The Center for Excellence offers multiple options for participants to learn more about teaching, learning, and workplace issues. All programming is designed in response to faculty and staff requests, and incorporates classical and useful learning theories based on solid research. Sessions are taught by recognized volunteer faculty and staff facilitators. The delivery options vary in modes of time commitment in order to best meet the needs of busy faculty and staff. Participation is not mandatory, yet the participation numbers prove that Parkland faculty are committed to improving student learning by keeping on the front lines of teaching and workplace excellence.

Our Programming Schedules are distributed college-wide at the beginning of each semester. Faculty and staff are also notified of programming via email announcements sent out by session facilitators, and Monday morning Week at a Glance emails.

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning has six major components in place for Parkland College faculty and staff. A New Full-Time Faculty Orientation course, a Mentoring Program, Classroom Assessment and Research courses, Learning Issues Seminars, Teaching and Learning Workshops, and Discussions.

Mentoring Program

“When you have someone who helps you make a stronger connection to the College, you begin to see how you fit in the bigger picture of this fine educational institution. Indeed, this inspires you to try harder than ever to strive for excellence.”
                                                                                                 -History Instructor, Mentee

Parkland College offers many opportunities for professional development, and one of its most effective is the Mentoring Program which enjoys strong support from Parkland College senior administrators and department chairs. Mentoring partnerships are especially useful for people new to Parkland, but these partnerships are available to any faculty members, department chairs, staff members, and/or administrators who think they would benefit. Mentoring partnerships enhance the quality of the work and the learning environment for everyone involved.

What can this program offer you?
The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning has designed the Mentoring Program to accommodate faculty and staff with various degrees of training, experience, and familiarity with Parkland College. The key word in the program is flexibility. We encourage participants to define their mentoring partnerships in a way that meets their needs. We also encourage faculty and staff to consider the Mentoring Program as a tool for various forms of professional growth not addressed in other campus opportunities.

Compensation
The Mentoring Program offers a stipend of up to $100 for those faculty members participating as Mentors. This is available only to mentors who did not submit meal receipts.  At the end of each semester, Mentors are asked to fill out and submit a Mentoring Program Stipend Request Form to the Center for Excellence (D115). The deadline for Fall 2008 semester forms is 12:00 Noon on Friday, December 5, 2008.

Meal Reimbursement
As a means of encouraging early and frequent interaction between mentor and mentored partner, $50 meal reimbursements are available.  For faculty mentors, the meal reimbursement is considered to be part of your $100 total stipend reimbursement.  The dealine to submit receipts for Fall 2008 meal reimbursments is 12:00 Noon on Friday, December 5, 2008.

Please Note: Only faculty mentors are eligible for stipends.
Staff, administrators, and mentored partners are not eligible for stipends.

New Full-Time Faculty Orientation

“The New Full-Time Faculty Orientation Program provides a new instructor with a sense of belonging.”
                                                                                                        -Computers Instructor

New Full-Time Faculty
Through the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Parkland College offers a year-long orientation course to new full-time faculty in order to assist them in adjusting to their new positions, to ease anxiety, to share Parkland’s mission and the two-year college mission, and simply to form a cohort of colleagues with whom new hires can relate and rely on for support. Training on Parkland logistics (such as where to park, checking voicemail and email, getting to know our students, and more) begins in August. A welcome dinner and survival celebration continue to connect the faculty. The course continues with monthly two-hour meetings on pertinent topics relating to Parkland College and useful teaching and learning techniques.

Faculty participants receive two credits toward the Faculty Academy for completing this course and submitting a reflective paper.

New Full-Time Faculty Orientation Programming Schedule

New Part-Time Faculty
The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning also supports its part-time faculty hires by offering two-hour general orientation sessions, Saturday seminars, and other opportunities to learn about and connect to the Parkland community. Part-time faculty are also invited to attend any workshops, seminars, or discussions offered through the Center for Excellence that will help them grow as a professional and as an individual.
 

Classroom Assessment and Research Courses

“I've experienced the usefulness of CATs in the classroom and plan to incorporate this concept in all of my classes.”
                                                                                           -ICAR Participant 2002-2003

Classroom Assessment and Research courses are a series of programs that teach faculty how to gather important feedback from students through the use of Classroom Assessment Techniques, or CATs. CATs are quick, simple, usually anonymous tools that help gather feedback from students on their learning. These techniques are based upon the research of Tom Angelo and Patricia Cross.

The Center for Excellence offers courses for both introductory classroom researchers (Introduction to Classroom Assessment and Research) and continuing classroom researchers (Classroom Research and Exploration of Learning Issues).

The Introduction to Classroom Assessment Research (ICAR) Course:
This course introduces participants to the use of CATs: Classroom Assessment Techniques. CATs are informal, usually anonymous, and easy-to-use research tools that help faculty assess their teaching and student learning in a systematic way. This class is based on the work of Pat Cross and Thomas A. Angelo in their book Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers.

*What can this program offer participants?
In addition to receiving a copy of Cross and Angelo’s Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, as well as the Parkland College Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning ICAR notebook, the ICAR course offers participants the opportunity to administer CATs, analyze their results, and report those results to a variety of faculty members from different disciplines. As such, brainstorming solutions or teaching/learning strategies in a safe and open environment can allow all faculty to gain valuable insights into their teaching and their students’ learning as well as to gather “real world” strategies to use in the classroom. Often, one faculty member will adapt another’s CAT even though the two faculty members are from completely different disciplines.

The Classroom Research and Exploration of Learning Issues (CRELI) Course:
This is a second-level course for those who want to continue use of Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs). Participants must have completed the Introduction to Classroom Assessment and Research (ICAR) course before taking CRELI. This course focuses on using CATs to do classroom research that is organized around eight Learning Issues: Prerequisite Knowledge, Metacognition and Learning Strategies, Self-Confidence and Motivation, Learning Goals, Deep and Surface Learning, Student Ratings of Instruction, Cooperative Learning, and Intellectual Development and Critical Thinking. It uses the second textbook on CATs by K. Patricia Cross and Mimi Steadman, entitled Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching. The text is organized around four case studies that are used to raise questions relating to literature about the Learning Issues and helps participants explore some new research design.
 

Learning Issues Seminars

Learning Issues Seminars consist of various segments, totaling four contact hours, that focus on the delivery and development of specific teaching and learning theories and techniques. Some topic examples include the following:

• Alternative Delivery Strategies
• Culture in the Classroom
• Instructional Design through Whole Brain Learning
• Learning in Groups
• Racial Inclusion in the Classroom

TEACHING AND LEARNING Workshops

“I learned how important it is for me to keep learning about teaching.”
                                                                  -Teaching Strategies Participant, Fall 2002

Teaching and Learning Workshops are two-hour one-time workshops that focus on practical classroom and workplace applications. Some examples include the following:

• Effective Classroom Management Strategies
• Internationalizing the Curriculum
• Meet our Students
• Significant Learning
• The Syllabus
• Conflict Management: Dealing with Difficult People
• E-Learning

Discussions

Discussions are typically one-hour sessions designed for informal discussion on an issue considered prevalent based upon faculty feedback. Many times, a new topic idea will be piloted as a discussion, and if the need for further exploration arises, the facilitator will be invited to offer the topic in an IST or Seminar format. Some topic examples include the following:

• Culture in the Classroom
• Evolution: Realities and Myths
• In Memory of September 11: Horticultural Healing
• Online Faculty Luncheon and Discussion
• Physical Fitness for Faculty and Staff
• The "Sophomore Class" Discussions: Continued Networking
• Stress Management At Your Desk
• Writing Your Educational Philosophy Statement

K12 Recertification

K12 Recertification: Parkland College is an Illinois State Board of Education approved provider of continuing professional development units (CPDU). Provider number 101022. For more information about how the Center for Excellence can help you with teacher recertification, call (217) 373-3767.