CCCOnline Annual Conference is Friday!

Here at the home office, the CCCOnline team is working faster than a speeding bullet to prepare for Friday’s Annual Conference.

Aarthi Ramesh, our Training and Professional Development Coordinator, has compiled helpful reminders for attendees:
http://ccconlinefacultynews.blogspot.com/2011/09/s-is-for-super.html

We look forward to joining forces with you there!

News From Our Librarian!

Here is a message from Mary Cash:

Hi everyone, I have some wonderful news; I am now, officially, the CCCOnline Instructional Online Librarian. I accepted my new position a few weeks ago and have started making plans for what I’ll do to offer online librarian services to our students and faculty. I’m still going to be working as an instructional designer for a while; we need to hire someone to replace me and course design still needs to go on : ).

I already have an Ask the Librarian email in place (cccolibrarian@ccconline.org), and have had a few students email me with research questions. A good part of my job, once everything is in place, will be to act as an Embedded Librarian in your courses. You’ll be able to set up a time for me to come into your course and answer questions on finding resources and doing citations. I’m also planning on some updates and changes to the CCCOnline Library Resources and Research and Writing Toolkit pages on the student wiki, and I would like to develop more information literacy training for both students and faculty. And, finally, one of my pet projects will be to see if we can bring in, to our D2L Learning Object Repository, a variety of learning objects that are currently available through MERLOT and other open source repositories.

Most likely, the Embedded Librarian project won’t be in place until spring semester; I have some logistics to work out. But I did want to let everyone know that CCCOnline now has a librarian available to both students and faculty. If you have ideas on where I can help in your courses, or something related to the library or information literacy, please let me know. I’d love to talk with you about your ideas.

And, if you’re coming to the faculty conference, be sure to check out our presentation on What’s Going on @ Your CCCOnline Library. We’ll talk more about future plans for our online library/librarian and the Research and Writing Toolkit.

Hope to see you then,
mary

Mary Cash
Instructional Online Librarian
CCCOnline
cccolibrarian@ccconline.org or mary.cash@cccs.edu

Overwhelming Discussions? Check Out These Helpful Resources!

Instructors with particularly lively student groups may struggle with how to manage their time within discussions. For related advice, check out these links from CCCOnline's Faculty Wiki:

“Strategies for Engaging Discussions”:
http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Teaching_Resources_-_Building_Community_and_Discussions_-_Strategies_for_Engaging_Discussions

“Learn to be Efficient”:
http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Teaching_Resources_-_Other_Resources_-_Strategies_for_Successful_Online_Teaching#Learn_to_be_Efficient

Professional Development Webinar Archive; you’ll find some relevant topics here: http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Professional_Development_-_Webinar_Archive

Instructors’ Frequently Asked Questions about Discussions at CCCOnline:
http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Policies_%26_Procedures_-_Faculty_Handbook_-_Evaluation_-_Faculty_Gold_-_FAQs

Especially if you are a seasoned online instructor, please feel free to share your favorite tried-and-true discussion management strategies. Join us in the companion Community discussion thread.

Handling Difficult Situations

This week, Carrie Garman, CCCOnline’s Human Sciences Chair, has a reflection and a question for all of you.

“How I handle a difficult situation:
Most of the time I like to go up the incline – I live in Manitou Springs. The incline is the old railway up to the top of Pikes Peak. It is extremely steep and the steps have been made of old railway ties and rocks. I usually pack my back pack up and run to the bottom of it from my house and then see how fast I can get to the top. The ascent is over 2200 feet and the top is at about 8500 feet.

I always feel better at the top, and have absolutely no energy left to be upset about anything.”

How do you handle a difficult professional situation?
We look forward to reading your responses in the companion Community discussion thread!

Meet the CCCOnline Social Sciences Team

This week, we're pleased to introduce CCCOnline's Social Sciences Team. Have a nice Labor Day weekend, everyone!

Karen Kaemmerling, Associate Dean of Social Sciences
Karen’s leadership has been an important asset to the CCCOnline team. Since 2005, Karen has served CCCOnline variously as Arts and Humanities Chair, Social Sciences Chair, and Director of Training and Professional Development. In addition, she has been teaching US History for CCCOnline for eight years. As a result of learner-centered innovations to her Civil War to Present History course, she was awarded the Blackboard Exemplary Course Award in 2008. She also earned CCCOnline’s Academic Leader of the Year Award in 2006 and 2010.

Karen lives in Parker, Colorado, and enjoys playing with her two daughters, horseback riding, mountain biking, hiking, and walking her dogs. She says, “I really enjoy the online education experience and feel that it offers wonderful opportunities for students and educators.”

Carrie Garman, Human Sciences Chair
Carrie has been teaching online for about seven years; prior to her current appointment at CCCOnline, she served as our Program Chair for Behavioral Sciences. She is a clinical therapist and does contract work for El Paso County. She works mostly with families whose abused children have been placed in foster care, and has been working for Kids Crossing, a child placement agency, for about 12 years.

About her work, Carrie says “It is my passion and I love it”; about teaching, she comments “The best thing is that I can teach students who are interested in this field real-life applications of theory and provide them with a wealth of resources. It makes being a teacher even better!”

John Ragan, Cultural Sciences Chair
John has taught History for CCCOnline for almost five years, and his career accomplishments include serving as Assistant Dean of Admissions at the University of Denver, Department Manager at the Federal Reserve Bank, and director of a large agency of City and County of Denver government. In his spare time, John plays guitar with the Colorado surf band, the Royal Aces. (He's at right in the photo.)

He has a question for everyone: “Most, if not all, of you have 9 to 5 jobs, and/or you teach for other online programs. With all of the time that is required for those endeavors, do you find it difficult to remain up to date on scholarly developments and research in your field?”