September 2010 Articles
Story ideas? Opinions? Questions, Compliments, or Complaints? Send us an email at facultyadvocate@gmail.com.
Welcome to Fall! by Nancy Stanko
Julia diLiberti: Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year by Karin Evans
Perils and Promise in Hybrid Learning by Jason Snart
Teachers Learn: Understanding Students with Disabilities by Lubna Haque
Spring Forward and Feel Good! Jump Start the Season by Nancy Stanko
Kudos to all faculty, staff, and administrators who were involved in the Fall Kick-Off
Activities. Activities such as That Beepin' Show hosted by Chris Miller and Chuck Steele make me
appreciate what an exciting time it is to be at COD. Thank you for making me laugh.
Communicating through the Shared Governance Process. The Shared Governance Council is beginning to get a handle of all the college-wide committees. These committees should be communicating their progress through the Shared Governance structure. If you are chairing a college-wide committee, council, and/or task force, in the next month you will be asked to report information about the committee. The goal is to have all committees communicating to one of the five steering committees: Student Learning, Community and Outreach, Organizational Growth and Internal Climate, Supporting Institutional Operations, or Institutional Planning.
Upcoming CODFA Elections…end of October. Candidates are needed for CODFA President, Treasurer, and Senators. Each term is a two-year term that begins early January 2011. We need you! If you have any questions about the duties of each position, I would be happy to talk with you.
Fall Conferences. This year's Higher Education Conference will be held September 24-25 at the Double Tree Hotel in Bloomington. This is an opportunity to learn about all the latest higher education news and trends. Topics will apply to higher education faculty, staff, and graduate assistants. The agenda for the Summit includes networking, legislative updates, getting members involved, NEA and IEA higher education resources, contract negotiations, and grievance processing. For more information, view the web site. IEA Core Conferences, October 29-30, 2010 at the Wyndham-Lisle, the PDC (Professional Development Center) in Springfield, and the IEA Edwardsville office. The focus of the CORE Conferences will be on Collective Bargaining and Professional Development. Electives will be offered to participants on Friday and Saturday for each Conference.
Julia diLiberti: Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year by Karin Evans
Editor's Note: Julia's comments to us during the fall opening days included clips from the funny papers, music by Marcia Ball, and dancing in the aisles. Just what we needed!
FA: What inspired you to do the talk the way you did?
Jd: I really wanted to validate teaching, particularly the teaching we do here. We are
sometimes so mired in the changes around the school that are affecting our teaching, our student services,
and our student learning that we forget how vital our job really is. It does also seem to be the one area
where we can all turn to for refuge; I have passionate, amazing colleagues who impress me and I wanted to
share that with them.
FA: Why did you use cartoons and dance as a way to share your ideas with us?
Jd: I have always loved the Sunday funnies and humorous cartoons. Part of my sabbatical
this year is also to look at Comics as an emerging art form, and so comics were on my mind. All of the ones
I used are from a very old photo album in which I started keeping cartoons sometime in high school. I was
amazed to see that most of these cartoons still made me laugh, and even happier that I could so easily relate
them to aspects of teaching that I find so central. (Normally confessing about my photo album of comics might
be feel like a nerd, but I'm among teachers….)
FA: Why dance then?
Jd: Oh…hmm…well I love to dance. But the reality here was that I was given
a very very short amount of time to "deliver an inspirational message." So much of my own teaching style is
interactive that I couldn't really see not having you all do something with me. BUT interactivity takes time
and needs to be set up. And the truth is, it's hard to come up with a quick risk for folks to take together.
Plus, I had just checked this particular Marcia Ball CD out of the library and there she was starting out a
song with fabulous music and a first line about "teachers there to teach." It's such an inviting
song…how could I not want to share it?
Perils and Promise in Hybrid Learning by Jason Snart
My book, Hybrid Learning: The Perils and Promise of Blending Online and Face-to-Face Instruction in
Higher Education, was recently published by Praeger Publishers. The book examines the opportunities
and challenges involved in combining online learning with face-to-face classroom instruction. Hybrid
learning, sometimes called blended learning, can provide both students and faculty with more flexibility in
their schedules. But far more importantly, bringing elements of the face-to-face classroom together with
online learning can take advantage of the strengths of each of those learning modes. The benefit can be
better student engagement and retention, perennial problems across higher education.
Hybrid course design enables teachers to divide face-to-face and online time in many different ways yet produce good learning results. Sometimes even a simple discussion board assignment can engage students who might not otherwise be confident to participate in a real time class discussion. You can also develop something like a class social bookmarking site or wiki that pools knowledge so students begin to see how collaboration produces a whole that is greater than the sum of the constituent parts. In fact, working collaboratively, particularly online, is becoming an increasingly visible and valued skill in many career fields. Working collaboratively might soon become a core skill on par with writing, reading, and critical thinking.
One of the "perils" addressed in the book, though, is that while the hybrid or blended format may be inviting to students immersed in technology, and may seem an ideal learning mode for a student body that is becoming more and more involved with online social media, the truth is that often students value Facebook for the fast and fairly limited communication it allows. What we value in our classes, however, is often the opposite. We look for more sophisticated kinds of communication, both written and verbal, with greater depth and sense of reflection on the part of the writer. So, while the student who is on Facebook every day may seem like the ideal hybrid learning candidate, this might not actually be the case.
Ultimately, the moment to explore hybrid learning is now. We're trying to engage the 21st century learner, and that's something institutions big, small, private and public are struggling with. Also, we're living in a heightened cultural moment for the word "hybrid," from hybrid vehicles to cross-cultural identities.
Editor's note: Hybrid Learning is Snart's second book, following "The Torn Book: Unreading William Blake's Marginalia," 2006.
Teachers Learn: Understanding Students with Disabilities by Lubna Haque
When I was asked to write about my experience in the TLC course, Effective Teaching Strategies for
Community College Students with Disabilities, presented by Michael Duggan, the first thing that came
to my mind was my reason for taking this class: my students. I've had several students who needed extra
support because of their disabilities, and I wanted to learn more in order to address their needs. I
learned from the speakers in the class that it is primarily our dedication and care that can help us be
better teachers for all students—care to know about our students' disabilities and strength, as well as
the dedication to improve our teaching methods in order to address our students' needs.
Michael had an elaborately planned syllabus with numerous speakers, most of whom have dealt with disabilities themselves and gave an insider's perspective. Several exercises were planned for the participants to experience different types of disabilities, including mental, hearing, and learning disabilities. The class was presented with detailed information about various types of disabilities, including published data for percentage of community college students facing these disabilities. At the end of each particular topic, class participants were given scenarios based on a specific disability to analyze and suggest a solution based on the course content.
The mental illness presentation by Mary Dalton of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) in DuPage was truly an eye opener for me. It is one thing to read about these illnesses, but imitating one as part of this particular presentation helped me understand the frustration students with disabilities have when they are not able to comprehend the material, even after dedicated studying. We were all asked to listen to a recording and imagine being a person with mental illness trying to take an exam. The recording included heightened noises that occur in a regular classroom, such as the clock ticking, as well as imaginary voices that may seem quite real to a person with mental illness.The exercise showed us how mental illness can hinder our learning and judging capability as well as increase a student's anxiety.
As part of an assignment for this class, I decided on imitating an orthopedic disability while conducting basic chemistry lab procedures. This exercise truly helped me visualize the type of problems a person with orthopedic disability will experience in a chemistry lab. It also made me more able to anticipate the work and planning required to handle other disabilities that are severe enough to require special devices and adjustments.
I would like to thank Michael Duggan for offering this class, which he hopes to offer again next summer. His insight and knowledge on this topic truly helped me. Also, I would like to thank Karin Evans for encouraging me to write this reflection note on the class. Writing this helped me look back at what I learned during the class, but also to remember that my job as a teacher is to be vigilant as well as accommodating of my students' needs.
