Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

RLO Form

The WITS department is still working on the development of a searchable learning object repository specific to Critical Thinking activities. The process has been postponed due to other projects taking precedence.

QEC Meeting

Instructional Technologists Nancy Munce, Karen Hesting, Tim Godcharles, and Alan Shapiro attended the QEC meeting held on September 25, 2009. WITS would like to stay involved in the plans for Professional Development and the possible creation of Center for Teaching & Learning.

Fall Critical Thinking Institute

Instructional Technologists Alan Shapiro and Tim Godcharles were able to attend the Fall Critical Thinking Institute on October 9th and reported back on its success. It was nice to see faculty sharing the implementation of tools in Critical Thinking, such as Jing, learned through the WITs department.

Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

I was not able to attend today’s meeting. Here are agenda items that pertain to WITS:

RLO’s

Janice and Karen will meet to review the Critical Thinking activity/RLO submission process. This will include a more indepth look at The Orange Grove.

Karen, Nancy Doolittle, and Karen Fritch will facilitate a hands-on session at the April Faculty Champion Meeting on Friday, April 24, 1:00-3:00 p.m.

Professional Development

WITS is part of the Spring Critical Thinking Institute (Narrowing the Gulf) March 26-27, 2009.

QEP Team meetings are now going to be the first Wednesday of the month at 1 p.m.

Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

Note: This is the first set of notes by Karen Hesting

Met with Janice, Lynn, Jesse, Maggie and Gail.

Critical Thinking Institutes
Plans for the Fall Critical Thinking Institute are at the top of the agenda. Things are coming together. The ITs should not feel like the must go to the beginning session, but should get to the labs they are presenting in a bit early since they will not be used in the morning.  The machines have Office ’07 installed. When you get to the parking garage, just be sure to tell them you are coming to the Critical Thinking Institute.

Narrowing the Gulf is the Spring Critical Thinking Institute. A campaign is being started to help people to understand this.

RLOs
Right now there is WITS form (https://it.spcollege.edu/cfsurveys/survey.cfm?su_id=2727)
that can be used to submit RLOs. This is linked off of the gateway website. To share these becomes a manual process. Is there a way that this can be connected to the Project Eagle III grant deliverables? Maybe Nancy or Alan can help to figure this out.

ePortfolio
Lynn was under the assumption that the college has already spent a chunk of money on ANGEL ePortfolio that could be used, even though it does not do all that is expected until ANGEL 7.4.  Jesse kind of feels that the existing tool really isn’t what is needed. Gail shared that this just might not need to be a deliverable at this time, especially because of resources and the economy. Further discussion will happen on this.

Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

Met with Lynn, Gail, Jesse, and Maggie. The Fall Critical Thinking Institute is still on-track. Topics from WITS:

Researching Quality RLO’s (Karen Fritch & Greg Rabelo) Learning activities can enhance a course’s interest for the students as well as encourage thinking about concepts in a more critical way. Reusable Learning Objects (RLO’s) are a way to enhance multiple courses to focus common learning.  Participants will review guidelines for evaluating RLO’s and view some well known learning object repositories. They then will have the opportunity to record their findings and ideas for use in a database to be shared with other faculty.

Create Basic and Advanced Clicker Slides that Can be Used to Promote Critical Thinking (Karen Hesting & Janice Thiel) Knowing what you know and don’t know focuses learning. Audience response systems or “clickers” give students an opportunity to participate in your lecture by expressing their own understanding of the material. In addition they receive frequent and immediate feedback. This session will focus on how to create a variety of activities for effective, active lectures, which incorporate clicker technology, allowing for students to think critically.

Web 2.0 (Nancy Doolittle & Alan Shapiro) Real-time web-based collaboration and resource management helps students to share their ideas and mentor others. Web 2.0 tools provide a wealth of creative applications to increase the opportunities for higher level thinking and interaction. In this session, attendees will explore a number of popular, free web collaboration 2.0 tools.

Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

Met with Lynn, Gail, Jesse, and Maggie via SPOC. The Fall Critical Thinking Institute will be held at the Downtown Center on Friday, November 14.

There is interest in having three 45-minute sessions from WITS:

1) RLO’s – Hands-on. Locate an existing RLO or Web resource and give an example of how it can be used to promote critical thinking.

2) Clickers – Hands-on. Create basic and advanced slides that can be used to promote critical thinking.

3) Web 2.0 – Hands-on. Watch quick demo of 3-4 tools, and then try them out for yourself. Discuss how these can be used to promote critical thinking.

Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

Met with Lynn, Gail, Jesse, and Maggie Tymms via SPOC. A Fall Critical Thinking Institute is still being planned for November, possibly the first or second Friday, so please save those dates for WITS participation. The specific schedule and topics are yet to be determined. Also, there will be a critical thinking track at the upcoming “Narrowing the Gulf” conference in March. Call for proposals will be sent out, and presentations by WITS is encouraged.

QEP Update Meeting

Attended QEP Update Meeting on Friday, August 8, 2008, during which Lynn provided an update to Drs. Cooper and Olliver. Also in attendance was Gail, Jesse, and Maggie Tymms.

Tasks for WITS:

• Plans are being made for a Fall Critical Thinking Institute (November). Another presentation by the Instructional Technologists is requested.
• Lynn is adding content to the QEP Web site. She needs to know what the URL/Web address for the site will be so she can disseminate this information in materials provided at next Thursday’s Fall Faculty Meeting.
• Dr. Olliver suggested moving forward with using ANGEL Dropboxes as an ePortfolio system, rather than waiting for ANGEL 7.4. 
• Jesse inquired about the possibility of WITS personnel programming a Web submission form based upon the print-based Critical Thinking Rubric for faculty use.

Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

Met with Lynn, Gail, Donna Kelly, and Jesse Coraggio.

The next montly eLetter will be September 1. Karen Hesting and Janice will write an article about using the TurningPoint “clicker” technology to promote critical thinking.

Next year’s Narrowing the Gulf conference will include a track for critical thinking. It is scheduled for March 26-27 at the EpiCenter. Recommendations for critical thinking expert presenters are being collected. There might be an opportunity for a presentation by WITS, perhaps a repeat of this summer’s session and/or an expansion of those topics. This is not definite yet, but Lynn will let us know.

notes-from-the-qep-team-meeting-7-14-08

Critical Thinking Resources Meeting

Regarding the Summer Critical Thinking Institute, positive feedback continues regarding the technology session presented by Karen Hesting and Nancy Doolittle. On June 26, Lynn reported, “I just analyzed the end-of-workshop surveys from last Friday, and 28 out of 33 said the most important or valuable thing they learned had to do with technology. Nineteen want more hands-on-workshops in using technology.”

Karen and Nancy are going to provide the next article for the QEP e-Newsletter. They are going to write a brief summary of the technology piece they did for the Summer Critical Thinking Institute, perhaps including a couple tangible ideas for faculty. Lynn would like to have this by Monday, if possible.

Nancy is going to work with Lynn on turning the Lesson Plan template into a PDF form. Nancy is acting as Lynn’s IT on this one – teaching her how to do it. Nancy will also work on the blog which will an informal RLO repository.

Lynn and Donna will be making modifications to the gateway Web site as well as including 2nd level pages for many of the links off of the Web site. It was felt that these 2nd level pages were good areas for expanding on information before sending folks into ANGEL for the Instructional Portfolio component of this project. An Instructional Portfolio will be a folder that members of the Academic Round Table will maintain in ANGELtraining containing critical thinking activities, assessments, course syllabi, etc.

ct_minutes_07081

Quality Enhancement Team Meeting

Met via SPOC with Lynn, Gail, Karen Hesting, Tonjua Williams, Michael Earle, Anne Sullivan, Nancy Watkins, Ann McNicol, and Donna Kelly. There was much discussion about the upcoming Summer Critical Thinking Institute scheduled for Friday. Nancy Doolittle and Karen Hesting will be focusing on four strategies for using technology to enhance critical thinking. Gail Lancaster is going to bring laptop computers. Participants can bring their own computers, and they will share laptops, if necessary. Tonjua will test the wireless connection at Innisbrook, and she will arrange for powerstrips, and bring two projectors. Presentations will be conducted in two rooms. Nancy and Karen will present twice, moving from one room to the other during the break.