Lumen Awards Certificates in Effective Teaching with Courseware to First Cohort of Lumen Circles Success Accelerator Fellows
Julie Curtis, VP Lumen Circles
When we launched Lumen Circles’ Success Accelerator program in August, we understood it’s a bit of a different animal. Success Accelerator is a professional development program designed to help faculty members who use Lumen’s OHM or Waymaker courseware become more effective at supporting their students’ success. This recent blog post by Lumen co-founder David Wiley explains more about the background and research underpinnings behind what we’re trying to do with this program.
A Different Approach to Faculty Development
What makes Success Accelerator different is how it puts teaching and learning first – and that’s what makes it a professional development experience, rather than just a training course on how to use a set of learning tools. Success Accelerator is NOT about which button to click or which screen to view. This is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile of faculty training.
Instead, the Success Accelerator program invites its faculty fellows to join a community of practice – a group of people who learn to do something better because they practice doing it together, sharing ideas and feedback with each other in the process. Collaborating virtually, they explore evidence-based teaching practices that have proven to increase student success, regardless of discipline or modality. These are practices that, when you use them in your teaching, will lead to increased success for your students.
As Success Accelerator fellows learn about these practices, they also explore a variety of ideas for how to apply these teaching strategies using tools available to them through their OHM or Waymaker courseware. The program invites them to choose at least one evidence-based teaching practice per week to try out. With their community-of-practice peers, they reflect on these teaching choices and how they impact students. They provide feedback, share ideas, and encourage each other diving in to expand their repertory and capability as teachers.
Community: Where the Magic Happens
What happens next is sort of magical, the elixir that emerges from a community.
Ideas abound. People become braver. Professors bust new moves. Victories are celebrated and replicated. Things that flop turn into exercises in iterative improvement. Newbies help veterans see things with new eyes, and vice versa. Seasoned educators rediscover their joy in teaching.
But don’t just take it from me. Listen to Success Accelerator fellows describe the experience in their own words.
That’s the kind of magic we can all use this term. And every term.
While Success Accelerator DOES train faculty on how to better use our courseware tools, it also helps them hone their expertise as teachers in any classroom with any set of learning tools. That’s the power of evidence-based teaching, experienced by a community of peers who support each other as they learn, practice, and grow.
Success Accelerator Certificate Recipients
We are delighted to award the Lumen Circles Certificate in Effective Teaching to the inaugural group of Success Accelerator faculty fellows who actively participated in the fall 2020 program:
Success Accelerator for OHM
Alketa Nina, Wor-Wic Community College
Deborah Fries, Wor-Wic Community College
Heather Lieb, Monroe Community College
Ronald Olszewski, SUNY Westchester
Sophia Georgiakaki, Tompkins Cortland Community College
Thomas Peebles, SUNY at Albany
Success Accelerator for Waymaker
Crystal Quillen, Middlesex County College
Elise Gervais, SUNY at Albany
Elizabeth Guadino-Goering, Nassau Community College
Jessica Traylor, Gordon State University
Jodell Raymond, Monroe Community College
Julie Manley, Coppin State University
Keith Landa, SUNY at Purchase College
Laura Dohner, SUNY Oneonta
Lisa Korman, Nassau Community College
Maria Manni, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Minette Beabes, SUNY College at Geneseo
Rachel Rigolino, State University of New York at New Paltz
Silvia Bliss, Morrisville State College
Stacey Souther, Cuyahoga Community College
Steven Greenlaw, University of Mary Washington
Timothy Strode, Nassau Community College
Congratulations!
Please see the Lumen Circles Certificate in Effective Teaching site for more information about the requirements and specific accomplishments associated with this certificate program.
Are you interested in learning more about Lumen courseware, professional development, or the Lumen Circles Success Accelerator program? Visit our website or send us a note: circles@lumenlearning.com.