Volume 3, Issue 11--Published: Thursday, February 22nd, 2024

FQAS

If this is the last year of your FQAS cycle, then you have until June 30, 2023 to submit your hours. But why wait? The best practice is to submit your Professional Development activities as you complete them in Sum Total. SumTotal will keep a “running total” of your hours for you, so you don’t have to worry about tracking down information, sometimes years later.  If you need to catch up on your submissions, please help The Center out and submit them as soon as you can.

If you want to know more about FQAS, please check out The Center’s website, which has a section dedicated just to your successful navigation of FQAS.

 

Service Learning

The Center’s Service-Learning Team is here to answer questions regarding service learning. As a refresher, service learning is a pedagogical approach that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. It offers students a unique opportunity to apply academic theories and skills to address real-world challenges, thereby enhancing their understanding of course topics in a practical context. This experiential learning method promotes student collaboration as they work together on community projects, fostering teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills. By engaging directly with the issues they study in the classroom, students develop a deeper appreciation for the subject matter and its relevance to societal needs and challenges. Service learning broadens students' academic knowledge and encourages a sense of social responsibility and a commitment to contributing positively to their communities. For college faculty, incorporating service learning into their curriculum can invigorate teaching methods and provide students with invaluable, real-world learning experiences that prepare them for personal and professional success. MATC has a long history of offering service-learning courses; please feel free to reach out  if you'd like to discuss using this pedagogy in your courses.  If you are conducting a service-learning or community engagement project in any of your courses this semester, please complete this brief MATC Community Engagement Survey to help us see what great works are happening within MATC and the community.   

MATC offers a wide-range of professional development courses in a variety of delivery modes and durations as part of our efforts to design meaningful professional development that provides just-in-time training opportunities for you to explore what you need when you need it. All of our offerings are free to MATC faculty and eligible for FQAS hours, so that you can plan and develop your own professional development goals and outcomes.  

 

Service learning is a pedagogical approach that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. It offers students a unique opportunity to apply academic theories and skills to address real-world challenges, thereby enhancing their understanding of course topics in a practical context.

 

 

 

Equity Statement, About You & About Your Instructor

How does your syllabus promote effective, engaged learning? Begin by building a relationship with your students.  Develop a syllabus that invites students to your classroom and the learning experience. Explain your partnership with the students. Emphasize the students’ role in their successful learning by customizing the About You / About Me sections of your syllabus. View practical examples of syllabi that build relationships.

Tuesday, 2/27/24, 12-1 pm, Virtual

COS Reboot

Are you a Developer for a Course Outcome Summary (COS) that needs to be reviewed and/or edited? This workshop is intended for those who edit the Course Outcome Summary (COS) in WIDS and would like to learn more about writing Learning Objectives, Course Competencies, and Criteria. 

Thursday, 2/29/24, 8:30am-10:30am, Virtual or Face-to-Face  in The Center for Teaching Excellence (Room M201 of the Downtown Campus)

 

Editing and Embedding Questions in Yuja

This workshop will demonstrate how to edit a recording using Yuja (MATC’s video editing software). It will also address adding questions for the viewer in the recording. 

Friday, 3/1/24, 10:30am-12pm, Virtual or Face-to-Face  in The Center for Teaching Excellence (Room M201 of the Downtown Campus)

 

 

Our goal with Center Connections is to keep you informed, not only about Center’s work, but to help you navigate other college-wide initiatives that directly impact faculty.

Attendance Taking Reminder:

As you settle in and get your classes going, please remember the importance of entering attendance in Self-Service in a timely fashion for each of your classes.  It's very important that we be able to track attendance for our students as a way to help them succeed: We know that students are more likely to succeed if they're present.  Taking timely attendance is also important because it affects student financial aid and academic standing. For your convenience:

• This link  contains instructions for entering attendance in Self-Service.
• This link is a reference guide for attendance reminders and updates

If you have questions about this process, please reach out for assistance.

Part of The Center’s mission is to keep you informed about current best practices and pedagogical approaches. Each issue of Center Connections includes links that are meant to be engaging, thought-provoking, and applicable to various classroom environments. For information on MATC's free access to Magna Commons publications, please see The Center's website.   Enjoy the rabbit hole!

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Milwaukee Area Technical College
The Center for Teaching Excellence

cte@matc.edu