eLearning Advisory Committee

It is the eLearning’s department’s mission that our dynamic team supports student success and provides innovative and culturally responsive solutions in collaboration with students, faculty, and staff in the creation, implementation, assessment, and promotion of high-quality programs, courses, and opportunities across all learning modalities and college-supported technology tools.” To accomplish this, we must collaborate with faculty. Therefore, we are developing an eLearning Advisory Committee at each college and invite faculty and staff to participate.

The purpose of the committees is to provide a venue for faculty to communicate and collaborate with the eLearning Department to ensure faculty perspectives are considered when making district-wide decisions regarding the programs and services we provide. The committees will be co-chaired by each college’s District Distance Learning Faculty Representative and an Instructional Designer from that college. The District Distance Learning Commitee (DDLC) is responsible for determining plans for use of DDLC Professional Development Funds Budget and advising on relevant eLearning policies.

Each campus has its own committee, and each will hold their first meetings this month, here are the details for each campus:

• North

• Thursday, November 18. 12-1pm

• https://zoom.us/j/94036949979

• Central

• Monday, November 15, 2:30-3:30pm

• https://zoom.us/j/93325942347 (Passcode: eLearning)

• South

• Tuesday, November 23, 3:00pm - 4:00pm

• https://zoom.us/j/93771921927 (Meeting ID: 937 7192 1927)

Contact eLearning

When to Contact eLearning

• 8:30 - 7:30 PM – Monday – Thursday

• 8:30 - 4:00 PM – Fridays

How to Contact eLearning

• Email: eLearning@seattlecolleges.edu

• Phone: 206/934-4000

• Chat: https://www.seattlecolleges.edu/programs/elearning

• Make an Appointment with an Instructional Designer or Technologist: https://elearning-seattle-colleges.youcanbook.me/

Teaching and the Holidays

As we come into the holiday season, we want to recognize that holidays can be personal, affirming, challenging, isolating, and comforting, or even all at once. There are several major religious, cultural, and national holidays that have either recently occurred or are coming up soon, including Samhain and All Hallow’s, Diwali, Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day, Hannukah, Veteran’s Day, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and more. It is important to think about how our students, faculty and staff observe their holidays.

The Seattle Colleges will be closed in observance of Thanksgiving (November 25^th) and Native American Heritage Day (November 26^th), but does not institutionally observe many of the other holidays on this list. As we approach the final few weeks of Fall quarter, eLearning encourages you to reflect, and to ask your students to reflect, on how the holiday season impacts our communities throughout the Seattle Colleges:

1. If you acknowledge any of these holidays to your students, also acknowledge what it means for you. Discussing your holidays, and providing space for others to share their holidays and perspectives, can help provide context and understanding for the complex relationships we can all have with the holiday season. For Thanksgiving specifically, the holiday comes with pain for indigenous communities as the holiday recognizes the coming of white settlers, which includes the atrocities of colonialization.

2. If you acknowledge the Thanksgiving holiday, also acknowledge what it means. Providing a Happy Thanksgiving, or discussing it, with some context that you acknowledge its many meanings recognizes that you understand how complex some of the feelings might be toward the holiday. Remember that not all holidays are celebrations, so check whether “Happy X” is an appropriate greeting before you send it.

3. For holidays that you do not celebrate, acknowledge that others do. Find out what holidays are observed in your classroom and work environments. Offer a holiday greeting and ask students what the holiday means for them and their needs.

4. Recognize that Thanksgiving especially is a celebration of a specific historical perspective that contributes to the ongoing destruction, displacement, disenfranchisement, and cultural conflation of our Native communities. This can be done in many ways, including having students discover whose land they occupy through Native Land, have them engage with the Thanksgiving Address and the ways that the Haudenosaunee give thanks to the environment, have students rethink the histories and stereotypes they have been taught and to engage with Indigenous people’s perspectives. Beyond the holidays themselves, make sure you have students directly engage with contributions of Indigenous people in your field, and remember that the contributions of BIPOC should be recognized throughout the year—not just during specific months or holidays.

5. Recognize how COVID has impacted holidays, especially those holidays with a focus on community or gatherings. Many students, faculty and staff are traveling for the first time after almost two years of virtual celebrations, missed gatherings, and isolation from their communities. Think about how that might impact schedules, ask your students what they need, and be flexible, when possible, especially for students whose holiday celebrations do not come during the break.

6. For many of our students, the holiday season also brings about a lot of stress. Students with complicated family dynamics, students who are observing holidays while grieving for lost family members, students whose jobs involve holiday shopping, students who must take personal time off to observe their holidays and may miss class or work, all these students (and more) deal with an increase in stress. Think about how your class can support these students without sacrificing your class needs.

Instructional Designers at eLearning are here to help you with creating accessible courses/content and ready to help with all of your teaching needs. Please contact us at eLearning@seattlecolleges.edu or set up a time with us via our book me site. We can also be contacted individually via email:

Kathleen Chambers (North): Kathleen.chambers@seattlecolleges.edu

Sanja Kadrić (Central): Sanja.kadric@seattlecolleges.edu

Robin Leeson (Central): Robin.leeson@seattlecolleges.edu

Julian Barr (South): Julian.barr@seattlecolleges.edu

THE LEAD PROGRAM FOR FACULTY DEVELOPMENT IS LIVE AND OPEN!

To learn more about the program, catalog, schedule, and how you can earn a $500 stipend, please watch the video to the right.

To learn more about the LEAD program or to register, please visit the registration page. If you have questions about the program, reach out to one of our Instructional Designers—we’re happy to help!

PROMOTED LEAD COURSE: FACILITATING ENGAGING DISCUSSION BOARDS

The eLearning Education Across the District, or LEAD, faculty development program is continuing! Several faculty attended our live session on Teaching Synchronous Online Sessions, and we’ve had lots of registration for our workshops on accessibility, instructional design, and Canvas. Coming up, we have one of our favorite workshops, Facilitating Engaging Discussion Boards. This workshop is a fully online, asynchronous exploration of discussion boards or forums, why they do and don’t work, and what instructors can do to get the most out of them. Participants will spend a lot of time in discussion with their classmates and our facilitator, and will end the workshop with a structure for creating more engaging online discussions. This workshop will start on January 24, 2022 and end on February 4,2022, with discussion happening throughout the workshop and no required Zoom sessions. Register today—the more participants we have, the richer the discussion experience can be!