from Inquiry, Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 1998, 79-84
© Copyright 1998 Virginia Community College System
Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique - good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.
Parker Palmer
The Background
Teaching is our mission in community colleges. Teaching is not just relegated to the classroom but occurs in hallways, in parking lots, in stairwells, through television screens, over the Net, in counseling and admissions offices, and among students, faculty, classified staff, and administrators. The members of the VCCS Professional Development Committee recognized a hole in the VCCS Professional Development Initiative: no program focused specifically on the enhancement of teaching. The inception of the Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence was a two-year process involving VCCS Professional Development Committee members, VCCS Presidents, Deans, Provosts, and 1997-98 Administrative and Instructional Leaders. Great tribute goes to Dr. Don Bartholomay (SWVCC), who as chair of the Emerging Programs Subcommittee, provided the leadership for practical implementation.
Six VCCS Professional Development Initiative programs continue to hold the promise of improved teaching and curricula through peer interaction, cooperative learning, and scholarship. The Peer Group Conference Program is well-received with high marks for professional revitalization and for attendance, with close to 2000 annual participants. The success of this VCCS-sponsored Program is dependent on each discipline and specialty group assuming the responsibility for a conference agenda created by the peer planning group. Faculty and staff now have an opportunity to meet for a professional development experience with regularity and consistency.
The Research Grant Awards provide opportunities to explore, initiate projects, develop products, engage in scholarly research, present at conferences, write articles, integrate instructional technology and invigorate the learning experience for faculty and students. Supporting creative talents and hard work through reassigned time and reimbursable funding acknowledges personal investment. Close to 700 individuals have submitted proposals for consideration, and almost 400 have been funded. Four remaining Initiative programs include Teleconference Support, Learning Technology Skills, Leadership, and Classified Staff Professional Development. These programs continue to unfold as VCCS faculty and staff recognize the various opportunities presented by the VCCS Professional Development Initiative. VCCS Professional Development Committee members work to integrate existing Initiative programs into the fabric of their community college life.
The seventh program in the Initiative is now launched: The Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence. The Centers focus on cross-institutional, cross-disciplinary exchanges among community college faculty dedicated to examining the art and practice of teaching through professional interaction and critical reflection. Centers are modeled after the highly acclaimed "Institute for the Teacher as Learner," a SCHEV-funded project serving faculty at Germanna, Lord Fairfax, and Northern Virginia Community Colleges. The lessons learned from the model project were numerous and cannot be easily summarized here; however, the following provides valuable insight into their process of discovery:
Though the Institute’s activities centered on four main topics, all eventually melded into each other; one could not, for instance, entirely or rightly separate consideration of critical thinking or an authority shift from elements of diversity, whether in learning or in culture. Of the four topics, that which surfaces for most is the "authority shift," the teachers finding that to understand students better and to reconceive almost any new teaching strategy, they had first to recognize the need to question their role as authority figures in the classroom.
Paul J. McVeigh,
The Institute for Teacher as Learner,
Northern Virginia Community College
Academic Bulletin No.2
The Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence are necessary additions to the VCCS Professional Development Initiative. The faculty who chose to engage in the Institute for Teachers as Learners and the faculty members who comprise the VCCS Professional Development Committee are motivated to create a dialogue about teaching and learning in the community college. The motivation for discussion is strengthened by an awareness of the complexity of the role of teacher/learner, the challenges posed by a diverse and demanding student population, and the dynamic of a continually changing world. The Regional Centers hold the promise of a timeout for thinking through issues, for learning from one another, for nourishing battered souls, and discussing effective and ineffective teaching strategies.
The Rationale
The vast majority of our VCCS faculty are between 40 and 59 years of age and have been with the System for more than 12 years. In an academic year, less than 5% of full-time positions open in a System that serves more than 200,000 students. Faculty have a singular focus on teaching. The average teaching load is five courses per semester; many faculty also teach a one-course overload. The question is not how to prompt faculty to teach more, but rather how to ensure faculty teach enthusiastically, with the latest discipline knowledge, instructional practices, and technological advances. The redefined classroom requires pedagogical transformation, and the Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence are poised to examine and assist with this impending transformation.
There are seven principles that guide the direction and unfolding of Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence:
.produce a co-learner classroom environment
.discover the art of teaching as a developmental process
.cultivate the "reflective practitioner" approach to teaching
.shift classroom responsibility to students
.build on collective ethical wisdom
.advance instructional methodology through experimentation
.advocate regional, cross-discipline collegiality
The Center Concept
The Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence intend to provide a forum for dialogue and reflection by focusing on issues that deeply affect community college faculty. The Regional Centers will focus on the enhancement of teaching in the VCCS through the following:
.regional colloquia for VCCS faculty
.instructional leadership
.Inquiry, the VCCS/VCCA journal focused on teaching and learning
.listservs developed by faculty learners
.mentoring programs to enhance teaching effectiveness
.clearinghouses for articles, monographs, and resources related to community college
teaching and learning
Five faculty members have been appointed by the Chancellor to serve as Chairs from our community colleges. They are responsible for the implementation of the five virtual Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence for a two-year period commencing in January 1998 through December 1999. Chairs representing five geographic regions will provide leadership and direction for the five Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence in Virginia. Each Chair receives six credits of reassigned time each fall and spring semesters. Selection as Center chairs honors both the faculty members and their respective colleges.
The process of chair selection was initiated in January 1997 when the Chancellor asked VCCS Presidents to nominate highly committed and qualified faculty for the administrative and instructional leadership experiences. Nominations were also solicited from VCCS Professional Development Committee members, who reviewed and selected the chairs from an outstanding candidate pool. The Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence, officially launched on January 30, 1998, promise a dynamic outcome with the following five chairs:
Dr. Rosalyn M. King
Northern Virginia Region = NVCC, LFCC, GCC
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Northern Virginia Community College/LO
Dr. Alfred R. Hoffman
Southwest Virginia Region = MECC, VHCC, SWVCC, WCC, NRCC
Division Chair, Science and Engineering Technologies
Virginia Highlands Community College
Dr. Donald R. Spell
Mid-Central Virginia Region = JSRCC, JTCC, SSVCC, RCC, PVCC
Assistant Professor, Biology
Southside Virginia Community College/Daniel
Dr. Susan O. Coffey
Central Virginia Region = VWCC, DSLCC, PHCC, DCC, CVCC, BRCC
Professor, English, Speech, Human Relations
Central Virginia Community College
Dr. Thomas L. Long
Tidewater Region = TCC, TNCC, PDCCC, ESCC
Associate Professor, English
Thomas Nelson Community College
The Chair Responsibilities
The five chairs will be charting the course for the Regional Centers, based on input from the faculty within their region. Learning will be guided by the needs of each faculty group and will concentrate on the art of teaching by providing active learning experiences. Sample colloquia issues and questions must include the student-faculty relationship, the changing role of faculty, student/teacher responsibilities, case studies, collaborative learning, learning styles, critical thinking, teaching/learning vignettes, ethical issues, community-building in the classroom, learner-centered instruction, diversity, and assessment outcomes. The chairs will do the follwing:
.ascertain the needs and interests of colleagues through survey and
focus groups from the community colleges in the region.
.connect and encourage participation from faculty in the geographic region and assist each
community college within the region to provide a central location for faculty resources.
.plan for 1998 spring semester and the next academic year with the establishment of a
calendar for colloquia on topics related to teaching/learning for community college
faculty.
.contact present and former instructional leaders from the region and alert them to
Regional Center objectives and enlist their support and participation.
.host three colloquia per year (two in the spring 1998 semester) to encourage a mutually
supportive learning environment for VCCS faculty.
.collaborate within the region to extend benefits by using compressed video, video taping,
and/or audio taping of the fifteen colloquia.
.model effective teaching in each colloquium.
.advertise and coordinate activities in the virtual Regional Centers for Teaching
Excellence to colleagues.
.design and produce an annual evaluative report on their Regional Center for Teaching
Excellence: effectiveness, viability, next steps, composite of faculty reviews for
colloquium, and future content. Report progress to the VCCS Professional Development
Committee at May meetings.
.participate in the planning and delivery of the annual Instructional Leadership Seminar
in concert with the Vice Chancellor of Academic Services and Research.
Chairs will have a budget of $1000 per year to support programs, including speaker fees, breakout refreshments, teleconferences, and publicity costs for colloquia.
The shape and form of each Regional Center may be different depending on the needs and interests of the faculty within the regional community colleges. As a decentralized program, each Regional Center is administered locally with exemplary faculty chairs who tend to the identified needs within their region and program accordingly for maximum benefit.
The Anticipated Outcomes
Members from the VCCS Professional Development Committee are hopeful that the Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence will provide an opportunity for valuable exchanges about teaching and learning within our community colleges. Creating a vital, thriving learning community is the work of every student, faculty member, classified staff member, and administrator. A learning community is a group of people who continually seek to expand their capacity to produce effective results that make a difference. Unchartered territory lies ahead for higher education. My belief is that this territory is better navigated together than alone since no clear map charts the course. Becoming better teachers together breaks down classroom/office isolation through collegiality.
I hope that you will ask if you can assist your Regional chair in start-up activities, plan to attend Center colloquia, and participate in an established and recommended listserv. Many opportunities exist through the VCCS Professional Development Initiative. On behalf of your dedicated VCCS Professional Development Committee, I challenge you to take full advantage of these opportunities to improve teaching and learning for our deserving community college students.
Work Cited
Barr, Robert B. & Tagg, John (1995). From "Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education." Change, 7, 12 - 25.