Faculty Spotlight - Christopher Martinez

Faculty Spotlight - Christopher Martinez

Humanities Instructor Dale Mabry Campus “If I can do this, anyone can.” As a graduate of HCC (I show my students my AA degree), I tell them that as a solid C student I still excelled at HCC. So, if I can do this, anyone can. They just need to be tenacious.

Capital Course: I love teaching World Religions. The course touches on the personal lives of every student in the class, whether we cover their religion or religious background or upbringing. The students internalize the knowledge, recognizing it as familiar. Ideal Ideology: An advocate would best describe my philosophy of higher education. This advocate, interacting with the local community, guides students in their best interest. Higher education is the link between the aspiration of students and the community’s needs. The responsibility of this advocate is to anticipate the future needs of the community and general society and to tailor its educational offerings accordingly. This serves best both students and the community. The latter can be seen in the fields of distance education and multi-media training, no longer a future trend. Multi-media skills are needed in the careers of the present. HCC, as the student advocate, should offer this training. But multi-media training should not be just the goal, but also the delivery system. In the 21st century, students need access to more than just traditional, face-to-face instruction. Technology is the norm in society, and it should be that in higher education. Distance learning and multi-media training has been shown to exceed face-to-face instruction in certain aspects. This is why I have been involved in the e-textbook pilot at HCC. Teachable Moment: I’ve had two. One student’s last name was Singh. I asked her if she was a Sikh. She asked me how I knew. I told her Singhs have the title “Singh” in their name and they are Sikhs. She said she went home and her parents confirmed this, something she had never been told. Another student showed up for class wearing two rosaries around his neck. I asked to borrow one and then began reciting the prayers assigned to each bead. His eyes grew wide and said he did not know that was what a rosary was for. This reflects my teaching approach: a personal encounter with students so they internalize the knowledge in class and use it in cognitive reasoning. Student Success: I believe in “edutainment.” This is a combination of education and entertainment. Students, particularly the younger ones, consume large and fast quantities of entertainment through various electronic means. In the classroom, I use humor to hook the students (get their attention) and then teach an interesting topic, interspersed with videos, class projects and more humor. Humor makes me, as an instructor, more approachable, when a student is encountering difficulty inside or outside the classroom. Techno Tool: Blackboard is my primary techno tool. Everything is in the course template there: syllabus, PowerPoint and other documents, reviews for tests. This is the primary sources for my instructional content, and both instructor and student draws from it, so everyone is on the same page. Optimized Advice: It would be presumptuous to offer advice to any faculty member, including new ones, with one exception: encouragement. Remember, you usually always know more than the students. Love your teaching, enjoy your interaction with the students, and be passionate about the subject matter.

Faculty Spotlight - Bryan Shuler

Bryan Shuler

Humanities, Dale Mabry Campus

Course Range: (Traditional)

Quotable Quote:  When studying the Humanities, especially in my African Humanities course, “It’s all about “Culture,” and not about Colour.”

Capital Course:  HUM 2420- African Humanities; as one of only a handful of Africanists in the state, I take pleasure in bringing my fieldwork as a Fulbright Research Scholar and Cultural Expert for National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions to the classroom and sharing it with dedicated and curious students here at HCC.

Ideal Ideology:  I believe that only through hands-on in-depth research in the field can an instructor fully perceive, appreciate and explain the various aspects of their course topics, and therefore, present the insight our students desperately need in order to successfully compete in the global environment they are and will experience in their lifetime.

Teachable Moment- Student Success: As a Humanistic Anthropologist, I continuously place myself within the scenario of the culture being discussed, and honestly share my personal experiences and reactions in the moment to what was occurring around me, rather than observing the culture at arm’s length, keeping it in a glass museum case. The students will automatically perceive the difference in approach and will come to embrace the culture rather than allow it to remain 2-dimentional in a textbook. It is one thing to discuss health issues through published statistics; it is another to share my personal experiences and emotions interacting with lepers in the community in which I lived. Photographs of textiles in a textbook cannot even begin to match the same classroom experience as allowing students to adorn various cloth and costumes from a culture. In the end, these moments of sharing between students and instructor inspire them to engage in their own unique experiences which jettison them into a world of personal exploration. 

Techno Tool:  I enjoy using the Power-Point presentations created using photographs taken during my fieldwork as it transcends a product made from “Clip-art” into a statement of personal point-of-view.

Optimized Advice:  Break out of the academic sterility; do not be afraid to expose one’s own emotions and experiences in your given field to the students, as this is the real basis for genuine honesty in the classroom.

Faculty Spotlight - Ron and Dori Ingersoll

MacDill Campus
Course Range: Traditional, Online, Hybrid

Ron and Dori Ingersoll are adjuncts at the MacDill Campus. They are also consultants in the area of enrollment and student success and have just completed the editing of a book titled "Strategic Enrollment Management: Transforming Higher Education:" Published by AACRAO the American Association for Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. They currently are associated with Educational Systems Inc. and are working on current methods of managing and improving enrollments.

Capital Course:
Ron: I like environmental science because it is easy to get people interested and it is very practical. It turns out to be a good course for on-line.

Dori: My only course at HCC has been Public Speaking, both face2face, hybrid, and online.  I do enjoy teaching it face2face most since I can develop a stronger relationship with the students there.  I also have a chance to clearly set the safe boundaries of the classroom to allow them to grow.  In the online course, it is more difficult to develop relationships since that takes more time.  Students take an online course for the most part to get a course completed by tucking it into their busy schedules.


Ideal Ideology:
Ron: I believe that everyone has a good chance of doing well. I do not believe in looking only at the number grade but at the process by which the student came up with a response. I believe in hard work and I am getting used to students coming in and saying they have to have an A.

Dori: I believe in creating an environment in which students can develop their communication skills by working with others and me in the activities of the course. Theory and text material are included as subtext for them to use in the development of their own ‘voice’ as speakers. They are asked to interact with others in their process instead of hiding out and learning on their own. This will help them as they move on into the world to work with others and keep growing.

Student Success:
Ron: I use videos and articles in my course. I find that the students get a little confused because they are not used to analyzing something. Instead of reciting back what they heard in class, one thing I try to do is have them distinguish facts from opinions. It takes a while for them to do that on a regular basis.

Teachable Moment:
Dori: I believe my work with students as they give speeches, providing immediate feedback to them, have given me many ‘teachable moments’. Students have opened themselves up to the class sharing life events that one would not assume they would be telling in a public arena. The acceptance and feedback to them dictates how the rest of the class goes. My students know I don’t allow hurtful feedback. I also require them to put the best they can into their speeches and the work they complete for me.

Apply for these Innovation Awards

It's that time of year again...Award Season!! Get your innovations recognized by applying for one of these national awards:

2014 Bellwether Awards

The Bellwether Awards annually recognize outstanding and innovative programs and practices that are successfully leading community colleges into the future. Thirty outstanding colleges will be selected to present their innovative practices at the 2014 Community College Futures Assembly in January. From each of the three categories below, one college will be selected to win the prestigious Bellwether Award. The application deadline is November 1, 2013.

Submit your proposals in the following three categories:

1. Instructional Programs & Services
2. Planning, Governance, & Finance
3. Workforce Development

Click here to learn more!

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Internationalization Through Technology: New Award Program Now Accepting Submissions

ACE's Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement and the SUNY Center for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) have announced a new award program to recognize and promote the use of technology to enhance institutional internationalization and global competence of students at U.S. colleges and universities.

The awards will highlight innovative programs and approaches in two areas:

• Leaders in Internationalization Through Technology, which will recognize established programs
• Advancing Internationalization Through Collaborative Online International Learning, which will recognize and offer support for emerging initiatives

Click here to learn more!

HCC's STEM Grant - Published!

Bethany Cordell and Walt Justice, of HCC's Title III Stem Grant have been published. You can purchase their book, Title III (HSI) STEM Grant Technology Manual, in the Apple App Store.

Download the book from the Apple App Store today: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/title-iii-hsi-stem-grant-technology/id659027749?mt=11

HCC at NISOD Conference

Recently, some HCC faculty and staff went to the NISOD Conference in Houston, TX.

Travis Meek presented at the conference. "It was a great experience to be honored with the Excellence award at NISOD. The honor was intensified from being able to share it with HCC colleagues and a fellow Excellence award winner Mike Rabaut. Austin was an exciting city filled with music all around and bats flying overhead. To be honest the conference started off a bit slow for me because of so low attendance at sessions including the one I presented. By Wednesday it had all turned around with some innovative presentations on ideas I plan to implement in my own courses in varying amounts, such as flipped classrooms and collaborative testing." - Travis Meek



Mike Rabaut was HCC's NISOD Award Winner. "I found the experience interesting and was honored to receive the award especially with my school mate Travis Meek, a fellow Excellence award winner. The conference was enlightening and full of pleasant surprises, and of course there were the night time activities. I would like to extend my thanks to Dana Livesay and the CITT group for their hard work and dedication to helping faculty with their technology needs as well as allowing me to attend the conference. I especially enjoyed the evening dinner and accompanying Jam session that was punctuated with the talents of the attendees." - Mike Rabaut



HCC had a table at the conference:



Mike Rabaut and Dana Livesay:



Mike Rabaut and Travis Meek:

Etruscan Metalworking Project: SUCCESS!

This past year, professor Travis Meek embarked on an Etruscan metalworking project with his Honors Humanities class. The students carved votive figures, built a furnace and casted and bronzed their figures. Click here to read the entire story.

Professor Meek and his Honors Humanities Class


Bronzed Figure

Congratulations to Dr. Susan Miletta!

Please join us in congratulating soon to be retired professor, and League for Innovation award winner, Dr. Susan Miletta! Dr. Miletta has been selected to speak at the Innovator Spotlight Virtual Conference!

Every year the League honors outstanding innovations through the presentation of its Innovation of the Year Award. These innovations represent significant achievements at member colleges and the continuing renewal of the spirit of innovation and experimentation upon which the League was founded. Award-winning innovations, along with other best practice projects and Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) grantees, will be presented in collaboration with Teaching Colleges and Community (TCC) by some of the brightest minds in the community college world.

Dr. Miletta’s Winning Innovation: Online Lab Review Materials for Biology and Anatomy + Physiology

Conference Date/Time: Wednesday, September 19th, 2012
*Dr. Miletta will present at 1pm

For more Conference Info: http://www.league.org/innovatorspotlight2012/

Faculty Spotlight - John Bacheller

Biology Department
Dale Mabry Campus
Course Range: Traditional, Blended, Hybrid, Online

"I teach for success, not mediocrity."

Capital Course:
Bio 1 (BSC 1010) is the gateway course to the cell and molecular side of Biology. As a survey course it builds the foundation upon which many higher level courses are constructed. For many students this course either stimulates their interest in the content area or scares them away. I enjoy the challenge of providing the spark of passion to fight (work) for understanding (instead of watching their flight from the seemingly impossible to learn).

Optimized Advice:
Start with the basics and add as you go. Your courses should evolve as you learn new techniques and software, and as you learn how your students learn. Utilize the resources available through CITT and your colleagues. Never be satisfied with what you have (course wise).

Teachable Moment:
Student questions that make me think or that show me the student is thinking beyond the basics. Memorizing the content is only the first step in the process of learning. Understanding what you know and applying the knowledge for greater understanding is the true measure of success. These types of questions provide me with the opportunity to encourage this type of behavior, and to model critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Teaching Philosophy:
Teaching is doing the best I can every day to reach every student through a wide variety and combination of learning modalities and pedagogies. In non-school of education language this means challenging each student at their level, and through their learning style(s), to work as hard and as effectively as they can to learn and successfully demonstrate their understanding of the content.

This requires:

1. establishing clear and consistent instructor expectations
2. presenting content in a clear and logical manner, through multiple learning modalities when possible
3. assessing student and class understanding (assessing learning outcomes “on the fly”) and adjusting lessons and re-teaching as necessary
4. working with students on an individual or small group basis to find the correct explanation of a concept that leads to understanding
5. providing students with the skill set necessary for success in an academic environment, and hopefully the “real” world at large

Techno Tool:
I utilize a wide variety of technology tools but my current “best tool ever” is SCORM based learning modules uploaded to Blackboard. SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model and is a collection of standards and specifications that allow learning modules generated with 3rd party software to integrate into several LMSs including Blackboard. I am currently using Lectora Inspire to build visually and intellectually engaging learning modules with embedded quizzes that record the student grades in the Blackboard grade book.

Student Success:
Highly detailed lecture notes (PowerPoint) with links to animations, videos, and more detailed/alternative explanations of course content. Students find these notes to be visually stimulating and to provide them with multiple layers of information on content in one, easily accessible location.

Apply Now for the 2012 Innovation of the Year Award

The Innovation of the Year Award is designed to recognize League college staff members who have designed and implemented a significant innovation. Each year the League recognizes “Innovations of the Year.” Only one award will be presented to each of the League Alliance member district or college.

We encourage you to participate in the 2012 competition for the chance to represent HCC!

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION:
Interested candidates should submit the following information to CITT Faculty Professional Development (cittfacdev@hccfl.edu) by February 6, 2012:

• Names, titles, and college of the individual team members who created the Innovation of the Year.
• A brief description (1000 characters (with spaces) or less) of the innovation being recognized. The description will be posted on the League website and should include names, titles, college, and district (if different) of those responsible for the innovation and a concise summary of the innovation. If longer descriptions are submitted they will be edited for use on the website.
• One recent color or black and white picture of the creator(s) of the innovation that is suitable for publication (at least 150 dpi and have a 72 resolution with a size of at least but no smaller than (width 400 pixels). Please be sure to provide one group photo if the innovation was created by two or more people.

CRITERIA:
An innovation should meet one or more of the following criteria:

1. Quality
2. Efficiency
3. Cost Effectiveness
4. Replication
5. Creativity
6. Timeliness

Please visit the League website for more information

Congratulations to HCC's NISOD Award Nominees

Congratulations to HCC's 2012 NISOD Award nominees:

• Richard Gaspar
• Robert King
• Susan Miletta
• James Wysong, Jr.

Vote for the winner: http://citt.hccfl.edu/nisod/vote.cfm

Voting will close November 9, 2011, so don't delay!

Submit Your Teaching Materials and Win Big!

The 2011 Educators' Choice Awards will recognize and reward Adobe Education Exchange members who submit the most innovative teaching and learning materials. Your fellow members will choose the winners of the Awards by rating one another's work, so impress your colleagues and compete for valuable prizes by submitting your best projects, lesson plans, curricula, and tutorials. For inspiration and examples, join or sign in to browse the resources on the Adobe Education Exchange.

The application deadline is: October 14, 2011

Congratulations to Professor Matt Werhner for being Published in the Journal of Geoscience Education

Professor Werhner's article A Comparison of the Performance of Online versus Traditional On-Campus Earth Science Students on Identical Exams was published in the November 2010 Journal of Geoscience Education.

Abstract
In this paper I compare the performance of online versus traditional on-campus students on identical exams in an earth science class. The number of college level distance learning classes offered online continues to increase as they offer greater scheduling flexibility to students, they appeal to students who like to work independently, and allow colleges to increase enrollment without building new classrooms. Hillsborough Community College (HCC) is a two year urban community college in Tampa, Florida. An online earth science class was first offered in Fall 2005. Most students enrolled in Earth Science are non-science majors fulfilling a science requirement for graduation and both online and on-campus classes average about 30 students. As this is a traditional earth science course it covers topics in geology, oceanography, meteorology, and astronomy. This material is divided into four units with an exam at the end of each unit. The exams are short answer, predominantly multiple choice with diagram identification and contain about eighty to ninety questions. All classes used the same study guide and textbook and all of the classes in this study were given exactly the same exams. This process was repeated over four semesters from Fall term 2005 to Spring term 2007. Statistical analysis comparing exam grades indicates that there was no significant difference in student performance on exams between the online and on-campus students...Click here to read the entire article.

Professor Werhner is the Faculty and Program Manager in the Physical Science Department at the Dale Mabry Campus.

Congratulations to Dr. Germroth - NISOD Award Winner

Peter Germroth, was the recipient of the greatest amount of votes from the HCC Community for his contribution to teaching excellence.

Peter will receive sponsorship to attend the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) Conference, in Austin Texas, May 29 - June 1, 2011 by the Center for Innovative Teaching and Technology - Faculty Professional Development (CITT-FPD)

In keeping with our mission of teaching excellence that promotes student success, CITT congratulates the 2011 NISOD EXCELLENCE AWARDS RECIPIENTS and salutes their commitment to high performance and extraordinary service to their students, their college, and their communities.

Please join us in congratulating Hillsborough Community College’s 2011 NISOD Excellence Awardees:

• Peter Germroth
• Paul Flaherty
• Denys Harasymiak
• Robert J. King
• Michele Martinez

NISOD welcomes the participation of all awardees at the 2011 NISOD annual International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence.

Click here to learn more about all awardees and their commitment to excellence in education.

Faculty Spotlight - Ed Ericsson

Radio and Television Production
Teaching Radio and Television Production requires the use of technology. The application of that technology requires the ability to perform under pressure. Stressing performance and creativity along with the technical knowledge and operation of production equipment keeps the students working both of their brain hemispheres. I usually start my Introduction to Broadcasting students with PowerPoint. It is the easiest way to make a stand alone audio/visual project. They move to basic Electronic Field Production and iMovie. As they progress through the curriculum they gradually work up to FinalCutPro and Adobe Premiere.

Hawk Radio is the perfect learning environment for budding Disc Jockeys. The beginners start out broadcasting on the internet, a place where as we know amateur broadcasts are commonplace, and work toward having a show on 1520 AM between 8 AM and 2 PM Monday through Friday. In the radio class we use Audacity because it is free and easy to use. There is also a tutorial link on Hawknet. I often use videos from the websites Expert Village and How Stuff Works. I test my Careers in Film and Video with a Webquest. I use one-on-one assessment to check the ability of students to operate the equipment and creative projects to stretch their minds. Another great free tool for writing and creating a variety of projects is Celtx.

Ed Ericsson is the Program Manager for Digital Television and Media Production at the Ybor City Campus.

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Faculty Spotlight is an excellent way to share what you are doing with the HCC Community. It is also a great opportunity to recruit coworkers, collaborate and exchange ideas. Interested in being our next Faculty Spotlight? Contact us at cittfacdev@hccfl.edu.

CITT Faculty Spotlight - Dr. Peter Germroth

View CITT's new faculty spolight. This month, the spotlight is on Dr. Peter Germroth, biology instructor at the Dale Mabry campus. Congratulations Dr. Germroth!