Individual Growth and Development

Team and Institutional Context »

The Faculty as Change Agents program sought to support faculty Change Agents' growth as instructors and leaders so that they could have a greater impact on their students and in their programs, departments, institutions, and regional networks.

Chris DiLeonardo, De Anza College

The SAGE 2YC project has been a catalyst to re-engage me in the broader geoscience education community nationally. Earlier in my career I was very active in a number of national initiatives increasing the participation and role of 2YC geoscience faculty in geoscience education. Participation has led to more movement on my own educational initiatives in my own classes, including pushing collaboration approaches integrated with discovery-based learning. One major project has been revising and creating new case-based, partially collaborative exams for my Introductory Geology classes. These exams involve critical thinking, application of learned methods, and built in opportunities for collaborative learning. Additionally I have started revising and creating new hands-on, discovery-based activities using real data in my classes. This is especially true in my oceanography classes, developing activities for both in-class and online sections. As a result I have become active again in dissemination of my work in regional and national conferences. Overall the SAGE 2YC project has helped revitalize my engagement in geoscience education and re-focused me on the inclusion of cutting-edge practices within my own teaching.

Bridget James, De Anza College

One of the most influential changes that has happened for me over the course of this project is being able to collaborate openly with colleagues at the national, regional, and institutional level in a way that has not only changed many of my own teaching practices but has also taught me how to lead changes in others' approaches to teaching, particularly in an online classroom environment. I have really enjoyed applying the practices I have learned during our group activities and watching the changes in my students. For example, sharing scientist spotlights in various Earth Science careers during my lectures and then watching my students turn around and create their own scientist spotlights for discussion in the weekly forums for the class without any prompting from me. Another example is having my students take low stakes, high reward reading quizzes and then getting very thoughtful, constructive questions from them on topics related to their quizzes that will help them towards their exam scores. I've then shared these successes and much more with others at my institution, at regional workshops, and as a co-leader of the Online Teaching workshop at the Earth Educators' Rendezvous in July 2018.