Issue 9--Published: Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Welcome back awesome faculty! At CTE, we know that you are already in the swing of things, and we want to take a minute to simply say, “Well Done!” The efforts that you are putting forth at the beginning of the semester will exponentially pay off for students in the weeks to come. Now is the time when rejuvenation can lead to innovation and inspiration. CTE is here to support your bravery. Do you have something that you want to share? Are you looking for a peer to bounce a new idea off of before you try it in the classroom? Are you looking for resources or best practices? If there is anything that CTE can do to support your curiosity and exploration, please let us know.  

Tap Suggested Timeline Reminder:

Every faculty needs to create a Teaching Action Plan as part of their FQAS cycle. TAP submission requirements depend on your Probationary or Post-Probationary, and Part-time or Full-time status.

If you’ve been following the suggested timeline for your Teaching Action Plan, great! If not, no worries–there is still time for you to catch up, but you’ll want to take action this month to stay on target for the remainder of the TAP suggested Timeline. 

If you are Full-Time Post-Probationary, you need to complete a TAP every year. Here is the suggested timeline for completion.

• Fall
  • Make a copy of the TAP form
  • Choose your Peer Coach (more information can be found below)
  • List your goals (minimum of 1)
  • Plan some initial actions that you will take

• Winter:
  •  List the actions that you’ve taken that relate to your goals in Part 2 of your TAP.
    • Best practice: If the actions are also professional development activities that could be documented as part of your required FQAS hours, then consider submitting them into SumTotal at this time to keep a running total of your hours in Teaching Excellence/Student Success or Currency. 

  • Reflect on how the TAP acts as a guide for deciding which professional development activities to participate in and adjust accordingly.
  • Check in with your Peer Coach - do they have any ideas or best practices to share with you?  How are you progressing?

• Spring:
  •  List any additional actions you’ve taken towards your goals.  If the actions are also FQAS activities then submit them into SumTotal as well.
  • Arrange for your final meeting with your Peer Coach, share your results and get written feedback and a signature from your Coach on your TAP form.
  • Save the completed form and submit it to SumTotal under “TAP: Teaching Action Plan” (prior to June 30)

Peer Coaching, Faculty Mentoring, and You!

Are you keeping up on your Teaching Action Plan but stuck on finding a Peer Coach and wondering how that works? CTE can help!

Next month, CTE will be hosting a Peer Coaching workshop that will help to answer your questions with further information about:

• Who makes a good Peer Coach?
• How does one choose a Peer Coach? 
• How do I become a better coach for my peers?  

Stay tuned for further details in the next issue of CTE Connections. 

Is Coaching the same as Mentoring?  Not quite!  If you’d like to learn more about the similarities and differences, and what it takes to be a great Faculty Mentor then consider signing up to take Dr. Meredith Reeves’ ZERD-208-900 Faculty Mentoring in Higher Ed, available online 1/30 - 3/26/2022.  This course provides essential information and tools to help participants further develop their knowledge and skills related to serving as a mentor to fellow colleagues in the community college educational environment. The course will emphasize the essential qualities of an effective mentor. It will provide the framework for employing effective communication techniques with their mentee, goal setting, and motivational strategies to ensure mentee follow through and desired results. This course also offers the opportunity to engage in current research surrounding faculty mentoring in higher education that includes the benefits of having a career mentor. This course is a requirement to serve as a Peer Support Mentor in ZERD 100.

CTE Launches the Lunch and Learn Series:

The Center offers programming in a variety of different 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. This semester,  CTE is creating a Lunch and Learn Series

These one-hour sessions will be offered over the lunch hour and utilize a format that creates a sense of community through engaging content, meaningful discussion, and hands-on activities. It is our goal to offer these once a month, and each session is eligible for FQAS hours. You can attend as few or as many sessions as you would like; up to 5 FQAS hours will be available through this series.


We invite you to BYOLunch and join us at our first Virtual Lunch and Learn on Monday, January 31 from noon to 1pm. This session will review the instructional design process for faculty who are developing a new course they are teaching, or revising a course they have been teaching. The session will include an excellent 20-Minute Mentor presentation that addresses the steps in the process. It will be hosted by the CTE’s Instructional Designer, John Futterer, who has many years working with faculty in the design and redesign of their courses. There is no deadline to register.

Free Access to  The Teaching Professor,  the 20-Minute Mentor Commons, and Academic Leader from Magna Commons!

CTE has utilized a portion of  the WTCS Professional Growth Grant to purchase access to The Teaching Professor,  20-Minute Mentor Commons, and Academic Leader for the MATC community. As a member of our campus community, this online content from Magna Publications is available at no cost to you from any computer, tablet, or smart phone. 

Since 1972 Magna has been a leading provider of higher education professional development resources. Edited by respected scholar and expert Dr. Maryellen Weimer of Penn State Berks, The Teaching Professor is a forum for discussion of the best strategies supported by the latest research for effective teaching in the college classroom. 20-Minute Mentor Commons offers on-demand versions of Magna's popular 20-Minute Mentor programs, covering a broad range of faculty development topics in 20-minute videos with abundant companion resources and documents. Academic Leader provides the information deans, chairs, and other academic decision-makers use for effective leadership within their colleges or departments and fulfill their institution's primary missions of teaching and scholarship. Registration and Login information can be found on CTE’s Website (scroll down to Magna Commons)

 We hope you enjoy these wonderful resources!

 Achieving the Dream’s “2022 Operationalizing Equity, Social Justice, and Inclusion to Transform Teaching and Learning  Webinar Series” and CTE's Chat with Colleagues Series

The Center for Teaching Excellence is excited to offer the opportunity to earn up to 10 FQAS hours through Achieving the Dream’s “2022 Operationalizing Equity, Social Justice, and Inclusion to Transform Teaching and Learning  Webinar Series”.  Made up of four parts, this series will discuss:

• Curating Inclusive Course Content that Centers Students and Equity, Thursday, January 27, 2022 1:00pm - 2:00pm 
  
  • Through inclusive content, students are affirmed, validated, and embraced. This webinar will explore how to develop and design course content that is intentionally inclusive of diverse students, perspectives, cultures, and lived experiences. 
    

• Operationalizing Equitable Teaching and Learning Practices, Wednesday, March 9, 2022 21:00pm - 1:00pm 
  
  • In this webinar, panelists will share components/tenets to purposefully embed equity, social justice, and inclusion into innovative teaching and learning in face-to-face and virtual spaces.
    

• Designing Assessments through a Culturally Responsive Lens, Tuesday, April 12, 2022 2:00pm - 3:00pm 
  
  • This workshop will provide examples of successful innovative and digital assessment approaches that center students and allow for authentic and culturally responsive measurement of student learning.
    

• Democratizing Learning Environments, Wednesday, May 4, 2022 12:00pm - 2:00pm 
  
  • In this webinar, participants will engage in dialogue and discourse with panelists as it relates to co-creating environments that support and humanize students’ academic experiences while affirming their strengths and potential in the classroom.

Registration is free--you can attend as few or as many sessions as you would like!

To make these webinars even more applicable,  CTE will have follow-up sessions for each event.  In a facilitated discussion, faculty will be encouraged to self-reflect after each webinar, to consider how they might apply the knowledge that was discussed, and to share out  their responses, ideas, or questions that were generated based upon the webinar.  

Chats with Colleagues--Curating Inclusive Course Content that Centers Students and Equity
Friday, January 28 · 12:00 – 1:00pm

Chats with Colleagues: Operationalizing Equitable Teaching and Learning Practices
Friday, March 11 · 12:00 – 1:00pm

Chats with Colleagues: Designing Assessments through a Culturally Responsive Lens
Wednesday, April 13 · 12:00 – 1:00pm

Chats with Colleagues: Democratizing Learning Environments
Friday, May 6, 2022 · 12:00 – 1:00pm

Join us for as many conversations as you would like; up to 10 FQAS hours will be available through this series. 

Offering Extra Credit to Encourage Students to Upload Vaccination Status:
On January 18, 2022, VP of Learn, Mohammad Dakwar, and Local 212 President, Lisa Conley, encouraged faculty to assist students in uploading vaccination status (currently about 20% of students have completed the upload process). Faculty have direct contact and the strongest relationships with our students! Faculty that meet with students face-to-face, hybrid or online play a key role in this initiative.

Thinking of adding Extra Credit points for documented vaccination status uploads? Feel free to use the following example as a suggestion in your face-to-face, hybrid or online classes:

• Create a Dynamic Assignment in Blackboard worth 0 points possible and include the column in the Grade Center calculations. A possible name is 'Viewpoint Confirmation'.
  
• Students review resources to assist in vaccination upload including (a) a video that walks students through the Viewpoint process and (b) a link to written instructions
  
• Once submitted and approved in Viewpoint, ask students to access the Health Portal screen in Viewpoint and take a screenshot of their successful completion (or an alternate screenshot if you choose).  An example is below:

• Students submit the screenshot to the 'Viewpoint Confirmation' in Blackboard
• When students submit their vaccination status in Blackboard under Viewpoint Confirmation, assign a non-zero point value in the Grade Center (e.g., 5 pts).
• The Blackboard Grade Center will treat the points as extra in the Total column.

CTE Professional Development Opportunities

CTE offers a wide-range of professional development courses  from one-hour workshops to 40 hour ZERD courses; all of these courses are free to MATC faculty and eligible for FQAS hours, so that you can plan and develop your own professional development goals and outcomes. 

Upcoming Workshops:

8-Week Course Conversion Workshop, February 25th (9am-12pm)
21st Century Classroom Level 3 Cohort Workshop, March 4 & 11, 11am-12:30pm
HyFlex Workshop, April 19 and April 26 5pm-9pm.

Upcoming ZERD courses:

​​ZERD 011 Preparation for Online Teaching                          3/20 - 5/15/2022
ZERD 208 Faculty Mentoring in Higher Education                1/30 - 3/26/2022
ZERD 100 Peer Support                                                        3/3 -  5/5/2022
ZERD 101 Understanding Classroom Environments             3/06-5/15/2022
ZERD 103  Course Design                                                     3/20- 5/15/2022
ZERD 104  Institutional Data & Evaluation                             1/23 - 5/15/2022
ZERD 210  PSYCH of Black Students:  BLM Era & Beyond  3/20 - 5/15/2022
ZERD 209  Exploring Open Education Resources                 3/20 - 5/15/2022

Additional courses may be offered later in the semester based on faculty interest and need.

The DEI Committee’s Events Calendar has several opportunities for professional development posted for the remainder of the semester as well as in the new year. For more information and links to register,  please see 
DEI Committee’s website.

• DREAM 2022 (virtual conference): February 14-17, 2022 
• Lessons from the Best: Learning from the 2022 LMA Winner(s) (webinar): March 16 
• Building a Culture of Teaching & Learning through High-Impact Professional Learning (webinar): March 29

WTCS DEI Faculty Fellowship now accepting applications

The Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee/DEI Certificate workgroup is seeking DEI Faculty Fellowship applications to support the WTCS DEI Certificate Project. The DEI Fellows will help develop DEI courses that will be included in a State-wide certificate for students, faculty, staff and administrators/board of trustees. The DEI courses will cover a variety of related topics using various delivery methods and instructional techniques. Core course content includes (1) Defining Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, (2) Unconscious Bias, and (3) Creating Inclusive Spaces. The deadline to apply is February 4, 2022.

On-Demand Virtual Healthcare at No Cost to Students

Did you know that MATC partners with Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin to provide free healthcare to all students? Please share this important information with students
Step-by-step access instructions:
1. Download the “Froedtert & MCW” app or visit froedtert.com/virtual-clinic. 
2. Click the “On-Demand Video Visit” tile.
3. Enter contact information and symptoms.
4. At payment options, choose “Service Key” and enter the service key “MATC” – this will make the cost $0. 
5. Students need to be prepared to show current MATC ID at the start of the virtual visit.

Long COVID

Students with symptoms of COVID-19 more than four weeks after being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, may be experiencing a Post-COVID Condition. Visit the Long COVID page to learn more.

Part of CTE’s mission is to keep you informed about current best practices and pedagogical approaches. Each issue of CTE Connections includes links that are meant to be engaging, thought-provoking, and applicable to various classroom environments.

Looking for previous issues of CTE Connections?

Issue 1

Issue 2

Issue 3

Issue 4

Issue 5

Issue 6

Issue 7

Issue 8

Milwaukee Area Technical College
The Center for Teaching Excellence

cte@matc.edu

CTE Website