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Presenting The 2018-2019 Connie Broughton Innovation in eLearning Award
This year the award is presented to
Patrick McEachern, Director of eLearning, and the Community Colleges of Spokane Cabinet. This includes the executive leadership from Spokane Community College (Kevin Brockbank, President; Jenni Martin, Vice President of Instruction; and Glen Cosby, Vice President of Student Services), Spokane Falls Community College (Nancy Szofran, President; Andrew Feldman, Vice President of Learning; and Chrissy Davis-Jones, Vice President of Student Services) and the District Office (Christine Johnson, Chancellor; Greg Stevens, Chief Administrative Officer, Lisa Hjaltalin, Chief Financial Officer, Carolyn Casey, Chief Information Officer; and Amy McCoy, Acting Provost).
eLearning Professional Development ModelThe annual CCS eLearning Academy is a two-day conference hosted, organized, and facilitated by the CCS eLearning Department each fall before the new academic year begins. The Academy focuses on technology, design, and instruction of web-enhanced, hybrid, and online education. Participants learn best practices and innovative teaching and learning strategies from keynote speakers from outside of the institution and as well as from their CCS peers. The Academy began in fall of 2013 and has expanded in size each year. The 2018 CCS eLearning Academy featured 160 attendees including 20 guests from outside of CCS (i.e., from other community colleges) , and was comprised of 30 individual sessions, including a student panel. The topics of the conference are expanded on throughout the year in CCS eLearning’s asynchronous Faculty Professional Development course.
CCS's eLearning professional development model includes an annual large conference, the eLearning Academy, prior to the start of the fall quarter. Learning opportunities continue throughout the year with an asynchronous online faculty development course utilizing innovative training methods to cover monthly topics of interest for current and prospective online faculty. For example, the YouTube channel features Faculty Perspective videos embedded into the monthly topics that show participants the applicability of the learning from a faculty perspective. CCS has also been asked to present at regional conferences and share its innovative topics and methods. For example, the team has presented on faculty presence in online courses, to address regular and substantive interaction as required by the Department of Education, at Northwest eLearn, WACC, CCS eLearning Academy, Spokane Community College and Spokane Falls Community College. The team has also shared its expertise on this topic with other community colleges in the state.
Each year, eLearning staff ask attendees to evaluate the Academy and they use suggestions from the previous year to inform the conference agenda and make program improvements. The evaluation asks participants to rate the usefulness of each session, the level of preparation and knowledge of the presenter and the overall quality of the session. This year's academy included an online student panel, basic sessions on Canvas, more time for a question and answer period with the keynote speaker and a pre-conference workshop for Panopto and Canvas based upon feedback from the 2017 session.
The professional development model can be easily replicated at little to no cost and will just need staff time and faculty interest to implement. Materials are openly-licensed and available.
For the 2018 conference program, see the attached 2018 eLearning Academy Program – CC of Spokane.pdf
CONGRATULATIONS, again, to the Community Colleges of Spokane!
