2010-11

There were three awards given by the eLearning Council in 2010-11 for Leadership and Innovation in eLearning. One award went to a team from Pierce College, lead by Krissy Kim for QM Research - eL Course Development and Review Practices. Another award went to David Lippman for eMath Projects Leadership. The third awardee was Judy Penn of Shoreline for creating and leading the Science eLearning Community.

QM Team members:

Mary L. Russell, Anthropology Faculty - Pierce College Fort Steilacoom

Kristina Young, English Part-time Faculty - Pierce College Puyallup

Emily Wood, Library Faculty - Pierce College Fort Steilacoom

Tara King, English Part-time Faculty - Pierce College Puyallup

James Johnson, CNE Part-time Faculty/Administrator - Pierce College Military Programs

Thomas Broxson, Geography Faculty - Pierce College Puyallup

Full text of the Pierce QM Team nomination:

"The Pierce College QM Team has been invaluable in our exploration and future planning for the use of QM as a tool supporting online/hybrid course development and regular review of eLearning courses we offer to students.

Given the availability of QM training for our two colleges provided by the SBCTC EL unit, our faculty members have taken responsibility for engaging in the process of defining how we will leverage QM Rubric access and licensing of training. Krissy and Kristina have jumped all the hoops to become master reviewers. Mary and Emily have done the same for independent trainer certification. Tara has self-funded her certified peer reviewer credentials. Last Summer Mary taught our first official APPQMR training as a topic strand during the district's Summer Institute for faculty. This fall, Emily has taught a second session and the team agreed to open the training to faculty at other system colleges.

There are two things that really make this team outstanding. First, they have fully engaged and taken responsibility for analyzing how Pierce College will use these tools to improve eLearning offerings. Second, they chose to do this in a structured, research based way to lend credibility and evidence to their recommendations for future use of the QM system.

The design of the research activity includes a series of surveys administered at key points in the QM process. Before taking the APPQMR training, faculty will respond to a survey asking why they felt QM would be of help and the course issues they hope to resolve. After the APPQMR training they will be surveyed again to see if they found value in the rubric system for support of their needs. For those that opt to have courses reviewed or serve on unofficial review teams of participant's courses, they will also complete another survey after their activities to capture value added from each of those experiences. Finally, faculty who make course adjustments after a peer review and complete the follow-up process with the master reviewer will do one more survey to gather the value found from that final step. It is the committee's hypothesis that use of the QM system will have value for our faculty at several levels of use. The result will be tabulated and form the justification for the local process we adopt and the research project will be shared at the 2011 QM conference.

The energy and commitment this team brings to the QM review at Pierce College speaks volumes about the quality of our faculty. Their hard work will lead to valuable results and everlasting change for our district. This work is truly deserving of this award; not only does it represent leadership at a district and state level, but their methods are employing amazing innovation!"

Full text of nomination of David Lippman:

"I would like to nominate David for the Leadership and Innovation Award based on his work for Math faculty state-wide. David was accepted as one of the Open Course Library developing faculty for Math 140. While that is one recent project, he has been involved in other related activities that support the teaching of Math with, or without, use of the developed course.

For starters, David has been the programmer and advocate for Washington Math Assessment Project. He took a math assessment tool and enhanced it to provide drill and testing, quizzes, question/answer discussion boards and grade/completion tracking organized around courses with section enrollment; he has essentially built a LMS for teaching Math.

Before the OCL project, David had prepared the initial version of an open Math textbook. That book was the foundation of his proposal for the OCL, but he has used the project to help find or prepare supporting materials, refine the presentation of content and build a complete package for Math instruction.

David has also used his work with the OCL as a spring board for spreading the word about open educational resources in general. He has become an advocate and resource for local and regional faculty. He participated in an in-service on OER and brought that learning back to the district, hosting a workshop for faculty in all disciplines.

Finally, just today (Nov 9), David hosted a viewing and discussion of David Wiley's video – the Penn State Keynote on Open Education - Openness, Disaggregation, and the Future of Education. He even baked cookies! A group of engaged faculty, staff and administrators, including the Fort Steilacoom President, came to the viewing and interacted on this stimulating topic.

I believe the progression of activities, from focused Math support resource, to creating an open textbook, to developing an open Math course, to facilitating a college discussion on the challenging topic of change in the community college, epitomize his unique blend of innovation and leadership deserving of the ELC Award."

Full text of the nomination of Judy Penn and the Shoreline Science eLearning Community:

"Why I Am Nominating Judy Penn:

At a recent meeting of one of Shoreline Community College’s (SCC) faculty learning communities (FLC)--the “Science eLearning Community” (SELC)--I was so moved by the frank, open-minded, and constructive conversation about online labs that I nearly was in tears. I have been a professional in the eLearning field for thirteen years and a challenge that has persisted in the field is how to offer science labs online. At SCC, I have worked with Deans and talked with individual faculty members about the need to create more science lab courses online so that our online AA transfer students have more choices and opportunities when meeting that requirement of our degree. These efforts have resulted in only two online lab Science courses for our students.

During that recent SELC meeting, I experienced the power of faculty assembling together as a community in a comfortable, but structured learning environment. Faculty were having candid and constructive conversations with each other about their current practices (i.e. doing labs face-to-face) and how they might contemplate change in those practices (i.e. asking “what is a lab,” “what are the learning outcomes associated with a lab experience,” and “what would that look like online”). I believe the candidness was a result of the faculty coming from similar disciplines (Math and Science) and talking the same language; the constructive tenor of the conversation had to do with the fact that the learning community was initiated and directed by a trusted colleague, a fellow Science teacher. It is from that context that I am pleased to nominate Judy Penn for the Leadership & Innovation in eLearning Award. Her personal initiative to engage her fellow Science and Math colleagues in learning more about online education certainly fulfills the award’s focus on “the mentoring of eLearning faculty.”

The Making of a FLC Faculty Leader:

Last year, SCC had one FLC, as part of the SBCTC grant-funded initiative. The FLC was led by myself, was open to all faculty, and focused on quality in online learning through the lens of Quality Matters. As a member of that learning community, Judy took several eLearning training sessions through Quality Matters and Sloan-C, including ""Improving Your Online Course,” “Video and Audio Tools for Teaching and Learning,” and the three-course series on “Designing a Blended Course.” She presented to the FLC on what she learned in these courses and actively participated in the presentations that others made.

This year, Judy replicated the faculty learning community model but targeted that effort to her instructional Division of Math and Science. Consequently, this year’s FLC had an intimate, collegial feel right from the start so there was less of a need to do community building and the group could go right to work on discipline-specific issues in eLearning.

Description of the Project:

The SELC meets for an hour and a half every other week in a computer lab for discussion and to do hands-on work. As the facilitator, Judy has created a Science eLearning Community organization in Blackboard: http://shoreline.blackboard.com . (Access this course by logging in with username: selcteststudent and password: selcteststudent.) About ten faculty members from various Math and Science disciplines (including Biology, Oceanography, Geology, Math, and Chemistry) meet. To date, they have reviewed and learned about various digital resources such as Gapminder, an online statistical tool that Judy is using in one of her Biology courses. They have studied Tegrity, with the help of our eLearning Faculty-In-Residence person. Most of them took a two-week, online workshop offered by Sloan-C on “Teaching and Learning with Online Labs.” They have compared screencasting software (Tegrity, Camtasia, etc) and discussed the pros and cons of online homework platforms.

Replicability:

Encourage a faculty member to start and lead a FLC. If that doesn’t get traction, start a FLC at your campus with the stated goal that one or more of the faculty members will continue on the next year and will lead the effort. Judy is leading the SELC even without SBCTC grant funding (she did not apply). Logistically, the key to good attendance at a FLC is finding a time when many faculty are available and making it easy for them to attend.

Impact:

SCC needs more online science lab courses for transfer students. At that recent SELC meeting, it was the first time that I heard many faculty say, “ Well, I could offer this lab class online for non-science majors,” or “I could develop a lab class on [topic x] for non-science majors.” The impact of the SELC’s candid, problem-solving conversations will be great for SCC online students in that it will broaden their opportunities to meet the lab science requirement of our online AA transfer degree.

In Summary:

Judy’s interest in mentoring her colleagues by starting and leading an FLC demonstrates the leadership skills that this award recognizes."