relevance of local history. Participants will study race, class, and gender inequalities and will probe these issues as co-investigators sharing their own best practices.

Online Instructional Strategies (FDP Elective)

When: Sat, February 7, 9am – 12pm

Where: Ottawa - Rm 303-305

Description: brain research shows that people learn best when they use as many of their senses as possible. With that in mind, participants in this workshop will learn about the science behind this teaching/learning concept, but spend most of their time developing, discussing, and practicing active learning strategies for their own courses. Instructors will leave this workshop with an understanding of different active learning strategies and models as well as how they themselves learn best.

Motivating Employees (SDP Core)

When: Thu, February 19, 1pm – 5pm

Where: DeVry - Room 218

Description: A look at what motivation is, how motivation turns into observable behaviors, the aspects of motivation, and how to elicit desired behaviors. The instructor will present the basic motivational theories and his approach to motivation. This course relies on interaction and participation from class members. Small groups, discussion questions and practical application are mainstays of this course. Participants will come to understand the impact of diversity on motivating employees.

Powerful Non-defensive Communication

When: Tue, February 24, 1:00pm – 4:30pm

Where: UMKC - Admin Center, 5115 Oak - Brookside Rm

Description: forthcoming

Money and recognition

Nominations are due Feb. 15 for the Henry Louis Excellence in Teaching Award. In addition to the recognition, it comes with a $2000 prize ($1500 cash + $500 for travel). Available only to full-time KCKCC faculty, the field is still very small. Those who've done course redesigns for Title 3 have examples of documented a success that have already been shared it with the college - at least it will help in filling out the form.

Staff are eligible for the Outstanding Staff Employee of the Year award. It also comes with a $2000 prize ($1500 cash + $500 for travel). Nominations for this are also due Feb. 15.

Click the links above to pages with details and links directly to the forms to be filled out. Turn in those completed forms to the Faculty Staff Development office (Ben's).

Post questions to the comments here.

Research/ articles from the Chronicle

Here's an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. This article, titled, "Wake Up and Smell the New Epistemology," was sent to Ben by Dr. Steve Vaitl in the Science Division. It provides an interesting view of today's student and argues for a new approach to teach. Let us know what you think.

The Chronicle also has multiple articles on clickers. It looks critically at the applications and pro and con of clickers, also the crucial importance of peer discussion in their use.

A lot of us here would like to hear about the experiences of actual in-class teachers with this technology.

Writing over screen captures with Paint

Jennie asked some good questions in my earlier post on email. As for the Yellow "writing" I put over screen captures to explain the steps for doing things. I start by taking a snapshot of computer screen (screen-capture) by hitting the "print screen" button located on the keyboard between the letters and the number pad. Toward the top - but not in the row of "function" keys.
I then open the Paint program - it's on all PC's - or ought to be. Look into the Accessories folder. Paste into a new project (hit control V - or go to edit and find Paste). Once in Paint, click on the pencil and open your colors palate.

You'll get a pop up or you can use the palette at the bottom of the page (which I always overlook - don't know why).

Actually - to make things easier to see - I've been using the air brush today - more than (or rather than) the pencil. It gives you a fatter line that's easier to see. That's the button just below the pencil.
Thanks for asking.

Upcoming conference: NISOD

The National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) invites you to register for their 31st annual International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence, which will be held on May 24-27, 2009, in Austin, Texas.

Make sure to register by April 30th to take advantage of the early-bird discount.

General session information is available, and there's time to submit a proposal until Friday, Jan. 23rd.

upcoming conference - KCWE call for proposals

The Kansas Council for Workforce Education (KCWE) is seeking proposals for presentations for the 2009 Career and Technical Education Summer Conference on August 3-5, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Wichita, Kansas. The conference theme is "CTE: Driving Student Success." KCWE members are encouraged to submit proposals with broad appeal on topics of interest to our membership and other CTE educators. Presenters will lead 50-minute sessions. The deadline to submit proposals is February 20, 2009.
Proposals should include:

• Your name and contact information. Include your institution, academic department, business address, business phone number, fax number, and e-mail address. If you will have co-presenter(s), please send the same information for your colleague(s).
• Title and a brief summary/description of your proposed presentation. This should be suitable for inclusion in the conference program. Keep in mind that the most successful sessions have been interactive, hands-on presentations.
• A description of AV equipment you will need.

Proposals should be sent to:

Bill Osborn (KCWE President Elect)
Associate Vice President of Instruction
Johnson County Community College
12345 College Blvd.
Overland Park, KS 66210-1299
913.469.3868 (office)

Any further questions contact Ben Hayes at (913) 288-7224

Using Email to Welcome Students

The in-service theme was Making Students Feel Welcome. Do that by sending them an email today - before you actually meet - and attach your syllabus to the email. Groups already exist in Groupwise. For additional how to click here.

Please insert hyperlinks to The KCKCC Writing Center or to the Math Tutoring Center in your syllabus and email the links. The process works similarly in MS Word and/or Email programs.

Never inserted hyperlinks before? You aren't alone - but it's easy, clear, and scores cool points with students. Here's how in Email: (1) click on View/ HTML. (2) Notice a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) tool bar appears.

Next: highlight text that you what to become a link (3) and then click on (4) the earth (as in "world wide") that has chain "links."

You'll get a pop-up window that asks for the web address you'd like to direct people too. Enter the address and it's done. The result is shorter, less visually busy, and should work better with ADA compliant mechanical readers.

Team-based learning

At the Sp 09 In-service, several of our faculty presented on Team-based learning (TBL) and how they've used it in designing significant learning experiences for their classes. Most notably faculty recounted how it has improved attendance and engagement while bringing up performance. Since the presentation I've had phone calls, email and several personal requests in the halls for more information.
We plan on interviewing our faculty and getting their insights (either on video of podcast) - because they are the experts on applying the methods to our unique environment. In the mean time.

Further information on TBL - see particularly videos on

1. understanding the difference between groups and teams,
2. understanding the Readiness Assessment Test -
   
3. rubrics / assessment -a) setting grade weights. b) assessing course and team effectivness
   

email

Research shows that connecting with students before the first class improves retention (Lorenzetti 2008). Here, email groups are created for every class automatically before the first meeting making it easy. Why not email a greeting and attach the syllabus before you physically meet? Details on how at the end of this post.

Of course, email has changed the teacher/student dynamic. See the following.

• Does email curb productivity? (NPR text and audio)
• UNC Chapel Hill investigated Email in Academia re: expectations, use and instructional impact in Educause. Faculty and students have different expectations (BTW: a blog might bridge the gap). Another study compares synchronous and asynchrous communication .
  
• A service to send self destructing private notes through email .

On a lighter note - but still relevant and revealing (from the Chronicle of Higher Ed.).

• Professors list "favorite" emails from students part1, part 2
  
• 3 of the funniest email from students and what they say about technology

Regarding expectations - email is often said to be as private as sending a postcard through the mail (e.g. employers have a legal right to read mail sent through a company server or from a company computer). This may complicate discussions regarding FERPA and sending grades through email.

How to:
And if you haven't used the pre-established class groups set up via Groupwise, go to the address book, make sure your are in the Novell groupwise address book - (See yellow arrow - note: not the frequent contacts where it might try and take you first) and at the top the classes start in alphabetical order by 4 letter abbreviation ( e.g. if you teach an English class and the class number were 00990**** - - you'd scroll to where we put the green arrow - ENGL00990*** and click).

Using this option maintains student privacy. Everyone gets the same message - but they don't see individual email addresses. Mail is sent to their KCKCC email account - Remind them to check that.

Lorenzetti, J.P. (2008) 14 ways faculty can improve online student retention. Recruitment & Retention 22 (12)