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Professional Week

learning, working, and growing together

Starting from Tuesday, January 16, Spring 2024 Opening Week presents an array of professional development opportunities for faculty and staff members. These sessions, organized by the College and ELITE, are designed to help you start the semester with a flourish of Learning, Working, and Growing Together.

All ELITE-sponsored events will be held on Thursday, January 18, via Zoom. Our focus is to enable you to reflect, grow, and gear up for the upcoming spring semester and beyond as we continue to evolve and transform.

We invite you to explore the schedule of events and register using the embedded Workday links. 

Schedule
Thursday, January 18
Adding A Positionality Statement to Your Syllabus

Facilitator(s): Philip Bonner and Cynthia Mauris

A positionality statement is a declaration of the identities one has and how those identities most likely influence that individual. Positionality statements include information about race, social class, religion, career, and beliefs. Adding a positionality statement to a syllabus can succinctly communicate who the professor is and what their belief system is to students.  Including a positionality statement is conducive to building an inclusive and welcoming classroom. Come to this one-hour class and explore what a positionality statement can do to promote equity, inclusivity, and social justice.  

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Cultivating a Growth Mindset in Your Students 

Facilitator(s): Megan Calvert

“I’m just not cut out for this.” Research shows that when students and professors bring fixed mindset words and attitudes like these into the classroom, it decreases the likelihood of student learning, engagement, persistence, and achievement. Small shifts towards a growth mindset, however, can have big impacts on student success. In this workshop, we will examine essential research and concepts that all instructors should be aware of and explore strategies that you can easily weave into your classes. 

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Enhancing Student Self-Assessment and Reflection with Adobe Express: A Faculty Workshop

Facilitiator(s): Gloria Barron

In this one-hour workshop, faculty members will explore the power of Adobe Express as a strategic tool for helping students create digital journals that support self-assessment and reflection. 

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Leveraging Microcredentials to Fill Skill Gaps

Facilitiator(s): Christine Crefton

The current employment landscape presents many opportunities, yet many positions still need to be filled due to a shortage of qualified candidates possessing the necessary technical and behavioral skills. This session offers an in-depth examination of the most sought-after competencies in today's market. Additionally, we will showcase the microcredentials program at Montgomery College, a strategic initiative to equip students with validated credentials that enhance their employability.

Incorporating microcredentials into academic and training programs offers educators and industry leaders a promising solution. This approach addresses the talent gap and enhances the quality and relevance of education and professional development.

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Setting Your Sights on Library Streaming Videos and Ebooks

Facilitiator(s): MC Librarians

Navigate the wealth of library streaming video and eBook resources; learn how to search, share, and embed videos and eBooks into your course content. 

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Tips To Get the Semester Started with Blackboard

Facilitiator(s): Michele Knight

A new semester provides an opportunity to refresh or prepare a new Blackboard Course.  As faculty prepare to use a Blackboard course with their students, reminders will be provided to ensure the course is ready for the start of a semester.  Resources will be provided for faculty use after the session to ensure their Blackboard site is ready for the start of the semester. 

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Writing Effective Letters of Recommendation

Facilitiator(s): Lucy Laufe, Rebecca Eggenschwiler and Jojo Dong

Letters of recommendation are key components to getting into transfer institutions, receiving scholarships, and getting a job. This workshop will review the criteria and literature discussing best practices regarding what makes an effective letter of recommendation.  It will also cover tips to help students ask for letters and get strong references.  Focus points include:  knowledge of student, evaluation of student – intellectual and character -using examples to back up noted traits or strengths, avoiding clichés, finding ways to emphasize strengths other than academic/intellectual.  Strategies for supporting students who did not do well in your class will also be explored.

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Zoom Skills Refresher 

Facilitiator(s): Anna Donohoe

This workshop is a basic skills refresher for Zoom meeting participants who want to feel more confident attending Zoom meetings. We will cover the fundamental skills required to engage in future virtual professional development sessions offered by ELITE. Please note, this workshop does not cover Zoom hosting or facilitation tips. This workshop is focused only on the core skills needed to interact successfully as a participant in a Zoom meeting or training session.  

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Speed Session I
  • Getting Started with Experiential Learning
  • Grants 101: Anatomy of a Grant Proposal
  • Empowering Education through MC Open
  • Academic Service Learning: An Introduction for Faculty
  • Teaching In The HyFlex Classroom: Overview and The Basics
  • HRSTM Open Q & A Session

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Choose Your Own Adventure Session 1: Chat GPT

This engaging and interactive session offers participants the opportunity to delve into the world of Generative AI with Chat GPT. Aimed at all MC employees, this session is structured as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" format, where participants can select from four distinct but equally informative sessions. Each session is designed to provide a deep dive into a specific aspect of Generative AI, offering practical insights and hands-on experiences. The available sessions include:

Participants can choose from one of the following sessions: 

  • Best Practices for Using Generative AI in a Responsible and Ethical Way 
  • How to use Generative AI to Create Content to Support Teaching and Learning 
  • Prompt Engineering 
  • The Essential Skills for Getting Started with Generative AI

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Choose Your Own Adventure Session 2: ChatGPT and Generative AI

This engaging and interactive session offers participants the opportunity to delve into the world of Generative AI with Chat GPT. Aimed at all MC employees, this session is structured as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" format, where participants can select from four distinct but equally informative sessions. Each session is designed to provide a deep dive into a specific aspect of Generative AI, offering practical insights and hands-on experiences. The available sessions include:

Participants can choose from one of the following sessions: 

  • Best Practices for Using Generative AI in a Responsible and Ethical Way 
  • How to use Generative AI to Create Content to Support Teaching and Learning 
  • Prompt Engineering 
  • The Essential Skills for Getting Started with Generative AI

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Speed Session II
  • Discover the Power of Faculty Select: Unleashing Zero-Cost Textbooks with OERs and Unlimited User E-books
  • 3 Tips to Managing Your Time and Attention at Work
  • Attractive Document Design
  • Immersive Learning: Augmented and Virtual Reality in the Classroom
  • Tips for Making Your Course Dynamic
  • HRSTM Open Q & A Session

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Creating Interactive Digital Content

Facilitator(s): Michele Knight

Creating Interactive Digital content promotes engagement with the materials in your Digital Course site in a superior way than creating text-based content.  While developing this content used to be a chore, digital content creation isn’t difficult with today's modern tools.  Together, we will explore simple apps for creating interactive materials with Adobe Express Video, Microsoft Sway, and Microsoft Forms.

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Developing Student Information Literacy Skills: A Collaborative Project between Librarians and Faculty

Facilitator(s): Jenny Hatleberg, Elizabeth Huergo

The ability to shift from description to argument, to recognize the point at which paraphrase becomes plagiarism, to evaluate the authority and accuracy of source materials, to document relevant sources accurately---these are all cross-disciplinary skills addressed in composition courses. Are there practical ways of teaching and reinforcing these skills? Are there ways of embedding these skills easily into courses already replete with content?  

Elizabeth Huergo and Jenny Hatleberg, via the MC Library’s FY23 Information Literacy Fellows pilot, worked together to answer these questions. They developed three content modules for students, with associated quizzes and practice activities. This workshop offers faculty a chance to rethink how they teach students to research, use, and attribute sources properly. Participants are encouraged to incorporate the content modules into their own courses.  

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Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom

Facilitator(s): Carolien Annink

Based on personal experiences, both as student and as instructor, two minority college professors developed a college teaching approach called “Inclusive Teaching” that covers course structure, “democratized” learning activities, and instructor self-reflection. In this presentation, participants will be engaged with this approach through mini-lecture and small group discussion.

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Gamify Your Course with These Three Moves

Facilitator(s): Angela Lanier

Gamification is the process of adding game-like elements to a non-game situation to increase engagement. This workshop will cover three gamification strategies: storyboarding, leveling up, and freedom to fail. We will explore the benefits and challenges of each strategy and look at examples to adapt to different courses.


Strategies For Increasing Students’ Motivation for Learning

Facilitator(s): Laurent Ndeze

Motivation for learning is the desire to get involved in the steps needed to be successful in achieving specific learning goals. Many factors are involved including the content, instructor behavior, and learning environment. Therefore, educators must leverage all of the sources of motivation when trying to improve their students’ learning and success. In this workshop, we will examine different forms of motivation, barriers, strategies, and tips that faculty can use to increase student motivation for learning.

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Using StudentLingo to Integrate Success Workshops Into Courses, Coaching, Co-Curriculars, and More 

Facilitator(s): Nik Sushka

The Achieving the Promise Academy’s partnership with StudentLingo is expanding student access to academic support this year by providing no cost, self-paced workshops and podcasts that help students build academic skills and create action plans with their academic coaches.  MC’s StudentLingo service also offers faculty and staff the ability to integrate these on-demand success workshops into courses, co-curricular programs, and much more. On-demand workshops like “Study Tips and Note Taking Strategies” or “How to Work In Groups: Creating a Productive and Positive Learning Experience” can help students build skills to succeed in and out of the classroom, using related action planning worksheets to reflect on their current habits and make plans to build better ones.

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Speed Session III
  • An Overview of MC's Employee Wellness Program
  • Finding and Using Primary Sources through the MC Library
  • Microsoft Bookings: Scheduling Made Easy
  • Podcasting in Education: Empowering Learning through Audio
  • Students’ Sense of Belonging and Connectedness: Building Community
  • The HyFlex Model: Adapting To the Hybrid-Flexible Approach

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Creating An Interactive Learning Exhibit with PowerPoint

Facilitator(s): Angela Lanier

Museums are institutions that invite inquiry, creativity, reflection, and diversity. Drawing on these values, an interactive virtual exhibit can provide students with an integrative and interactive learning experience and create opportunities for open pedagogy. During this workshop, participants will Preview an example of an interactive virtual exhibit, Play around in an exhibit, share Perceptions of the experience, and Plan an interactive exhibit of their own.

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Cultivating Inclusive Learning Environments: Strategies for All Students

Facilitator(s): Philip Bonner

A welcoming college classroom is characterized by the presence of support, appreciation, and acknowledgment for each student's distinct qualities, interests, and skills. True inclusivity  apparent when both faculty and students display mutual respect for one another and for the educational journey, and these inclusive approaches can be implemented in traditional in-person as well as virtual online class settings. The adoption and cultivation of inclusion can yield academic, social, and emotional advantages for students.

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Creating an Inclusive Environment at MC: Culture and Leadership

Facilitator(s): Richard Forrest

Join us to examine what behaviors, strategies, and challenges are involved in creating inclusion in groups and teams. We will identify concrete diversity and inclusion issues that challenge us in our daily practice and seek solutions by applying an integrating mindset that is aligned with MC goals and values. 

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Microsoft Forms Tips and Tricks

Facilitator(s): Anna Donohoe

This workshop will introduce participants to tips and tricks to use Microsoft Teams more efficiently and effectively. These tips and tricks will help keep your Teams channels, chats, and files organized and your Teams calls running smoothly. This workshop is open to all levels of Teams users who want to save time and better understand the range of uses of this tool. 

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Video Feedback: A Faster Way to Grade Online

Facilitator(s): Tom Cantu

Providing video comments on assignments can be a powerful way to provide feedback that is detailed, specific, and personalized. Video feedback is almost as good as having a conference with each student in your office to discuss their work before they revise it. This session will demonstrate a method of providing video feedback on assignments that is quick and easy and has been used for many years by English faculty and in the Online Teaching training.  

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Adopting a Human Centered Approach in a Digital Learning Environment 

Facilitator(s): Paul Miller

Building a sense of belonging in college courses is important for student success, and this includes online, remote, and hybrid courses. But how can instructors build that sense of belonging in a digital environment? Come to this one-hour roundtable discussion and share ideas on inclusive instruction in online and remote courses.

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If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Paul Miller, Professional Development Director, ELITE.