Faculty Development Through a Community of Best Practices

1. Faculty Development Through a Community of Best Practices Laurice Garrett Edison State College June 13, 2012West Point, New YorkImproving College Mathematics Teaching Through Faculty Development

2. What Students Think Instructors Do During Faculty Development

3. The Impetus for Change • Edison begins to offer 4-year degrees and increases the expectation that faculty will do more professional development • Budget crunch decreases funding for travel to professional development activities/workshops • High adjunct to full-time faculty ratio and the desire to have adjuncts feel vested and integrated into the department • Faculty get isolated in their classrooms and resist change • Realization that college instructors can teach without ever being exposed to best practices of teaching

4. What was the need of our department that we hoped to address upon returning from the workshop at West Point? • Specifically, working on improving retention and outcomes for our Intermediate Algebra courses (we were given a mandate from administration). • Building a robust “in house” professional development program. • Providing better connections and rapport with our large pool of adjuncts, and as such, allowing them to feel vested and integrated into the department.

5. FYI - What was our department’s environment (teaching, collegiality, etc.) like prior to attending the workshop at West Point? • Edison State had approximately 25,000 students encompassing three campus locations & one center. Logistical problems arose when trying to coordinate professional development activities. Also, no formal structure was in place for offering such activities. • Collegiality – Fair. Faculty got along, but not a significant amount of sharing took place. • No one visited other instructor’s classes. It was not in “our culture.”

6. What plans have we developed/implemented since returning from the workshop? • Began as “MAT 1033 Certification” Seminars(by the way, “name” matters!) • Met regularly on Friday afternoons, from 12 – 1 • Targeted to the teachers of Intermediate Algebra • Organized and produced strictly through the math department • Certificates given to participants • We did our own “advertising” Fall 2010…We started Small

7. Example of “Advertising” done for the Workshops This week we will be discussing methods of assessment used in our classes. This discussion may include things such as: • How do we give overall grades in MAT 1033? • What percentage weights do we give to quizzes, homework, tests, projects, etc.? • Should attendance be figured as part of a grade? • Should the final exam count a set percentage? • Can group work be graded and included as part of the grade? • Should students be allowed note cards on tests? • Often we get “set in our ways” and fail to think “outside our own box.”The purpose of these discussions is to engage in genuine dialogue regarding pros, cons, ideas, etc. Look forward to lively interaction! Note: You are welcome to bring a lunch and eat during the discussion.

8. Spring 2011 • Name and focus changed to “Community of Best Practices – Math” • Met twice a month on Friday afternoons and once a month on Wednesday afternoons • All instructors, both full time and adjuncts, were invited and encouraged to participate • College Prep also began to participate • We connected to other campuses via video conferencing • The TLC (Teaching & Learning Center) helped organize and promote the workshops • Certificates of participation were issued through TLC.

9. Sandra waves “hello!” from our Hendry/Glades campus.

10. What is a Community of Practice? • Groups of educators who come together voluntarily at least once a month. Group members are committed to improving their practice through collaborative learning (National School Reform Faculty, 2010). • A venue for “open sharing” and collegial conversations among professionals without fear of judgment or negative criticism (Spanneut, 2010). • A opportunity to “have robust conversations about improving teaching and learning that include research, multiple forms of data, teacher knowledge, constructions and public sharing that target and ultimately lead to improved student learning” (Yendol-Hoppey & Fictmen Dana, 2010, p. 118). • An opportunity for cross-disciplinary discussions of best practices.

11. What are the Intended Outcomes of a Community of Practice? • Reduction in isolation of teachers. • Higher likelihood that teachers will be well informed, professionally renewed, and inspired to inspire students. • Commitment to making significant and lasting changes. • Powerful learning that defines good teaching and classroom practices and creates new knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learners. • Increased meaning and understanding of the content that teachers teach and the roles that play in helping all students achieve expectations. • Seamless transitions for students moving through a course sequence. (Some of the items above are adapted from Hord, 1997)

12. Round tablediscussions

13. We primarily concentrated on topics in each of these three areas: • Pedagogy/Teaching Practices • Math Topics • Technology

14. Pedagogy/Teaching Practices -examples of topics covered • Attendance – should it count toward the grade? • Grading – what makes up the grade in the course? • Group Work – how often, how to organize, how to assess • Homework – do we count it, how much? • Learning Styles of Students • Engaging students • Pink elephants in the room, such as: open book tests, using note cards on tests, instructors who fail to give final exams, etc.

15. Math Topics -examples of topics covered • Factoring • Rational Functions & Their Graphs • Mixture Problems • Logarithms Note: We sometimes use breakout groups (by level or interest) when discussing math topics.

16. Technology – examples of topics covered • Use of classroom equipment, such as doc cams, SMART products, clickers • Effective use of calculators • How to post notes • How to use online resources

17. College Prep Compares Notes on Mixture Problems

18. Example of a certificate issued for College Service

19. Example of a certificate issued for Professional Development

20. Sign In Sheet Used to Register Participants

21. Fall 2011 • Community of Best Practices continued Math education instructors also participated. They particularly helped us with assessment rubrics. Also tried an “article” discussion. • “Orientation for Adjuncts & New Full Time Hires” was added Three modules were funded to be offered (a fourth module was requested, but did not make it into this “first round”) • Faculty began presenting on their areas of expertise Example: cryptology • Classroom visitation became part of our unit plan This has yet to “catch on” and has been resisted by some.

22. What did the Orientation/Training for our Adjuncts & Full Time Hires Encompass & What Was our Rationale? Rationale: • Lends consistency of instruction between full time instructors & adjuncts • Allows for greater collegiality between full time instructors & adjuncts • Makes for smoother beginnings of the semester • Three Modules Included (we would like to increase this to four modules) • Time Frame – Approximately 2 hours for each module • Done on a Saturday prior to the start of the fall semester

23. The Modules for the Orientation/Training • Module - Course Specific such as syllabi, calculator, final exams, expectations • Module – Course Administration (Note: this is the module we hope to add) such as record keeping, attendance verification, math group pages, e-mailing classes, using web Portal tools for the class • Module - Classroom Technology such as SMART boards, sympodiums, doc cameras, Smart View, etc. • Module - Technology & Homework Delivery System such as MyLabsPlus

24. Notes: • Some modules may be required only once. Other modules would be required as major changes are made (such as a change to homework delivery system). An adjunct should take the course specific module for each course he/she teaches. Payment for Completion– Made only to adjuncts $50 per module Faculty presenting would be given “college service” for evaluation purposes Logistical questions: • Each campus offering? Single day option? Webinar option?

25. The Quagmire of Classroom Visitations People liked the idea, in theory. They were concerned about what would happen with documentation from the observations (i.e. – could the results from the observations adversely affect evaluation…who would see the documentation?). The documentation seemed to afford the most contention. Logistically challenging in that people teach at significantly times/days, etc. Participation was totally voluntary. We had only moderate participation.

26. The 1st page of the draft of our peer observation documentation. This had to be signed by both the observer and the person being observed.

27. Page 2 – To be completed by the observer.

28. Page 3 – To be completed by the person being observed.

29. How are you assessing the changes you have made (will make) within your department? Is there anything you would like to improve or do differently ? • Evaluations are given after each session. The first year, we used a “generic” TLC evaluation. It often did not fit what we needed to know. Nonetheless, we still got some feedback. We developed a new survey for this year. Feedback has been much more valuable. • Survey Monkey was used for identifying some preferences and was also used for evaluation of our “Adjunct Certification” modules. • We still struggle with the timing for getting more of our adjuncts involved.

30. We collected and collated our results from these evaluations during this academic year. This can be very useful for providing documentation for unit plans, accreditation, etc.

31. In the works for our future… A Repository for our Ideas & Findings • We hope to create an online repository of ideas. • The organization will generally be by mathematical topic, with subfolders for different course levels. • We would also have a file for general links,

32. Organization for our repository…

33. So…What were some of the most significant “take-aways” from the workshops at West Point? • We were provided ideas for the framework of a program – through the wide variety of sessions that were offered. • The need for humor. • The need to stay contemporary. • The need to provide learning opportunities in context, where possible. • The realization that we, as instructors must be the instruments of change and innovation. • The realization of how much we can learn from one another. • Inspiration from the faculty and staff at West Point with their continual commitment to improvement!

34. References Hord, S. (1997) Professional Learning Communities: Communities of Continuous Inquiry and Improvement. Southwest Educational Development Laboratory National School Reform Faculty www.nsrfharmony.org Spanneut, G. Professional Learning Communities, Principals, and Collegial Conversations. Kappa Delta Pit Record v. 16 no. 3 (Spring 2010) p. 100 -3 Yendol-Hoppey, D. & Fichtman, Dana, N. (2010) Professional Development: Building Expertise Within the Four Walls of Your School. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage.

35. Contact Information Laurice Garrett lgarrett@edison.edu (239) 489-9263 Edison State College 8099 College Parkway Ft. Myers, FL 33906