"where faculty are committed to teaching and serving students; where enthusiasm and morale are high; and where faculty professionalism and dedication find full expression, working in harmony with students, staff, and administration to fulfill the mission of the college"
Feel free to reply directly to Ephrem and/or comment on this post.
I will be presenting Bb workshops beginning next week and running through the summer. You tell me what topics to include.
Select the number(s) of the Blackboard features listed below that you would like to learn about or review. Reply to this email with those numbers, separated by commas, or send me a separate email with that information
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
I’m off for the summer with my grades all turned in as of this morning. TTT slipped my mind.
Are your grades done?
Are you like me and planning to do a cost/benefit analysis of your teaching this past semester?
Would you be interested in creating course sites across the district? I was toying with the idea of doing this for the courses I teach often. The site would serve as a storehouse for the activities/handouts/lessons I use (and invariably recreate until I realize that I’ve already made them previously). Just a thought…
See you at (DW)FDW! Look out for info on the local portion of FDW which is hopefully not right around the corner, the Wed-Fri of Faculty Development Week, Aug. 8-10.
Take a break from your grading (or from celebrating being done grading) and stop by the Emerald Loop between 4 and ? for a chance to hang out with fellow faculty. Our distinguished prof. will be there to sign autographs and read from his favorite great books around 4:15. If the event has a good turnout and goes well, then it is co-sponsored by CAST and HWFC. If not, then it is sponsored by the Office of Instruction (just kidding; phew…is anyone else a little slap happy).
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
Though not the most animated speaker, what he has to say is very interesting. This is a somewhat selfish post on my part given my admiration for Noam Chomsky. It’s rather long and I don’t expect you to be able to watch this in its entirety this week. But for a nice little snippet, fast forward to 1:20:30 for some interesting discussion about open courseware, online education (and student engagement0) in general. See you all Thursday at 4 at Emerald.
There’s one week to go. In keeping with tradition, this coming Thursday faculty (and anyone else for that matter) are invited to meet at Emerald Loop (right around the corner on Wabash) at 4 to celebrate the end of another semester. This event is co-sponsored by Faculty Council and CAST. With any luck, our distinguished professor will make an appearance, at which point we can raise a glass in his honor.
See you all there. Have a great final week of the semester.
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
The semester is near its conclusion. Have you hit the wall (like a marathon runner) or are you more geared up than the start? Enough of my questions, how about you ask some. For FDW this year, we’re toying with the idea of having an session in which we answer our burning questions about teaching at HW (and CCC) and hopefully have them answered by one another or an expert. Here’s one to get the ball rolling.
When a student repeats a course after getting a D or F, does the new (presumably better) grade trump (for GPA calculation purposes) the old grade or do both factor into the final GPA?
Post yours here so we can include them in this session. Of course, if someone knows the answer, he or she is more than welcome to answer here. Thanks and remember that today’s the last CAST meeting of the semester in 1046 and next Thursday will be the last CASTivity, occurring off-campus.
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
We didn’t want to eclipse the post about PhiloDave so we waited until Wed. to post the TTT. Congrats to our distinguished professor from your friends in CAST. The honor is truly well-deserved! Bravo!
Anyhow, since it’s Wednesday at 4:44 a.m., this is no longer a TTT. That’s ok because it’s brief. CAST got a special delivery yesterday. Some of the books we requested are in. Come to 1046 to check them out, and if you’d like, check them out if you catch my drift. In the meantime, click here to see the list of books. The link is a Google doc. If you’re planning to borrow a book, please fill out the Google doc via the link above, here again. I’ll also will soon have a paper version of the doc given that the computer in 1046 doesn’t save anything, including bookmarks, once restarted. Buona lettura!
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
We’re going to use this space to advertise two very exciting CASTivities happening next week and an initiative.
1. Next Tues. 4/24 is CAST’s first Handout Swap. Stop by 1046 between 3 and 4:30 (right after next week’s CAST meeting) with or without a handout (yes paper) that you’ve given out to your students that you really like. It can be an assignment, a rubric, a project, etc…
2. Next Thurs. 4/26 at 3:30 is CAST’s monthly food-oriented event, Drink and Think. We’ll discuss items that are very relevant for the end of the semester, exams, essays and extra credit. We’ll meet in 1046 and then possibly venture elsewhere to grab a juice, or coffee.
3. CAST wants to donate books to Open Books. Drop any unwanted books off in 1046, in the US Postal Service box next to the SMART board.
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
It’s all downhill from here. This is not to say that it’s getting worse, but rather to say that before we know it, another semester will be in the books.
For part of today’s TTT, look up at the post right above. The second part is a quick story. Here goes.
Since people are possibly reading, I figured I’d share a quick story from yesterday. I walked into my first class of the day energetic, ready to finish the semester on a high note. I was hit with a wall of exhaustion and what smelled like sadness and resignation to be back after the break. Despite my best efforts and worst jokes, I just couldn’t break through the wall. I was also missing about 1/4 of my class. At the end of both of my classes, students nearly knocked each other over getting to the door. I share this not brag about how dull my classes must have been today, but rather to see if anyone else had a similar experience today. I remain optimistic and will chalk today up to post-break shock.
Finally, the last bits are some quick adverts.
1) TIE 2012 is almost upon us. Join us this Friday at 8 a.m. for all the technology you can handle is roughly 5 hours. Registration is from 8-8:45 with an early bird raffle at 8:30 and some welcomes at 8:45. There will be 3 rounds of breakouts (one of which will be done by your CAST coordinators) and several other done by HW faculty. There will be lunch. The registration deadline was yesterday but you can try this link or let me (hwc_CAST@ccc.edu) or Ephrem (erabin@ccc.edu) know you’re coming.
2) Last but not least, in case you missed this great news before the break from the CAST website.
Faculty Development Week 2012 is right around the corner, sort of. It will occur, most likely, 2 weeks before the start of classes (Aug. 6-10). It is the biggest event that CAST is tasked with organizing. As such, we will work very hard to make sure that it is fantastic once again. Please complete the survey to help us gather some info from you. Thanks and enjoy your well-deserved break.
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
Tuesday Teaching Talk is a regular feature which, as the name implies, is an opportunity to talk explicitly about teaching (and learning) in the practical and philosophical sense that happens on, you guessed it, Tuesday. Hold on to your hats. The CAST coordinators (yes there are 2 of us) are tasked with supplying TTTs to you. Look for questions, videos, tips, etc. Enjoy!
Check out this VoiceThread to have an online discussion of What the Best College Teachers Do, even if you haven’t read it. My apologies for not embedding; wordpress is out to get me. I’ll figure out a work around when midterm grades aren’t due. Instructions are provided. VT is a great, fun tool. The only stipulation is that you’ll have to register. You might find yourself using it for your class. It does embed in Bb.
PhiloDave
cnepstad
mathissexy
itejeda
writingisthinking
Kamran Swanson
Realist
Matt U.
domenicorocco
speechfromtheblock
casthwc
