Career Services Has a New Tool

Contributed by Evette Thompson from MCC Career Services:
 

Career Services has a new tool called InterviewStream, which can be utilized in classrooms and/or the comfort of your own home. 

This new tool is available for students, faculty, and staff. The benefits of InterviewStream are the helpful interview tips for posture, how to correctly answer questions, becoming familiar with video interviewing, and the ability to critique yourself afterwards. This useful tool is compatible with phones, tables, and computers as long as there is a webcam attached.



InterviewStream would be an excellent tool if your class is conducting mock interviews or is practicing presentation styles--it would also be great if you want to brush up on your own techniques if you're anticipating an interview for a professional organization, conference presentation, or something else.

Check it out now: http://www.mchenry.edu/interview/index.asp

Spring 2015 Faculty Development Day

Thursday, January 15, is our Spring Faculty Development Day, the day we welcome all MCC faculty members back to campus before classes start.

We frequently organize the day with break-out sessions for smaller groups of faculty to focus on something that interests them and that can help them in the classroom. But while planning for this spring, we decided to shake up that way of approaching faculty development and let faculty members define their own goals and identify what projects they felt would be most important to work on. All we needed to do was give them the freedom and time to work.

The idea came to use through Laura Middaugh, one of the terrific members of our Faculty Development Team. She showed us this video and had us pay special attention to the discussion about Atlassian Software that begins around minute 5:30:

We loved it, checked in with department chairs across campus, and they loved it, too.

We explained the idea to our entire faculty membership in October and gave them a few weeks to brainstorm and then let us know what types of projects they'd be working on. Faculty members could work on whatever they wanted, with whomever they wanted, however they wanted. Their only guidelines were that at the end of the day they needed to submit a report-out form and then get together for a dinner with colleagues to chat about their projects and celebrate the day's innovation.

In November we got some excellent teasers for projects like mental health awareness, applied technologies adjunct orientation, occupational therapy assistant (OTA) simulation exercises, and political economy across disciplines. And now we've got the entire list of projects, from ACEN Accreditation to Windows 8 and Server 2012.

The full program for our Spring 2015 Faculty Development Day

Now that I know how terrific everyone's projects will be, I might call on them to present at a later workshop or write a guests post here, so keep your eyes peeled!

A Bite of Information from the MCC Library

Contributed by the McHenry County College librarians:

Did you know that the Library has an Information Literacy Program to help our students learn college-level and career research skills? The core of this program is taught by library faculty in MCC 101 (basic navigation of the physical library and library web page), ENG 151 (evaluating information), and ENG 152 (selecting and searching databases). 

We can also come into any other class (face-to-face or online!) and teach to a specific research assignment you have.

This is particularly important in Career/Tech programs whose students might not take ENG 151/152. Instead, these students may need some instruction in information literacy skills needed in their fields. Contact us at refdesk@mchenry.edu to discuss/schedule info lit instruction. It’s not too early to plan for next semester. 

And don’ forget . . . information literacy is one of the five general education goals for all of our students.

Getting Things Done at MCC

October is the month to Get Things Done!

We now have six copies of Getting Things Done by national bestselling author, David Allen down in Professional Development (A210) for you to borrow and peruse. Our own Timothy Linehan has been presenting a workshop based an Allen's theories, and he will be re-running this popular GTD session on October 22.

Getting Things Done (or GTD) is a time-management protocol. Although it might sound boring, the method has attracted such a passionate following that some have (half-jokingly) accused GTD of reaching a cult-like status.
Widely-adopted in fields such as information technology and business management, the GTD craze has not fully reached academic circles. This workshop seeks to remedy that problem. Overflowing inbox? Cluttered workspace? Forgotten deadlines? Stop worrying and start Getting Things Done.

Timothy's workshop on October 22 is appropriate both for newcomers and previous GTD workshop participants in need of a refresher. And as someone who is a convert, I highly recommend this session.

Register through the Professional Development auto-registration, now!

Get Ready for Fall 2014 Faculty Development Day

We're just about three weeks out from our 2014 Fall Faculty Development Day and New Student Convocation, and the day has shaped up nicely. Take a look at what you can look forward to in the morning:

Click to enlarge image

and in the afternoon and evening:

Click to enlarge image

Make sure to check your MCC email for the formal invitation letter and a PDF of the program.

We're looking forward to seeing you on August 14!

A Sneak Peak at Fall Faculty Development Day

Fall Faculty Development Day is quickly approaching (Thursday, August 14, 2014) and we in the Office of Professional Development are getting ready.

Here are the curriculum maps for a few of the workshops our terrific MCC faculty and staff have prepared:

Advising Summit: Click to Enlarge Image

New School--Game-based Design: Click to Enlarge Image

Performance in the Classroom: Click to Enlarge Image

Check your MCC e-mail later this week for the invitation letter and full program. See you in August!

Is the Professor Who is on Summer Break Happy?

On Saturday morning, while my husband and I waited for the first World Cup match of the day to begin, we sat with our coffee and watched the recently released documentary by Michel Gondry, the filmmaker who made the sweet and funny films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind, and the action adventure movie The Green Hornet.

His new movie, Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? isn't like any of these, however; it's an animated documentary (which sounds antithetical) about Noam Chomsky. Though it's not really about Chomsky, per se, but rather an 88-minute long interview of sorts where Gondry attempts to get at the heart of how Chomsky thinks and what he thinks about.



I'm writing about Gondry's movie here on this blog because not only is the film thought provoking--covering topics of education, linguistics, meta-cognition, philosophy, and scientific inquiry--and about a man, perhaps one of the greatest thinkers of our time, who wrote in his book Manufacturing Consent that "Education is a system of imposed ignorance," but also because Gondry, a whimsical thinker and filmmaker, represents us, the audience, in this dialogue with Chomsky: someone who respects the man, but doesn't always understand or agree with him.

It's the perfectly thoughtful kind of brain candy you all might want to chew on while you're on summer break.

The movie is available for instant streaming on Netflix (and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is available on DVD from the MCC Library)--let us know what you think!

More Canvas Videos For You!

Our own Meri Winchester has been creating Canvas tutorial videos for her YouTube channel, and she's just completed three more. Here they are!

Creating and Using Rubrics in Canvas


Basic Discussion Set Up

Discussion Settings in Canvas 

More Excellence in Teaching

Our third installment of the Excellence in Teaching Showcase brings us ideas from Stephen Mujeye (CIS) and Sarah Ruthven (ART). Stephen wrote them up for us to show off to all of you!

Stephen Mujeye, Instructor of Networking in Computer Information Systems wrote about pedagogy, and the teaching strategy was using technology as appropriate and available. The assignment was to teach students how they can use Group Policy in Server 2008 to set the homepage site on all network computers. The instructor was going to demonstrate a similar policy in Group Policy and then a volunteer students would be selected to lead others in setting and changing the homepage site for all computers.

Stephen's lesson is a great way to get students involved in peer-to-peer instruction, and as we all know, teaching something is a great way to master it.

Sarah Ruthven, Instructor of Art History wrote about pedagogy and the teaching strategy was holding students accountable to performance expectations. The assignment was an Art History I research assignment. The assignment included annotations and three Canvas discussion boards for each preparation step of:

1. Theme and Images
2. Topic Statement
3. Organization

The assignment would be graded for completion and comments will be provided to students by the instructor.

Sarah's lesson is a great way to informally scaffold an assignment and keep students on track.

For more information about either of these assignments, contact Stephen or Sarah, and stay tuned for even more from MCC faculty members on how they exemplify Excellence in Teaching.

Canvas Tips on YouTube

Meri Winchester, MCC Instructor of Digital Media, has started creating helpful Canvas tutorials and adding them to her YouTube channel.

We'll be sharing them here, and you can also visit her channel so see what else she's posting!