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?”

Introducing CCCOnline’s Math Team

In coming weeks, we’ll be introducing CCCOnline’s Academic Team, division by division. This week, say hello to our Math Team!

Photo: From L-R, Tonia, Heidi, and Jan.

Heidi Barrett, Associate Dean
Heidi is an old friend of CCCOnline, having most recently served as our Assistant Math Department Chair. She has been sharing her talents with the CCCS system for more than 11 years; she began teaching at Arapahoe Community College in 2000 and CCCOnline in 2002.

Heidi earned her Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education from DePaul University in Chicago and her Master’s in Mathematics from the University of Iowa. She enjoys being outdoors and is an avid runner: she recently completed her first marathon, and also has done a few half-marathons and triathlons. In addition, she enjoys biking, swimming, hiking, playing board games with her children and cards with her friends.

Jan Butler, College Level Program Chair
Jan is a valued member of the CCCOnline team. She has been teaching college-level math courses since 1971; she started teaching with CCCOnline in 1991 and in 2000 became co-chair of Mathematics, Sciences and Health with Chuck Sherrill. In August 2002, Jan became CCCOnline’s Mathematics Department Chair.

Jan has had a varied career from being a mathematician at U.S. Geological Resources, to Systems Analyst and Assistant Director of the Computer Center at University of Colorado at Denver, to teaching and academic administration around the Denver area. She worked at Metropolitan State College and was very involved with their Veteran's Upward Bound program from 1973 - 1985. Jan also taught at Community College of Aurora, Metro State, and University of Colorado at Denver in addition to her teaching and administration at CCCOnline.

Jan loves to take long walks, hike in the mountains, and read (especially science fiction and fantasy). She also loves dark chocolate and is always looking for new recipes to add to her collection.

Tonia Lock, Developmental Math Program Chair
Tonia has taught developmental Math for CCCOnline since 2008. She earned her Associate’s of Science degree from Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colorado, her Bachelor's degree in Mathematics Secondary Education from Regis University in Denver, and her Master's degree in Educational Technology from University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

Her interests are hunting, fishing and camping with her family and friends. She also enjoys reading, traveling, and being outside on a nice summer day.

Math News
Some of the projects underway in the Math department are transitioning more classes to digital content, increasing student participation in the STAR Center, and researching methods to improve student success in Math courses.

What’s Your Super Power?

As we count down to the CCCOnline Annual Conference, we’d like to ask you, our instructors:

What is YOUR super power and how does it help you to teach online?

Please respond in the companion Community discussion thread!

CCCOnline Annual Conference Information:
When: Sept. 30, 2011, 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Where: Arapahoe Community College

For more information, including registration instructions, please visit http://media.ccconline.org/ccco/Conference/index.html.

What We Learned at COLTT

Some of the CCCOnline academic staff attended COLTT (the Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology Conference) at CU-Boulder last week. Here’s what they reported:

The Best Ideas under the Sun
“One session of COLTT discussed the tool Voice Thread as used for enhancing student participation with each other in foreign language courses. Saturday after COLTT, I had the privilege of sitting in Sloan’s Lake Park with some of our vibrant Spanish instructors in a gathering arranged by Jeri Heinicke. Some of the instructors expressed interest in incorporating this tool in a couple of assignments for fall. We’ll let you know how it goes!”
-Karla Schorzman, Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities

Cool Tools!
“My experience of COLTT introduced me to or reminded me of some cool web sites and tools:

*Arounder.com, which provides panoramic views of various places around the world: http://www.arounder.com/
*VIMEO, which is like YouTube without the ads: http://vimeo.com/
*XTRANORMAL: http://www.xtranormal.com/
*Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/
*Zoomerang: http://www.zoomerang.com/
*Symphony of Science: http://www.symphonyofscience.com/”
-Karen Kaemmerling, Associate Dean of Social Sciences

“I learned about two interesting tools that have come on the scene recently.

The first is http://storify.com/; this is a tool to aid story authors using quick and easy drop-in content from other sites. The demo given is that you would intersperse text, online videos or other multimedia in way to tell a story. Their demos are interesting.

The second is http://instagrok.com/ which is a meta search engine for academic materials. It’s a Boulder, CO startup that looks very promising for students and instructors seeking high quality materials to embed into various works. It sorts from K-12 to college level postings by analyzing work usage, style, etc. and gives a word cloud so you can see at a glance the content without having to do a bunch of ‘go look and return to the index.’ ”
-Joseph Foss, AT Professional

Welcome to Our New Associate Dean of Science!

CCCOnline extends a warm welcome to Norma Hollebeke, our new Associate Dean of Science. Norma is new to the Colorado Community College System; she most recently served as Associate Professor of Biology at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.

Norma’s accomplishments include developing innovative curriculum to pave the way to student success in both face-to-face and online environments. She has an extensive Biology teaching background, having taught at El Paso Community College, University of Texas-El Paso, University of Toronto, and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College.

In addition, Norma has served as Director of the Dayton Urban STEM Teacher Academy (funded by the National Science Foundation) and past-Affiliate Director of Biomedical Science for Project Lead the Way, Ohio (an organization dedicated to improving programs and supporting future graduates in science and technology).

Norma earned her Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Master’s degree in Biology from the University of Texas-El Paso; her post-graduate research was at the University of Toronto. She enjoys hiking, camping, fishing, canoeing, gardening, photography, bird watching, entomology, and “herping” (searching for reptiles and amphibians).