When I was with American Military University, we used the shared faculty website as a place to socialize, keep track of each other's family events, upload suggestions for improvement for Course Leads, Course Leads would also post the latest changes to their classes, faculty would exchange the latest best practice trends, talk about ways to deal with difficult students, tricks to faster grading, conference paper calls, and shared grading samples--nobody ever had the nerve to post a sample of their grading paper in the five years I was with that shared faculty website!
Our boss at the time used to call us all the time to check how we were doing. It was not like talking to a boss at all. It was more like talking to a family member. Then if we had interesting news to impart, our boss would post (with our permission of course) that bit of family news to this shared faculty website. Because she put in so much time to get to know us and create and maintain this website, I used to have fun coming to this website to relax after a long day of grading papers.
Right before the boss left, she made me administrator of the shared faculty website so for 3 years after she left I was administrator of the website! I was on the website for 8 years total! I sure miss it now!
Having a shared faculty website with a devoted boss who maintains it creates a feeling of belonging and community to the entire department.
Here is how our shared faculty website looked like:
Faculty Newsletter posted under this thread. Check it out! The ECALM newsletter is published by yours truly, Yvonne Ho! Look out for this month's edition!
October Edition ECALM Newsletter
November Edition ECALM Newsletter
The English/Literature Department loved reading my newsletter. The newsletter was for faculty members who did not have time to come over to the shared website. The newsletter was a compilation of the best parts of this shared website!
The Dean loved the faculty newsletter and so did all the other faculty members! In fact, it was the most memorable thing faculty remember most about me is my newsletter!
Silly Icebreaker Contest
Post your funniest or silliest icebreakers that you use on the welcome page or during 1st week when you introduce yourself to your class. The funniest icebreaker will win 1st prize Starbucks Coffee gift card from me (boss, Program Manager)
**What do you see outside your window?***
** If you were stranded on an island, and you had one item to bring, what would you bring?**
**If you were President of the US for 100 days, what reforms would legislate?**
It was the boss' boss who finally decided on the winner of the contest. For many years after the contest, I used these icebreakers in my Welcome message and introduction posts to students who loved these icebreakers as a way to become acquainted with each other during the first week of class.
Christmas Ugly Sweater contest
Post a picture of your Christmas Ugly Sweater under this thread. I (boss, Program Director) will reveal the first prize as a Christmas gift surprise! :)
(I saw some really UGLY Christmas sweaters that year. I won the prize too! I did not put this fact on my resume! Winning the Faculty Christmas Ugly Sweater Contest just does not look professional:)
Share Graded papers here:
Post under this thread a sample of your grading so all the teachers of the Writing/Literature department would be on the same page.
Student errors
Discuss any student errors you find in papers and any fixes you made as well as any grammar explanations you used so we can all use those explanations.
Professional Articles to Read
Post any articles that you find interesting that serves a professional purpose.
(One faculty member posted "How You can tell you are working in a toxic workplace")
(Most others posted articles from Faculty Focus)
Faculty Accomplishments
Post any awards, publications or conference presentations you have done. You can also post videos, attachments etc.. We love to see what our fantastic faculty is achieving!
(In this space, faculty posted their trips to conferences, they posted what it felt like to do presentations and how nervous they were, they posted their actual PowerPoints for us to read and use, and they posted links to publications they had. One faculty member posted a picture of her Biography of Shakespeare book that had been translated into Chinese!)
Current Webinars/Professional Development classes
If you find any good webinars we can all attend, please post them under this thread. Have you taken any interesting Faculty Development classes? What did you learn from those classes? Any fun tips to share here?
(I learned a lot of shortcuts to grading papers. I learned about the latest Web 2.0 gadgets from faculty experimenting with technology here, and I used to grade links to my Screencast videos for other writing teachers to use under this thread. Because so many threads dealt with technology, I started a Web 2.0 thread)
Web 2.0 Thread--Share the latest teaching technology tricks under this thread
(This thread inspired me to find time to find fun Web 2.0 apps to use in the classroom. I remember I was the one who discovered Storyboard That which The Creative Writing Class used for their multimodal composition assignment app for storyboarding! I believe that students to this day use this app in that class too! )
Teaching Best Practices
If you find any tricks of the trade or best Teaching Best Practices, post under this thread. Share any teaching resources under this thread too!
(Many faculty loved this thread because they told me they learned many shortcuts to grading papers, which for writing teachers takes the most time.)
Best Student Sample Writing Papers
Under this thread, we posted our best student papers so that we could model best writing to our students in our classes.
Family/Births/Current Events
If you have a birth in the family, a new pet, a birthday coming up, or any other fun family event post under this thread. And don't forget to phone me (boss, Program Manager) with happy news for me to post here!
(This thread was very popular--everybody posted everything from the death of their pet, to the birth of their children here--it was like a Facebook feed. This kind of thread gave our online departmental community a feeling of family and belonging.)
Fun Gossip /Goofball Jokes Thread
If you have any fun gossip scoops about anyone, just give us the scoop here! Also, you can post scoops about your favorite celebrities, your favorite movies, your favorite anything! Give us the scoop right here!
(This thread was definitely THE most fun! It was fun to see the kind of pop culture different faculty members were into!)
Holiday Vacations
If you have just taken a vacation over your summer one month break, post those fun vacation photos under this thread.
(I loved the goofy holiday photos I saw here. One faculty member posted a picture of himself totally drunk in front of his favorite bar at 1AM in the morning! It is always fun to see another side of faculty to humanize them! )
Faculty News/School Initiatives
If I (boss, Program Manager) have any new school initiatives to post, I will post them under this thread. Make sure you read these announcements as soon as you come to this website. I will also post any upcoming faculty meetings under this thread.
My favorite was taking part in the Provost Faculty challenge where each year the Provost would post a teaching challenge. One year, the teaching challenge was to find a 'unique' way to use the forums to engage students. This was a school wide challenge spanning many departments. And it was a member of our department who won the challenge too! We posted her picture under the Faculty Accomplishments thread!
Course Lead News
If I (boss, Program Director) have any Course Lead news, I will post under this thread.
(I found this thread to be useful because all full time faculty were Course Leads, and we had to keep up with the latest school initiatives that were unique to Course Leads. I remember one initiative was for us to concentrate on finding OER sources for students to reduce textbook costs for students.)
Full-Time Faculty News
Post Full Time Faculty News and Full Time Faculty Meeting Schedule under this thread.
(I considered myself very lucky to have been full time faculty since most positions in my field are adjunct positions. I paid very close attention to Full Time Faculty News because I wanted to keep my job. In this post, boss would post committee positions to volunteer for as well as other school projects such as fixing the accreditation time sheet for classes which was a schoolwide project.)
Part Time Faculty News
Post Part Time Faculty News and Meeting Schedule under this thread.
English Department Classes
(I either taught these classes or was CL--this is not a complete list of classes but your department can list all its English and Literature classes on the website so faculty can exchange suggestions with the Course Leads on suggestions or changes to the class, or make corrections to the class. Course Leads were expected to check in on the website to check for adjunct messages and improvements)
ENGL 101 Freshman Composition English
Post any suggestions for ENGL 101 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
I taught ENGL 101 very often so whenever I found any dead links or errors or inconsistent information/directions, I would post to the CL here and the CL would answer me right away.
It was from the ENGL 101 CL that I learned about irubrics. We all used to have long discussions about how to use the irubric, what to include in the DQ irubric, and also we had discussions about how to grade DQ forums itself. Many threads on that subject. We did those discussions under this thread since ENGL 101 was the most commonly taught ENG class in the school.
ENGL 102 Critical Thinking
Post any suggestions for ENGL 101 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
Joe Shields Course Lead--ENGL 102 Welcome post.
Joe was a great CL and we used to argue about the best way to peer review papers. Should the peer review occur in the forums or should we give students a quiz? I said peer review. He said quiz. Being CL, he won. The CL makes the ultimate decision and only the Program Director can supersede him.
ENGL 225 Business Writing
Post any suggestions for ENGL 225 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Virginia Smith Course Lead--ENGL225 Welcome post
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
ENGL 498 Senior Seminar Capstone
Post any suggestions for ENGL 498 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Yvonne Ho Course Lead Welcome Message (ENGL 498 CL)--Every CL had her welcome message under this thread)
As Course Lead for ENGL 498, I would post the latest changes to the class. I also asked suggestions from the other adjunct teachers of the class to help improve the class. They told me to lower the number of sources required from 20 sources to 10 sources and I did just that! I loved working with my adjuncts! That was fun!
Literature Classes
LITR 221 American Literature since the Civil War
Post any suggestions for LITR 221 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Annie Hanes Course Lead Welcome Message
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
LITR 222 American Literature After the Civil War
Post any suggestions for LITR 222 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Jan Smith CL--Welcome Message
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
LITR 201 World Literature before the Renaissance
Post any suggestions for LITR 201 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
LITR 202 World Literature After the Renaissance
Post any suggestions for LITR 202 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
LITR 368: Asian American Literature
Post any suggestions for LITR 368 under this thread. If there are any corrections or broken links you want the CL to know, post under this thread.
Yvonne Ho CL LITR 368 Welcome message
As Course Lead for LITR 368, I used to post the latest changes to LITR 368 so that others who taught my class could be kept up to date on these latest changes.
Boss posted to every class thread: Course Leads must have multimedia projects in their assignments)
How many of you have a shared website for faculty? What other threads should I include?
No comments:
Post a Comment