celebrates its second year!

Congratulations to all those faculty and staff that made Learning Communities great this year.  Groups included Belongingness, New Faculty, e-Portfolio, Coaching, and Collaboration for Universal Design.

Participants in the Belongingness LC group brainstormed ways to create a greater sense of “belongingness” for students at NMC. In addition to reading Terrell L. Stryhomrn’s College Students’ Sense of Belonging and various other articles, the members chose ways to implement practical activities in their classes.  Looking forward, the group hopes to use this information to drive some Student Life programming.  

Within the New Faculty LC group, participants discussed ways to create a source of information for new faculty; an insider’s go-to guide. The A-Z List on the teaching@NMC page may evolve as a result of this group’s thinking.  

The e-Portfolio LC members explored the potential of the Mahara program as an eportfolio solution for students and faculty.  The team investigated the program’s ability for real world applications to display students work and as a framework for the CIT student portfolio.

Coaching LC members researched the impact of coaching as an operating system for NMC.  The goal of coaching is to create individual responsiblity while enhancing unity and diversity within classes. Incorporating Success Coaches within the class is one way the group used the concept.  

The Collaboration for Universal Design learning community comprised of an interdepartmental collection of individuals seeking to learn and apply aspects of Universal Design in higher education.  The focus of UDL is to eliminate barriers from the learning environment and members of this learning community investigated how to help students and NMC continue to grow.

We are looking forward to continuing these learning communities next year and welcome new additions.