Institutional Development
Reynolds Community College
As a single faculty on campus, it has been a challenge to create institutional change. However, whenever possible, I have been trying to share the content and impacts of the SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project. Through our Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, I have offered professional development workshops on assignment design that encourage more use of active learning strategies and careful consideration of alignment between course outcomes and assessment. I have also had the opportunity to teach the college orientation course for STEM majors in the last year, which allowed me to implement many of the metacognition activities, explore the concepts of science identity, and share study strategies with students. I have passed my class materials on to other faculty teaching this course. During the span of this project, I was appointed as the coordinator of the Honors Program at Reynolds. In this role, I have an opportunity to emphasize many of the teaching strategies highlighted by the Change Agents project that also align with research-based practices of honors pedagogy to my Honors faculty peers.
Thomas Nelson Community College
Creating institutional change is challenging. Like Karen, we have been working to share lessons learned from the SAGE 2YC work, and any opportunities related to the project, including our regional workshops. We have been able to present SAGE 2YC content during the annual Thomas Nelson professional development day, known as the Faculty Colloquium. The topics we've shared with our colleagues during these events have included how to infuse metacognitive strategies in courses, assignment design through considering levels of Bloom's taxonomy, and strategies for incorporating relevant workforce skills and career information in courses. Our metacognition and career workshops had the highest attendance, and each workshop has earned high marks from the faculty participants. In addition, a number of our Thomas Nelson colleagues have attended our regional workshops.
The greatest institutional change related to our SAGE 2YC work has been initial phases to start a Center for Teaching and Learning on our campus. Many of the ideas and resources being used to help determine initial offerings of the Center are the result of those learned about through SAGE 2YC. As Change Agents, we see this as a direct application of our new understanding of leadership attributes and how to strive for larger institutional impacts. From writing and submitting a proposal to help the institution better support the work of faculty in increasing student success and infusing evidence-based practices into courses as it relates to assignment design for the purpose of general education, the Center for Teaching and Learning is ultimately rooted in Change Agent work. The intersection of the SAGE 2YC work and the work we've been involved in with general education has resulted in the beginnings of an institutional change that has the ability to touch each faculty member on campus.