Gale Spear, Courtney Mlinar, and Jeff Johannigman from Austin Community College spoke about their teaching and learning academy in a Lilly 2021 recorded talk entitled “A Teaching and Learning Academy for Faculty by Faculty.” I did not know how large the Austin Community College system is with multiple campuses and thousands of students! The Teaching and Learning Academy has four hybrid courses with four weekly modules and half-day workshops. There are simulated classroom experiences, facilitated online discussions, cohort meetings, and faculty compensation ($1,200 and scholarship to conference). The Teaching and Learning Academy (TLA) is “anchored by the ACC Faculty Values” that include scholarship, collaboration, service, inclusion, empowerment, and access. The TLA program objectives are to create, learn, engage, use, and develop. I loved the titles of the courses they designed for the TLA. The first one is called “Teaching to the Brain.” The videos are very professional and accompanied by Kahoot sessions and “setting the tone.” The second clip the presenters played was about adult learners and coincides with the QM “Connecting Learning Theories” course I am taking. The third video clip was about conditions that are supportive of student success. Johannigman talked about how the videos were produced: they were filmed using a green screen and some graphical elements were added, including the slides and bullet points. The messages are emphasizes on screen with text. Johannigman talked about the testimonials from participants. It is refreshing to learn the impact of simple yet engaging videos and online modules on instructor confidence, as represented by the quotes shared by the participants of the TLA.
The second session I watched is entitled “Small Steps, Big Benefits: Taking Equity Into Your Classroom” by Rebecca Pearson from Central Washington University. Pearson shared practical ways of bringing fairness and equity into the classroom. Several links were shared to specific resources:
- Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning
- The Unessay by Cordell as an adaptable assignment.
- A template for a brief survey check-in.
Pearson talked about a Lilly Conference they attended and how the resources were implemented. Another resource shared was “The Wolf Becomes What You Teach” from The Humane Education organization. As part of the general education leadership team, Pearson showed the objectives used by the instructional group. Pearson used Microsoft Forms to capture student thoughts. I’ll have to check out some of the resources shared above.
