Volume 2, Issue 8--Published: Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

Getting to Know the Center:

After you have taken some time to rest and recuperate, we hope this issue of Center Connections will serve as a ready-reference for whenever you are ready to roll up your sleeves and tackle the new semester. The Center also has a new website that we hope you will find useful. The friendly folks at The Center are available throughout the break (except the official holidays where the college is closed). If you need us, please do not hesitate to contact us over break!

Our Work--The Center and You!

 
 
Thinking about Incorporating Service Learning into your Classes Next Semester?  

Many faculty believe Service Learning is a good idea for our students, but may not know what it can look like in the classroom. This semester, MATC students, faculty, and staff created 50 blankets for individuals at United Way of Northern Ozaukee agencies including Advocates of Ozaukee, Interfaith Caregivers, and more. The blankets were distributed to children and older adults at a Holiday Celebration on December 13. The Google Slides below show an excellent example of how Community Engagement and Service Learning (CESL)  can be utilized to tie together the work of students, community members, and MATC faculty and employees to provide excellence and innovation in the classroom. We hope this inspires you to take the next steps. Members of the Community Engagement and Service Learning Liaisons are available to help or to answer any questions you may have. Please do not hesitate to contact us! 

TAP and Peer Coaching Reminder
The Teaching Action Plan is a living document that provides guidance and direction for the professional development activities that you choose to participate in throughout your FQAS cycle. The TAP allows you to capture the full process of professional development from skills development and renewal to classroom application, so that you can reflect on what worked well, what didn’t work, what no longer works, and what could work with some adjustments. Winter Break is a great opportunity for you to continue to work (or catch up) on your TAP. More information on the TAP process and the suggested timeline of completion based on your probationary or non-probationary status, can be found on the Center’s new website. 
 
FQAS Reminder:
Did you know that you don’t have to wait to update your hours in Sum Total? The suggested best practice is for you to keep track of your Professional Development activities by submitting your hours in SumTotal as you complete them throughout the cycle. We hope you see this as a win-win; faculty are able to easily input and keep track of their hours, and the Center has a more manageable work flow from a more even distribution of submitted hours. 

The requirements for completion and length of the cycle are dependent on your probationary or non-probationary status. For more information, please see the FQAS Requirements page on the Center’s new website.  Post-probationary faculty can utilize this optional new tool to help organize your FQAS submissions in Sum Total. 

Every faculty member has been assigned a Faculty Development Coach who is available to assist you with any FQAS questions you may have as well. If you are in need of any assistance, or are unsure who your coach is, please contact us.

MATC Professional Development Opportunities:

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.  

HyFlex Workshop (Parts A & B in 1 day)

Are you considering teaching in the HyFlex modality in the future? The next HyFlex Workshop is scheduled on Thursday, January 12th (Part A & B in one day) from 8:30am-3:30pm. To learn more about the HyFlex Workshop, visit The Center’s new website. FQAS hours apply. Email us to sign up.

Need COS Help? COS Reboot Workshop is coming up!
Are you a Developer for a Course Outcome Summary (COS) that needs to be reviewed and/or edited? The Curriculum Department is now offering a Course Outcome Summary (COS) Reboot Workshop. This workshop is designed for COS Developers (those who create/edit COSs) who would like a refresher in learning the current requirements of a COS and the most efficient way to create/edit them. It is also designed for newly assigned developers. This workshop is scheduled so you can attend virtually (through Zoom) or in-person at the Center for Teaching Excellence (room M201 of the Downtown Campus). Upon completion, the COS Reboot workshop qualifies for 2 FQAS hours in the Student Success/Teaching Excellence category.
Join us on Tuesday, January 17th from 11am to 1pm!

Virtual F2F-Flexible Workshop
Are you considering teaching in the new Virtual F2F-Flexible course modality in the future? The next Virtual F2F-Flexible Workshop is scheduled on Wednesday, January 18th from 10am-12pm. To learn more about the Virtual F2F-Flexible Workshop, visit The Center’s new website. FQAS hours apply. Email us to sign up. 

Collaboration Connection:

Part of The Center’s core purpose is to help faculty navigate MATC initiatives from a faculty perspective. A lot of positive changes have occurred at the college, and we want you to not only feel like a part of the process but to also have a sense of accomplishment in knowing that your participation has a high impact on the success of our students.

 

Learn Pillar Integration Committee (LPIC) Update:

70+ of your Learn Pillar Colleagues are participating in LPIC Work Teams that are tackling student-centered issues at the college. 74% of the colleagues working on LPIC teams are faculty. LPIC is designed to create a student-centered shared governance approach where our projects have a clear pathway to implementation. A big thank you to all of our Learn Pillar Colleagues who are advocating for our students through these LPIC Work Teams:

  • Career Essentials Institutional Assessment
  • Assessment Planning to address HLC Criterion 4
  • COS SOP Process Review
  • Program Viability/Sustainability Process
  • Course Modality (8-week, HyFlex, etc.)
  • Professional Development: FQAS Process
  • Professional Development: Faculty Evaluation and Accountability to Students
  • 21st Century Classroom: Level 3 reboot and Blackboard Ultra Quality Review
  • Student-Centered Scheduling Process Review
  • Stormer Connect integrated within Holistic Coordinated Care Network (HCCN)

More information on LPIC can be found on our webpage. If you have any questions, please contact us at lpic@matc.edu

Obtaining your Course Outcome Summary (COS) for the Spring Term
Normally, faculty are able to obtain the COS for the course they are teaching in WIDS. However, if the COS is in Work in Progress (WIP) or Pending Approval status, faculty cannot access it. When this happens, faculty should contact the Lead Faculty/Chair within their department to ask for one to be provided to them. Lead Faculty/Chairs know who the Developers are for department COSs, who are able to download them from WIDS.

Friendly Reminders:

Final Grades are due on Wednesday, December 21

Final grades need to be submitted in Self-Service for 8, 12, and 16 week courses by 5:00 PM on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 .

There are many reasons why grades need to be in on time:

  • Waiting is hard! Students can feel an extraordinary amount of relief when they know that their hard work has paid off. Missing grades are a huge and unnecessary strain on our students. 
  • Students who need early interventions to succeed next semester are contacted by Academic Life Coaches based on the timely submission of final grades.
  • Students who need assistance in planning for classes for the next semester can get help from advisors. Advisors need the information provided by the timely submission of final grades to accurately guide students.
  • The determination of students’ eligibility to receive financial aid is based on the timely submission of final grades. Financial Aid runs reports based on specific dates after the grades are turned in; if students’ grades are not in the system by the due date, their financial aid status may be affected on these reports. 
  • When grades are not turned in on time, students’ academic standing can detrimentally change. If the grade is not in place when the registrar's office runs academic standing, it will be calculated as a non-completed course, which can change the students’ status to Warning or Suspended or Fail to meet academic standards for completion. 

If you want to double check to see if your grades have been submitted, you can follow these instructions. When you hit submit, the grade becomes final and cannot be changed in Self Service. If you notice that a correction needs to be made after you submit final grades, you need to complete a change of grade form to make the update. We’ve all been there, but here’s hoping that you get to use this form to help students who needed that extra support to get to the finish line! 

As a friendly reminder, the ILP Integration/Submit Grades tool to submit final grades from Blackboard to Self-Service is unavailable.

Career Essentials Reminder

MATC instructors who teach post-secondary courses need to submit the Career Essentials assessment directly in their Blackboard shell. The Career Essentials Process FQAS can help you with this process.

Sum Total Reminder:

Winter break may be a good time to complete your Sum Total compliance requirements as assigned by Human Resources for all faculty and non-faculty.  These are due on March 31, 2023. You can log into SumTotal using your MATC email address and network password. 

We recognize that some of these training modules may be required annually and may feel repetitious; however, this college-wide training supports the continued sustainability of our operations. Thanks for your time in contributing to the benefits this brings to the college.

 

Timesheets:

Timesheets continue to be due throughout January, so you may want to turn them in before break!

Keeping You Posted:

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

2022 Winter Commencement
 
Come help our students celebrate!
2022 Winter Commencement is on Sunday, December 18 at 11 am at the Fiserv Forum

OER Update:

Full- and part-time faculty are encouraged to apply for the MATC OER facilitator position by Thursday, December 15. The application for a $750 Spring 2023 OER Faculty Grant is open through Thursday, December 15. The MATC Open Access team is asking grant applicants to replace a traditional course textbook with an existing open textbook, OER or other materials that are free for students.  Watch the Open Education Global and Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) Open Ed as an Enabler for Antiracism and Social Justice webinar to learn how open education promotes inclusive teaching, social justice and anti-racism pedagogical practices.

Collaborate Ultra Recording Annual Deletion coming up in January 2023:

In January 2023, Blackboard Client Support will permanently delete recordings of Collaborate Ultra sessions created before January 3rd, 2022. This means that links to Collaborate Ultra recordings created before January 3rd, 2022 will break and their recordings will not be available for viewing unless you take immediate action NOW to prevent their loss! This annual maintenance helps ensure the Collaborate Ultra platform’s availability per the vendor’s contracted storage limits. 

To preserve recordings eligible for deletion, you have until 5:00 PM CDT on January 3rd, 2023 to move Collaborate Ultra recordings to the YuJa Video Platform!  If you are unsure about the process, see the following videos. Contact onlinelearning@matc.edu if you have any questions about this process.

Blackboard Ultra Planning:

In Summer 2023, MATC plans to update Blackboard to the Ultra Course View. Ultra Courses offer a streamlined user interface that provides a mobile-friendly and student-centered course experience with more efficient instructor workflows. Faculty training and support for this transition will be offered starting in Spring 2023. Faculty can request Ultra Course master shells starting now.

Additional Professional Development Opportunities:

Black Language consistently contours Mainstream American English. You'll notice this by steaming your favorite TV series, listening to your preferred podcast or radio station, or scrolling through your desired social media site. Black Language resounds everywhere; it is both admired and mocked.
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Proposal review and acceptance: Proposals will be anonymously reviewed by faculty and instructors on OPID's Advisory Council. Notification of proposal acceptance will be provided by Friday, February 3, 2023. Accepted presenters are expected to register for the conference.

Inspiration, Research, and Best Practices

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!

We created this easy-to-use guide to provide educators with simple, evidence-based ways you can support your students. Though the primary role of faculty is to share your knowledge and expertise, we know that students often rely on you for support when they are struggling.
Equity work in school districts predates the pandemic, by decades. And the progress has been mostly uneven. What's more, the pandemic added new challenges to the long slog toward making schooling more equitable.
Beginning the conversation doesn't mean you have to dive straight into talking about mental health struggles or have an intense heart to heart. Consider instead meeting your friend where they are or extending an invitation to hang out. You can even talk about struggles you are going through to give...
As a CTE teacher, discovering that you'll have English Language Learners (ELLs) in your classroom can sometimes be overwhelming. You aren't a specialist in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), but suddenly you are tasked with ensuring that ELL students succeed in CTE.

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