Thursday, October 31, 2013

Excellence in Teaching Showcase

This October was one of the handful of months during the academic year that has a fifth Tuesday. Tuesday afternoons are dedicated to various faculty meetings, but since fifth Tuesdays are floating inconsistencies, we try to take advantage of them whenever we can and have a Fifth Tuesday get together for faculty members.

Our last meeting was just this week, Tuesday, October 29, and it was used to showcase our fantastic faculty members here at MCC and how we're all using tenants from the Excellence in Teaching definition in our classrooms.

Each faculty member brainstormed something they're using in the classroom to connect to subject matter, pedagogy, professionalism, and/or assessment. They wrote short descriptions on a notecard and dropped their cards into our plastic pumpkin. We pulled out names of faculty members across all divisions and got interesting and steal-able ideas from everyone.

Gayle Cochin-Swidler, Instructor of Nursing, was just one of the half-dozen or so names we drew from the pumpkin head. Gayle talked about a video she uses in her Nursing 210 course; the video, called A Virtual Hallucination, is produced by Mindstorm and simulates a schizophrenic hallucination. Here's what Gayle said about using this simulation in class:

"Students experienced a simulation of severe audio and visual hallucinations similar to the symptoms experienced every day by millions of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. The students found the experience to be compelling, which helped them better understand horrific symptoms of schizophrenia and the importance of treating symptoms in order to improve their quality of life."

You can experience a bit of the video yourself right here:

 

For the next few weeks I'll be highlighting more things from the notecards, and I might be calling on you (yes, you!) for more information on your idea. Stay tuned!