Greetings Colleagues!
The time has come to begin our preparations for our Spring 2018 flex week from January 12-19.
Flex week has tremendous potential to energize our shared commitment to MiraCosta’s students, but it can only achieve that goal when we all step up to create, share, and engage. Let’s share some of the amazing work we are doing with each other; let’s learn from each other’s ideas and experiences; let’s bring what we have learned from the reading we have done, research we have explored, and conferences we have attended to our campus community for our colleagues to think about too.
On campus workshops have traditionally dominated the flex week schedule. And if offering a traditional flex week on-site workshop appeals to you, then I urge you to submit a proposal via the PDP workshop proposal submission thingamajig.
But let’s not limit ourselves to traditional workshops. Let’s see what new ways of connecting with each other and each other’s ideas we can explore during flex week. Here’s a list of some possibilities I am imagining, but I share these only to kick-start your own creative process: not to limit it in any way.
- an online zoom workshop, discussion, or other type of gathering (online sessions often have higher attendance than traditional workshops)
- a week-long facebook page conversation
- a first meeting (face-to-face or online) for a newly formed faculty inquiry group (or focused inquiry group) or a regular meeting for one that has already been going for a while
- a flex week parade featuring floats representing various ways to help our students succeed — pedagogies, services, initiatives, etc.
- a screencast lecture colleagues can watch any time during flex week or any time beyond flex week through our great new PDP Canvas discussion pages and tools
- a session in which a series of faculty offer 15 minute mini-classes and colleagues then spend time discussing what they have learned about teaching and learning methods by participating in those mini-lessons.
- a gathering of MiraCosta faculty and staff to visit and discuss a local museum exhibit
- a zoom session and/or construction of a google doc or other collaborative tool to collect resources about a specific topic in teaching and learning
- a teaching and learning flash mob / dance performance outside by the clock tower
- a week long Google doc collaboration project to explore a particular teaching and learning related topic
- an on-campus pep rally for ________________(the teaching and learning cause of your choice), or an on-campus flex week protest march for _______________ (the teaching and learning cause of your choice)
- a Joyful Teaching blogananza where a team of six (or three or four or five!) faculty all agree to post on the same topic and respond to each other’s posts — the writers and their readers could all claim flex time
- a research expedition to a UC library to explore new resources together
Many of these ideas can be submitted as regular workshop proposals via the PDP workshop proposal submission thingamabob. But if you have an idea which does not seem to fit into that space, please feel free to use this “Beyond the Workshop” form to submit your request (thanks to Lisa M. Lane for creating this cool google form!).
If I can help you develop your ideas in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me. I really enjoy that kind of collaborative opportunity.
Here is our planned timeline:
- November 30 All proposals submitted
- December 15 Flex week schedule drafted by PDP flex week subcommittee
- January 2 Flex week schedule sent out to the college community and registration opened in MyFlex
Thanks,
Prepostero
PDP Coordinator