Enthusiasm as a Part of Professional Development .... 1Tammy Peery Wins State Award .................................... 3From the Editor .................... 3From the CTL Director ......... 4 Mark Your Calendar for Professional Development Saturday Series (PDSS) ........ 4Writing in the Disciplines at Montgomery College: Past,Present, and Future............... 5Quote of the Month ............... 5 How Can I Get My Students Involved in Meaningful Learning ............................... 6 CTL Workshops ..................... 7 Bringing Web 2.0 Ideologyto the Classroom ................... 8Guidelines for Contributionsto Focus on Faculty .............. 8Teaching Our Digital Natives .................................. 9

Montgomery College

Center for Teaching and Learning

April 2010

Focus on Faculty is published by the CTL to offer faculty a place to share information about teaching and learning.

Inside This Issue

Enthusiasm as a Part of Professional Development

by Stephen D. Cain, Instructional Dean, Natural & Applied Sciences, Busi-ness, Management & Information Sciences, Takoma Park/Silver Spring

“Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.”~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and philosopherYour enthusiasm makes a difference.No matter what subject you teach, no matter whether the course is advanced or developmental,no matter how well prepared the students are, your enthusiasm makes a difference. Studentsrespond to a faculty member who is enthusiastic about the subject matter, about teaching,and about students succeeding. Enthusiasm is contagious.Teaching isn’t just a job. It’s a profession. Most community college faculty have come intothe profession to do good and be a force of change in the world. They embrace the chang-ing-lives mission of Montgomery College and live out that mission every time they interactwith students. It is not uncommon forfaculty to cheer on their students asthey complete a course, complete aprogram, or complete a degree beyondMontgomery College.But who cheers on the faculty? How dofaculty continue to grow themselves?The answer: professional develop-ment.

Professional Development

At certain times we pause to re

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ectabout our own professional develop-ment. One example occurs during theself-evaluation of the faculty perfor-mance review. In this exercise, faculty members are asked to list professional developmentactivities and write about how those activities have supported their work.Thinking about professional development during a performance review is good, but it’s notenough. Re

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ection about growing as a professional must be an ongoing process, one that issparked daily by experiences with students and with colleagues.There are at least three major types of professional development activities. The avenues afaculty member chooses to pursue depend on unique personal factors and needs.

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Publication by Montgomery College Faculty

2Those three types are:content knowledge (what we teach)pedagogy (how we teach it)the “industry” (where we teach)Each of these is important and is explored further in the fol-lowing paragraphs.

Content Knowledge

To enhance content knowledge, many faculty belong to profes-sional organizations in their

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eld. After completing a master’sor a doctorate and launching a teaching career, faculty are ex-perts in their

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elds. Every

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eld of study is constantly creatingnew research and new knowledge, and faculty bene

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t fromstaying aware of developments. That awareness manifests itself in improved course content for students and sometimes newcourses or even new degrees. We often think of curriculum asset and

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nal (especially after successfully completing a cur-riculum proposal process), but curriculum is a living thing.There are many ways to develop content knowledge. Attending aconference of your professional organization is a good start. Read-ing the organization’s journals and newsletters is another. Net-working with individuals within the organization is also helpful.

Pedagogy

Experience is a powerful teacher. A faculty member new to theclassroom may come with ideas and philosophies about howteaching and learning will occur, only to have some of thosenotions challenged after working with real students. Theseexperiences often lead to creative re-shaping of assumptionsand methodological experimentation, usually for the better.A second-year teacher is almost always better than he/shewas in the

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rst year. There’s often continuous improvementevery year during the career of a conscientious professional.Understanding what is happening in the brains of stu-dents during the learning process is a challenge for everyeducator. Brain science is more sophisticated now thanever before and offers more potential into understand-ing how learning occurs. Remembering what it is like notto know something is a powerful mindset for a teacher.Students’ internal motivation is critical to their success.Having an appreciation for things to say (or not say) andthings to do (or not do) in class can impact motivation.A famous songwriter once said, “you can’t start a

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re with1.2.3. out a spark.” Students have to have an inner spark, but facultycan in

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uence whether or not it explodes in

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ame. Technol-ogy continues to shape and re-shape the teaching/learningexperience with new possibilities for faculty/student com-munications, research, andaccess to information.These include softwareand Internet instructionaltools, social networkingservices, and podcasting.No one faculty memberhas to be an expert in all of these things, but everyoneshould be aware of theircapabilities and use themas appropriate to increasestudent engagement.There are many opportunities for professional developmentin pedagogy, including attending professional educationalorganizations’ conferences and reading their journals. In addi-tion, Montgomery College’s Center for Teaching and Learningoffers many relevant workshops and programs.

The “Industry”

We who are in the higher education “industry” provide acritical service for the advancement of individuals and of society in general. Higher education is a completely dis-cretionary activity; no one must avail themselves of whatwe offer, yet millions seek us out every day. There are over1,100 community colleges in the U.S. and more than twiceas many universities. Developing knowledge of how theseorganizations operate and evolve is another important aspectof professional development.Every organization has certain structural components thatcreate ways for people to interact with each other. Differentunits have different responsibilities, and people within theunits have some subset of the unit’s role in the organization.Every faculty member, staff member, and administrator is amember of a team. Growing in understanding of how teammembers work together effectively and how a college operateseffectively is a matter of organizational development.The professional development opportunities for learning aboutteams, communication, organizations, and leadership all fallunder this category. All employees, but especially those inleadership roles, can bene

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t from programs aimed at orga-nizational development. In addition, many higher educationprofessional organizations exist to enhance the understandingof the “business” side of higher education. The opportunitiesthese provide through their conferences and journals are alsovaluable.

A famous songwriteronce said, “you can’tstart a

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re withouta spark.” Studentshave to have an innerspark, but facultycan in

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uence whetheror not it explodes in

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ame.

Montgomery College Center for Teaching and Learning April 2010

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Publication by Montgomery College Faculty

Engaging in Professional Development

Although featured prominently above, conferences and journals are hardly the only methods by which to engage inprofessional development. There are many options, and thosethat provide the biggest bang for the buck should be the

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rstto be considered in tight budget times. Some examples includeonline seminars or recorded workshops on CD. Occasionally, aconference speaker will come to an institution for a fraction of the cost of sending many faculty to the conference. Closer tohome, our own CTL has a wide variety of excellent offerings.And when it comes to journals, the MC Library has a col-lection of journals, mostly electronic, that is second to none.Many professional organizations offer blogs or other com-munication venues to connect members who share ideas aboutimportant issues. Those networking opportunities offer manyinsights from colleagues in similar roles at other institutions.

Conclusion

Whether you’re involved in a performance review or not,think about professional development. Examine your owninterests, your own strengths and weaknesses, and seek outopportunities to grow professionally, whether it be in the areaof content knowledge, in the area of pedagogy, or in the areaof higher education. As you grow, you will kindle the spark of your own enthusiasm for all you do. And that enthusiasmis going to catch on.

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Montgomery College Center for Teaching and Learning April 2010

From the Editor

by Bryant Davis, Editor, CTL Newsletter

It seems remarkable that only a few short weeks ago we were immersed in the greatest snowfall our area has known. Andnow we are within site of graduation. Along the way, the snow has melted, the trees have leafed out, and the days havegrown longer and warmer, an amazing transformation. Just as the world around us has altered, so have we. We, who havededicated our lives to teaching, have come to

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nd that we have also changed. We are not the educators we were at thebeginning of the semester, and our hope is that we have become all the stronger, all the wiser, all the better.This issue of

Focus on Faculty

addresses professional development. Steve Cain, Instructional Dean at Takoma Park/SilverSpring, discusses a crucial part of our profession—enthusiasm. Miller Newman, CTL Director, tells us how we can designour own professional development by drawing from resources here at the College. While other resources have becomeless available, the CTL still hosts a variety of workshops and offers a number of services that can help us more becomethe educators we want to be.In other articles, Christina Devlin, English Professor, discusses one of the resources here at the College, which is the Writingin the Disciplines Initiative. Joseph Nwoye, Instructional Designer for the CTL, answers the question “How do I get mystudent involved in meaningful learning?” And Dru Ryan, the Coordinator of the CTL, looks at bringing outside technol-ogy into the classroom, something almost all of us struggle with. Are

Twitter

Facebook

, and other social networking siteshindrances in the classroom or helps? With the proliferation of computers and cell phones, we bene

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t by knowing moreabout technology. In that way, Dru’s article brings a little professional development to us all. The students we teach noware very different from the students we

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rst learned to teach. Just as the world around us transforms, so do we, and so doesthe world in our classrooms. Here’s to a brighter day for all.

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Tammy Peery Wins State Award ForDistance Learning

by Bryant Davis, Professor of English, German-town

“Twenty-eight, pregnant, and online”: that’s how TammyPeery describes her foray into teaching by distance learn-ing. That was 11 years ago. Now, Tammy, an Englishprofessor and department chair at Germantown, is theMaryland State’s Distance Educator of the Year, joiningmany of her colleagues at Montgomery College who haverecently won state awards for teaching. The Maryland Dis-tance Learning Association (MDLA) bestowed the awardMarch 4th in Baltimore.Tammy began teaching by distance learning at the sug-gestion of Gary Pittenger, an English professor who hassince retired. Understanding Tammy and her husband werestarting a family, he urged her to teach online so her timewould be more

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exible. That may have been how Tammybegan, but she has never slowed down. She co-chairs theMontgomery College Distance Learning Task Group,presents frequently at workshops, has developed a modelfor the college’s common courses, has reviewed otherclasses as part of the Quality Matters (QM) program, andhad one of her own classes approved as a Quality Mattersclass. Oh, and she and her husband Emerson also have twochildren. Congratulations to Tammy!