First-Year ePortolio Sample - Melvin Hortman

Year 1: Melvin Hortman's Self-reflection:

Each committee should help determine what items to put into the Teaching ePortfolio to best represent the progress of the candidate each year.  Some committees might want to include recommended or optional items for each year also.  Help in developing the eTeaching Portfolio is available from the RTC Tenure Steering Committee. 

Introduction 

What is your teaching philosophy?  

Traditional lecturing is outdated for the generation of students we encounter, especially in adult learners. A more appropriate learning style is active learning, meaning that the instructor acts as a facilitator in the classroom allowing for principles and concepts being learned to be immediately applied by students in a context that mirrors their future work environment.  What this looks like practically is 20% of the time is spent delivering material to students and 80% of the time is spent guiding students through class activities to apply the material. I lead students through the learning process of “I do, you watch; I do, you help; you do, I help; you do, I watch”. However, the most important thing they learn in my class is not the content I teach them, but how to further learn on their own; they learn how to teach themselves new things quickly because that is exactly what will be required of them in the workplace.

“I do, you watch; I do, you help; you do, I help; you do, I watch”

However, the learning process involves much more than academics. Navigating a sea of students that all have widely diverse experiences, backgrounds, home problems, learning obstacles, personalities, and learning styles is the real challenge. Enabling students to engage academically is accomplished by knowing them. The more students are known, the more instructors can meet them where they are at and provide them with an education that is more efficient, giving them only what they need to engage academically with what they came to RTC to learn, and with passion! 

 

Has anything taken place that has had an effect on it?

There have been many examples to follow, many conferences attended, many books read on what makes for a good teaching philosophy; I've heard many war stories and glory stories from experienced instructors on what has been successful for them; I've experimented daringly in the classroom to see what works well in the classroom.

I've done all these things, though being still at a young age, and no thing has been more influential than this: 

I was 15 when I lost all hope in my family, myself, and the world around me. The life circumstances that encompassed me were compelling evidence enough to convince me that I would never make any sort of impactful difference in the world and I would never amount to anything meaningful. My presence on the earth was a waste and I would be a failure for the rest of my life, however long I decided to continue on living. 

When I reached high school, though previously I was an all A student, I slept through all my classes, not being able to see the point in any of it. My grades began to tank as well as my morale. I got involved in all of the wrong crowds, began to disrupt my community with crimeful acts, and slowly began to retreat any trace amounts of love or compassion left in me. 

Though many of my instructors in high school quickly categorized into their "Don't waste your time" pile of students, Ms. T wouldn't allow me to slip into the abyss of failure. Every time I would drift off to sleep in her class, she would gently wake me up, encouraging me to become engaged in the class. She would ask me questions trying to get to know me, trying to get to the bottom of my lack of care or concern. She explored my interests and started mentioning hints to them in the classroom and how the course content related to them. I eventually got tired of being bothered by her at school with all of her questions and attention she gave me, so I simply stopped coming to school. 

I thought I could disappear from school without anyone noticing. I lasted about three days before Ms. T came to my door herself to come get me for school. She didn't call CPS, she didn't leave it to administration to handle the matter, but she came herself. It only took her coming to my door one time for me to start raising questions about my worth, about my probability for success, about my potential. If Ms. T saw worth and promise in me, than so could I.

It only took her coming to my door one time for me to start raising questions about my worth, about my probability for success, about my potential. 

Ms. T saw not only an academic problem in me, but a worth problem in me, and she made it her responsibility to deal with both problems. My interactions with Ms. T helped to change the trajectory of my life. I later began to see other students lives positively impacted by her methods. I knew if I was ever to become any kind of teacher, influencer, or leader, I needed to emulate her. 

I'm very well aware of the differences between pedagogy and androgogy, but I'm also aware of how many students in my class are going through the same questions I had went through. I'm aware of the students in my classroom that have never had a Ms. T in their lives, but desperately need one to change the trajectory of their lives, to enable them to succeed in a rapidly evolving workplace where yesterday's skills aren't good for today, to accomplish their academic goals and aspirations that they have. I know I have many years of experience to go before I can even be close to as influential as Ms. T, but getting there, and excelling past that point is my primary perserverance as an educator. 

 

Responsibilities

Describe the responsibilities of your teaching/counseling position: 

• Teach content that accomplishes the program outcomes of Engineering Design Technology while also enforcing the rules and regulations of the College and the SBCTC in maintaining and rendering student grades, program/curriculum developments, and professional development activities.
• Communicate and develop the program's industry advisory committee to ensure that program outcomes are current with the needs of industry.
• It is my duty to direct and control, within reasonable limits, the studies of my students, taking into account individual differences among students and their learning styles to ensure all my students accomplish the goals/outcomes of the Engineering Design Technology program, the College, as well as their personal academic goals. I need to ensure every student is on track to accomplish current goals. To accomplish this, I must do the following:
  • Evaluate each student's educational growth and development and make such evaluations available to each respective student and appropriate administrative and counseling personnel for ensuring student success. In addition, it is my responsibility to give students opportunity to respond to their personal evaulations to increase their likelihood for success on subsequent evaluations.
  • Make due preparation daily for my teaching duties, designing my presentation of course curriculum for optimal student engagement and success.
• Attend instructors' meetings and professional development events that contribute to my development as an instructor and higher student success in my classroom. I am also required to attend meetings and events required by my supervisor, the College President, and the Board, which align with the former.
• Acquire certification under the standards specified in WAC 131-16-070 through 131-16-094
• Maintain a record in the learning management system of scores earned for
  course work submitted by students in fulfillment of course or program requirements. Also submit records to appropriate administrative personnel. 
• Stay current with all regulatory requirements related to my responsibilities.
• Participate in recruting activities to maintain and increase student enrollment in the Engineering Design Technology program. 
• Participate in programs and committees that benefit RTC.

 

List the courses you have been teaching, and upload syllabi samples.

• DFT 101: Introduction to Drafting: DFT 101 Syllabus.pdf Download DFT 101 Syllabus.pdf
  • This course is an introduction to the Drafter's role in industry.  Course topics include the fundamentals of manual drafting such as line-work and lettering, scales, geometric construction, dimensional layout, lead grades and the use of related drafting tools.

• DFT 106: Mechanical Drafting: DFT 106 Syllabus.pdf Download DFT 106 Syllabus.pdf
  • Students learn Orthographic projection, auxiliary views, and section views. The class also covers dimensioning machined parts sheet selection and title block creation. This course is a continuation of DFT-101.

• DFT 113: Introduction to Computer Aided Design: DFT 113 Syllabus.pdf Download DFT 113 Syllabus.pdf
  • This course provides a thorough introduction to the applications and uses of AutoCAD in the industrial manufacturing environment. Students are introduced to command structure, pull down menus and special access commands, geometric construction, dimensioning, and editing. 

• DFT 132: Document Control: DFT 132 Syllabus.pdf Download DFT 132 Syllabus.pdf
  • Students determine the status and location of all completed drawings or any given assignment. Course content includes the handling and storage of drawing originals, methods of filing and number allocation, types of reproduction and distribution, and drawing changes of both hard copy and electronic files.

• AMATH 75J: Technical Mathematics for Drafting II: AMATH 175J Syllabus.pdf Download AMATH 175J Syllabus.pdf
  • Topics include descriptive geometry, including fold-lines, projection lines and point labeling coordinates. Other topics include projection a plane, true size and shape of a surface and true length of a line. This is a continuation of AMATH-161J.

 

Discuss your role as an advisor/mentor for students.

Assisting Students with (Not so) Unique Struggles

Students come to RTC from all walks of life, generally struggling with these things as they transition into being a new student:

• Raising a family
• Working full time while going to school
• Being laid off and requiring new skills
• Being displaced in their careers or from their homes
• Not being in school for over 20 years
• Mental disabilities
• Struggles with attention
• Coming from war

I can have the most excellent lesson plans, incorporate the most successful teaching strategies in my classroom, use the best ways to keep students engaged in the learning material, but if I'm not helping students deal with the problems listed above, it would be all in vain.

Students can't focus in the classroom when they are stressed about things going on outside the classroom.

I know I don't have the resources to help my students with all of these complex problems on my own, but I have a team, a college, that is stock full of resources to help our diverse students with their diverse needs. 

It's my job to identify when a student has a unique need and to connect them with the resources through the college so that the need can be filled. Being in close contact with disability services, veteran services, the learning resource center, and assistance services enables me to be the middle-man in getting these resources in the hands of students. 

Career Adivising Students

Students are also coming to RTC without being completely sure how they want their career to look. A lot of them are unsure of the certificate or degree program they have chose. Its also my job to learn the ins and outs of my students goals and see if their goals line up with the program, Engineering Design Technology. Sometimes they won't, and are actually in need to be enrolled in a different program. It's my job to notice those students and ensure they are in the program that best aligns with their career and personal goals. 

There are also sub-fields within my program that students can choose to focus on, Construction or Manufacturing. Its my job to help students discover which field aligns best with their goals and also how they can best prepare for securing a job when they graduate in that field. 

To do this effectively, I need to be in contact and good relationship with potential employers, analyzing what their needs are, adding more potential employers to my network, and connecting them with students who are getting ready to graduate from the program. 

Meeting Participation: 

• College required meetings: The required meetings we've had so far, I've found much value in, relating directly to my job duties and responsibilities. It is exciting to bring a notepad and pen to meetings and know that I'm going to take notes that I will refer to that night for crafting my lesson plans for the next day. 
• Union Meetings: Being a new faculty member, I see great value in being involved with the faculty union, helping to take part in bargaining and ensuring fair and proper treatment of faculty. The union thus far has been very understanding and helpful in regarding my needs and my concerns. 
• Software user group meetings on campus [as they relate to my program]: these meetings are great for collaborating with other faculty that are using the same software as my program does. The last SolidWorks User Group meeting, I was able to collaborate with Machining instructors on using their computer labs for a future software class that will be offered in my program, to take advantage of the resources and equipment already owned by other programs rather than buying the software again for our program.

College/Faculty Committee Involvement:

• None so far.

Leading of Professional Development Activities:

• None so far.

Relevant Organization Membership:

•  American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME): Being a part of this organization allows me to have access to the most recent developments in the mechanical engineering and manufacturing industries where our students will go to work if they choose to focus on being an engineering design technician on the side of manufacturing. Knowing what technology trends are happening amongst mechanical engineers, our students possible future bosses, allows me to know what to focus on in our curriculum, and gives me ideas for what to ask my advisory committee at our next meeting. 
• American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE): Being a part of this organization allows me access to an incredible network of engineering educators who are on the cutting edge of research into teaching engineering to adults. Many people in the network teach engineering at research universities and many of them take part in doing research on what is effective in the classroom as it relates specifically to engineering education. Going to the conferences held by ASEE are among my favorite conferences because I learn the most at them from the many presentations of research and discovery. Also, though I haven't presented research of my own to my collegues, I await with eager expectation when I get to present a discovery I made in the engineering classroom at RTC to my collegues. 

Advisory Committee Involvement:

I've had two opportunities to interact with my advisory committee so far: at the industry connection dinner held in October, and our advisory committee meeting in November. I had the chance to present suggestions to the committee, gaps in our program that I had noticed in the short time teaching in the program this year. I suggested, based on my knowledge of my relevant industry, course topics to eliminate and course topics to add with the full support of my co instructor in my program. We were even able to make immediate changes in our curriculum after the meeting with the approval of our supervisor, in terms of smaller changes made to our curriculum. 

From the experiences with my advisory committee, I learned that our committee is very committed to ensuring our students are recieving appropriate skills for the current job climate, but are heavy on the employer side. Most of our advisory committee are employers, and they are also weighted to one side of the industry that surrounds engineering design technicians: they are mostly on the construction side with only one manufacturing side member who is a new member at that. 

I'm very concerned with the make-up of our advisory committee because I am committed to ensuring that our students in our program are able to get jobs in the sub-field that they desire, and our advisory committee make-up has direct impact on that. I don't want students to have hopes and aspirations for getting into the manufacturing world when they start are program and then find that 99% of my connections are on the construction side because of who's on our advisory committee. 

Sample Materials 

Course/Program Syllabus and Outcomes:  General_Syllabi Fall Start.pdf Download General_Syllabi Fall Start.pdf

• Create detail and assembly drawings including parts list in accordance with industry standards.
• Produce a set of residential plans that conform to local and UBC code.
• Create Two-dimensional layouts from three-dimensional model.
• Create a site plan including legal description and topography.
• Create documentation that fully describes the form fit and function of a given assembly
• Participate in a team project making both individual and collaborative contributions.
• Create a set of commercial plans with foundation, post, beam, and wall details.

The outcomes and syllabi provided above are those that were already in place when I began employment with RTC in the Engineering Design Technology program. With my new status, I haven't had much power or time to make changes however I have made my desires clear to my co-instructor and supervisor. The outcomes appear vague and simplistic in terms of the complex requirements of the industries our students will be going into. They also aren't representative of what the students actually get through in the program. 

Titles of Texts Used and Rationale:

• Technical Drawing and Engineering Communication: 6th Edition; Goetsch/Chalk/Rickman/Nelson; ISBN: 9781428335837
  • The rationale for this text is its comprehensive coverage of mechanical drafting and design topics. I am able to use this text for 4 out of 21 courses in the EDT program. It covers all the topics related to program outcomes on the mechanical and manufacturing side of our program. It has very helpful pictures and diagrams to appeal to visual learners, step-by-step tutorials through each chapter to appeal to kinesthetic learners, and very clear explanations of topics for auditory learners. Sadly, there isn't video instruction to go along with the text and the text is also riddled with mistakes in the problems at the end of each chapter, so I hope to find a better textbook sooner or later. 
• Architectural Drafting and Design: 6th Edition; Jefferis/Madsen; ISBN: 978-1435481626
  • The rationale for this text is its comprehensive coverage of construction topics going into architecture, civil design, and structural detailing. This text is able to be used for five out of 21 courses in the program. I haven't had the opportunity to use this text for my courses because of my focus on the mechanical and manufacturing courses of our program thus far. 
• Tutorial Guide to AutoCAD; Shawna Lockhart; ISBN: 978-1-58503-874-9
  • To be replaced with Autodesk AutoCAD 2018 Help http://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2018/ENU/ Links to an external site.
  • When I had first got to RTC, I noticed that all of the material in the texts could be found online for free. Moving to these online resources as opposed to textbooks will decrease textbook costs by $200 or more without a sacrifice of content or resources. I've checked both resources for content equivelance and they pan out. The AutoCAD textbook has actually been proven by my co-instructor and I to be ineffective for classroom use. The co-instructor and I have found the text to be only good for a "reference".
• Technical Mathematics: 5th Edition; Peterson/Smith; ISBN: 9781418015459
  • To be replaced with Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ Links to an external site.

         

 

 

 

Attendance Policy

Class hours are 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. It is your responsibility to arrive on time and check in and out with the hand scanner each day. We cover a large amount of material each day in class, which builds for the next section. The skills and habits you develop now will directly affect your future employability. The two most commonly asked questions by potential employer’s concern attendance and attitude! Four consecutive absences without contacting your instructor will result in probation, 5 consecutive absences; will result in an automatic drop from the program.

The following process will go into effect during a prolonged disruption due to influenza or winter weather. Class materials and information will be available at www.rtc.edu/canvas.com. User name and password information to access the above site will be sent to the email. Address provided to the instructor during the first week of class. You can contact the instructor mbiell@rtc.edu. In the case of system failure, the instructor can be reached at 425-235-2309. If you get sick, contact the instructor as soon as feasible. The instructor will make arrangements to distribute class work and related documentation. In the case that the instructor falls ill, a faculty member from this department will contact the students to determine the tools and location of instructional materials.

Grading Policy

• Completed Assignments - 65%
  • Weekly Drawing Assignments [Graded for completion only; Instructor works to ensure 100% accuracy in class before assignments are turned in by working individually with students]
  • Drawings with Notes as Applicable
• Exams - 25%
  • Weekly Quizzes [Competancy based assessment is emphasized. If students do bad one week on a quiz, they can retake an equivelant quiz in two weeks following a meeting with the instructor to increase performance. Without this meeting to improve their performance, they cannot recapture points for their quiz. Their subsequent quiz grade, if higher than their first, will replace their previous quiz grade.]
• Class participation - 10%
  • [Direct product of attendance and is accounted for by hand scanner percentage]

First-Day Handouts to Students on Classroom Policies and Assignments

The syllabus is the only handout on the first day, and it really doesn't occur on the first day, it occurs on orientation day. On the first day, I take more effort to get to know them and for them to get to know each other. They get ten minutes to answer questions that I provide with a partner, and then they switch partners. I then give them a personal assignment where they get to answer the questions to me in written form and then I get to read them later that day. 

I haven't done this for this year but for the next cohort, I would like to have them all take a learning styles questionaire, a Myers-Briggs personality test, and determine the classroom norms for the rest of the quarter together, similar to what many of the RTC instructors do on their first day. 

Curriculum Development:

The Engineering Design Technology program is composed of mostly doing technical drawings, so as is expected, students will primarily be completing technical drawings in the classroom as they learn new techniques and principles as they relate to technical drawing. 

 

Here is an example of a drawing that I wouild first do in front of the class while students watched, and then we would do together as a class with the students following along, and then the students doing the drawing on their own with my assistance as needed. We would complete the drawing and then add notes to the drawing for our future reference on quizzes [notes are shown in a dark green color]. I would provide some notes I believe would be important, and then ask to students to add anything that I left out. They add the notes themselves so they are all in, and have reason to use them on the quizzes. In Engineering Design Technology, it is not as important to memorize a bunch of information, but more to know how to find needed information very quickly.  These drawings in essence become the students "textbook" for reference on quizzes and later on in their professional careers. The notes are made in the same software the drawing was made in so that they are easy to access and modify as needed. Another example of a drawing that would have notes added is shown below.

The projector and document camera are also used to develop resources for students to succeed. Often times, problems or topics in the textbook are difficult to understand, so notes will be made "on" the textbook using the document camera. Concepts in drafting can also be quickly presented from the document camera. 

The textbook problem is shown in black, my notes are shown in red using the document camera and projecting it onto students computers rather than on only a projector screen. 

Grid paper was placed underneath the doc camera, but the document camera painter was used to "draw" on it. Doing it this way eliminates possible misinterpretation from legibility. The options to use the neon bright colors also make the concept presentation very easy to see. 

Provide Sample Classroom Assessment Tools (high stakes, low stakes)

High Stakes:

Weekly quizzes are given instead of widely spreadout exams because academic research shows that the more frequent students are tested, the better they retain information. Also, weekly quizzes are graded intentionally and carefully and assignments are only graded based on completion, rather than grading both assignments and quizzes for correctness in a mediocre fashion. Below is an example of a weekly quiz rubric. 

Two drawings were given to be completed by students for this quiz. I could have only had two items for the rubric: 5 points for drawing 1 and 5 points for drawing 2. However, I would rather put the emphasis on the topics that were covered that week and in previous weeks so that students can look at each rubric item to understand what concepts they understood fully for that week and what concepts they only understood partially. With this information, students can come to the instructor saying "Instructor, I seem to have trouble with Section views" as opposed to "Instructor, I seem to have trouble with drawing 1". Each drawing contains many elements of the topics that were covered that week, so the rubric helps students to nail down what specifically they had trouble with. At this point, students can recieve additional instruction or tutoring in the specific area they had trouble in and give it another shot on the quiz retake opportunity that they are given. 

 

Below is an example of specific feedback given to students following a quiz:

Providing a filled in rubric to students most the time is not nearly enough for students to be able to improve in their areas of struggle, so specific feedback is given per drawing. The drawings that are turned in by students are picked apart by me. Notice that I give feedback in the same format that we record notes in class so that students can keep the feedback notes for future reference. My feedback is given in green. I mix in comments that directly led to point deduction with comments that did not lead to point deduction. My hope is that doing this takes the focus off how many points were gained, and puts the focus on what was done incorrectly. Students can bring this feedback back to the instructor and then the instructor can help them through each and every note so that they can do better on the quiz retake opportunity.

I also include the overall score for each drawing in the top left corner of the drawing out of spite for students desiring to know their specific score for each drawing. 

All of what is described above is my highest stakes assessment [which in my opinion is still pretty low stakes].

Low Stakes:

Examples of low-stakes assessment given in my classroom is individual counseling and feedback to students as they work on assignments that I give them. I give them a lot of time to work on assignments individually once we have taken time to understand a new concept. During this individual work time, I circle the room, looking closely at what students are doing, making sure everyone is on the right track. 

I've recently implemented a new strategy where students aren't allowed to move on from an assignment until they are able to complete it with 100% accuracy  without instructor or peer intervention.

This builds in repetition and surety that concepts are being understood by students. It also puts the focus on quality, not quantity.

Challenges

Time Constraints:

I've read my teaching contract from RFT to the tee to ensure I knew what my rights were. One of the biggest challenges has been time. My contract says I'm contracted for 40 hours of work per week, but to accomplish all of the things that are expected me, I've been needing to work up to 70-80 hours per week. What defines a workload unit is not clearly stated. I'm challenged to fit lesson planning, 27 contact hours plus 5 office hours, professional development classes, working on tenure portfolio, random administrative tasks such as credit analysis and working out class scheduling, and various meetings into 40 hours weekly. This is very dificult to say the least.

Now at my previous job I worked the same amount of hours roughly but I only had 15 contact hours with students weekly plus 5 office hours. Being in contact with students for 27 hours weekly is very strenuous. And the students we work with here at RTC seem to tire me out much more than they did at my previous job at the university. 

It has been a constant struggle to maintain proper amounts of energy levels for the classroom and also have great classroom activity throughout the week.

Emotional Taxes:

This quarter I've cried almost weekly over the life circumstances of my students. I've never had my heart break over students as it has this quarter. At my previous jobs, I dealt with well-off middle and upper class students who have never had a real problem in their entire lives. The problems that some of my students are facing are grewsome, and the fact that they still make it to class and give their all in school amazes me everyday. 

I'm so proud of my students, but it is very difficult to go home and not think about what some of them are going through outside of the classroom. It is also difficult to not be consumed in my emotions as I try to design lessons that are geared my student's success. The emotional tax often prohbits me from rest away from work, which brings my efficiency down when I get to work. 

Achievements

What do you consider to be your strengths as an instructor/counselor?

• Nimble: I can plan out a class period as much as I want but often, what my students need and what I prepare don't align. I pride myself on being able to adjust on the fly, in the classroom to what my students need at that particular time. Just two weeks ago, my students were struggling with making a powerpoint presentation for another one of their classes. I could have told them "Well, that's too bad! I would give you a tutorial on powerpoint if I was prepared for it." but instead I whipped up a quick 5 minute demonstration of powerpoint right then and there as well as pointed them to great youtube video resources.
• Advanced Knowledge of Field: I don't just have a degree in the program that I'm teaching, but an advanced degree in the field of the supervisors of students that come from my program. Students from our program will go on to take ideas from engineers and make them into technical drawings. I've worked as an engineer and have put my own ideas into the form of technical drawings. This gives me foresight into the needs of my students for being successful in the workforce. 
• Perserverance: I noted earlier that it is a regular habit to give 70-80 hours per week to the job. Even though it is difficult to work so many hours after having so much contact with students, I'm committed to it. I'm committed to staying late to help students through particular issues. I'm willing to give extra time in the morning to meet with students to work through their confusions. It means me having to postpone planning and prep to the evening, but I'm up for it. I will work through it to make it happen. There is little to nothing that can prevent me from accomplishing a goal of mine. 
• Listening and Knowing: In recent years I've taken considerable effort to develop my listening skills. It shows in the classroom, with my interactions with my students. I'm able to listen to every word they say, pick out the meaning, and adjust my instruction to respond appropriately to what they are saying. I listen in on the things they say indirectly to me, the things they say to their peers, the things they talk about that are completely unrelated to our academic topics, and design instruction that takes into account such information. I get to know my students to the point where I can take things that I am currently learning about them, match it with things I learned about them the first or second week, and develop just the right instructional method for them. I believe the best way to reach my students is by knowing them and their needs on a deep level. I don't need to know the personals of their lives, but just how they think, how they talk, how they recieve information, how they learn. 

What teaching/counseling innovations and/or methods have been successful for you?

•  Reading Apprenticeship: At the beginning of the year I noticed an extreme struggle with reading through the textbook that I have never noticed before. The reading assignments seemed to be the most stressful thing throughout the entire week for the students. I initially thought the textbook was bad, but this occurred with all the textbooks that were being used in my classes. I integrated reading apprenticeship concepts into my reading assignments and saw significant improvements in retained learning of students. Using Think-Pair-Share, providing a study guide with the reading, and making the reading less heavy and more accessible has been a huge success.
• Universal Design for Learning: I knew before I got to RTC that there were many styles of learning, but I had never seen a succinct demonstration of the solution as I've seen it in the UDL concepts. I never even thought of giving my students choice for how they wanted to express their acquisition of new knowledge. This year I began giving my students at least two different choices for each assignment that appealed to different learning styles. 
• 20-Minute Turns: The 20-minute turn cycles through a new engaging activity every 20 minutes. This tool was provide to me by Liz Falconer through a Technical Teaching Course. I've implemented this along with the "ENGAGE" lesson plan to improve student engagement. I still have students that fall asleep while I am presenting a new topic within 3 minutes of me talking, so I still have work to do with this innovation. 

List highlights of recent professional activities that have contributed to your teaching/counseling skills.

• Assessment: I had never even thought to compartmentalize assessment until a recent workshop required by RTC on the last faculty work day. Technical instructors, I found outat this workshop, give this particular topic of assessment a lot of attention. Their seems to be a science behind it which the actions of my students during quiz time surely gives light to. I can make assessment a positive meaningful experience not only for my students but for me as well! I usually hate grading assessments but maybe I don't have to. This workshop has given me a new paradigm to consider in my teaching. 
• Teach for Student Success: I've heard this phrase used a lot at RTC since I've been working there. When I first heard it, I said to myself, "Well that is interesting, what else would I teach for?" And it dawned on me that I had been spending my teaching career teaching just for the sake of teaching; teaching because someone had declared it my job; teaching solely for the purpose of getting students through my classes so that the college can make money. Being at RTC, I've learned that I can teach with a purpose, with one major goal in mind. The thought had never occurred to me, but now having the thought, I see that my teaching is much more intentional. 
• Instructor to Student Transparancy: In one of my technical teaching courses that I have been taking this quarter, I learned about making expectations and assignments transparent to students, meaning that students can see the meaning and purpose behind everything they are asked to do and can see how everything in the classroom is going to help them achieve their goals. Learning this has helped me to completely shift my teaching perspective to one that keeps students in the loop. I've never thought of students ever caring about the meaning behind classroom assignments, but adult learning at the technical college surely do. I've experienced firsthand now that students being kept in the academic loop leads to better performance on assignments and overall in the classroom.

Describe any research activities, publications, achievements, awards, and memberships in organizations that pertain to teaching/counseling.

• Pursuance of a MatEdu module publication based around the development of a water rocket simulator using excel for use in a dynamics or mechanics course. The simulator was designed for a water rocket lab to introduce the advanced complexities of impulse and momentum as well as the advanced capabilities of excel as an engineering analysis tool. This research was very relevant to my last position but not so much to my current position at RTC. This simulator was made in partnership with Dr. Craig H. Johnson from Central Washington University (http://www.cwu.edu/engineering/craig-johnson Links to an external site.)  and Materials Education National Resource Center (http://materialseducation.org/ Links to an external site.) with me heading the research with the purpose of making it available to the wider engineering education community through the resource center. So far the module is approved to be submited for publication through Mat Edu. Here is a copy of the module to be published: Water Rocket Design Module.pdf Download Water Rocket Design Module.pdf
• Networking amongst potentional employers to students in my program. My most recent connection was with Michael Steeves, an Applications Engineer for Quest Integration at a software user group meeting.
• New Course Development by recommendation of Advisory Committee [Introductory Materials course for my program]
• Canvas-ization of course in my program for UDL. [Not much work accomplished yet].
• Certified SolidWorks Professional
• Licensed by Washington State as an EIT [Engineer-in-Training]

Growth

If you carried out classroom observations of other teachers, provide your takeaways.

Mike Biell Observations:

• My key take aways from observing Mike were his awareness of his students. As soon as a hand went up in the classroom, even if Mike wasn't looking in that direction, he somehow instantly knew about it and called on that student to ask their question. I have noticed in myself a slight lack of unawareness of my students in my classroom. My students could have their hand up for at least 10 seconds before I notice it, and sometimes I do a walk around while students are working on something, come to a student, and it turns out that student was needing my assistance for some time, but I didn't notice. Seeing how aware and hypersensitive Mike was to his students really inspired me to seek out new ways to raise my own awareness for my students.
• Mike had great connectvitiy between his lectures and the textbook for the class. Mike would actually continually reference specific areas in the textbook during his lecture. What I have historically done has been to assign an RA activity to the class using the text, discuss it, and then give a lecture or demonstration that included all the same content the textbook had, but not actually referencing the textbook. Seeing Mike integrate the textbook so well into his lectures inspired me to begin referencing locations of specific things in the text as I discuss them in lecture.

Describe professional development activities.

• Those required by the college
• Technical Teaching Courses_Teaching Essentials Series:
  • EDUC 200: Introduction to Professional Technical Instruction
  • EDUC 231 : Managing the Learning Environment
  • EDUC 170: Technology for Teaching and Learning
  • EDUC 282: Integrating Cultural Diversity into the Curriculum
• Canvas 101 Course
• Small Changes Canvas Workshop
• Attendance at SolidWorks User Group Meetings
• Attendance at SolidWorks Specific Conferences
• Attendance at ASEE Regional Conferences
• Attendance at ASME Regional Conferences
• Pursuance of PhD in Mechanical Engineering
• Pursuance of Certification as an Instructor under Autodesk and SolidWorks [Software brands that we teach to students in my program]. The names of these certifications are ACI (Autodesk Certified Instructor) and CSWI (Certified SolidWorks Instructor)

In what areas have you grown since you started teaching, and why?

• Patience: I never knew how patient I could be with students. And my students are recognizing it too! Teaching students with diverse barriers to learning forces me to attempt to teach from many different angles. This constant re-iteration of teaching has made me accustom to spending much time with students to ensure concept comprehension.
• Constant Learner: As an instructor, I have learned that I can't be successful in education without being a constant learner myself, and in technical instruction, it is very difficult to not be a life-long learner. The time I've spent in technical instruction, I've been learning far more than my students on a daily basis. Without becoming an instructor, I wouldn't have become the life-long learner that I now am due to the great complexities and challenges to teaching adult learners with very diverse barriers to learning.
• Empathy and Discernment: As an engineer, I didn't have much need for empathy or discernment. Knowing about people wasn't as important as it was when I became an educator. Needing to be able to see past my students' personas into what was really going on with them in and out of the classroom pushed me to develop those skills of seeing what my students were feeling as they had experiences within the classroom and figuring out how to reach them better with my teaching methods. I quickly learned that if I didn't know my students, I wasn't going to be able to teach them well. Developing more empathy and discernment was a necessity if I am to grow as an instructor. Though I have grown much in this area already, I have much more growing to do as I continue on in the realm of education. 
• Compassion for People: In the world of engineering, it is very easy to sacrifice care for people for care for profits. It was so easy for me to be consumed with profits as an engineer. I focused on information and solutions and how they would make my company money. But as an instructor, I've grown soft for people. Especially at the technical institution, seeing the various circumstances that my students face, I've grown to really care for them and other people like them. I've began to be concerned with my students personal lifes and how they are growing as individuals, not because I'm trying to but because its the very nature of my job as an educator. I want so badly for my students to succeed just from making an effort to know them and teach them. This has began to breach my personal life as well as my professional life. I am a person now that cares more for people since I began teaching two years ago, and so much more since I began teaching in the technical realm. 

How can the college support you to ensure future growth?

• This quarter I felt, along with many other new instructors, that I was thrown in the deep end and told, "Sink or Swim!" without proper introduction to the shallow end of the pool or sufficient instruction in how to swim. Our week long instructor boot camp felt like a drop in the bucket. Of course, I came in not expecting technical instruction to be so different from instruction at the university, putting me at a disadvantage. Tenure, professional development, our teaching schedule, it's all thrown at us at once in the first quarter. This surely is a lot to take in. I believe the best way for the college to ensure my growth is to spread out more what is thrown at me as I'm getting accustom to this whole new world called technical instruction. Some new instructors are teaching for the very first time with much larger credit loads than I! I can't imagine how they are managing.
• I have 27 contact hours with students. Decreasing this and making time for other professional activities such as recruitment, mentorship from more experienced faculty, and program development would be very helpful. Actually having time to plan my classes weekly would be very very helpful. As a new instructor, it is very unclear to me where planning and preparation is supposed to fit into the work week. 
• Instructor Mentorship program: Having a mentor my first quarter at RTC would have made a huge impact on my productivity and overall outlook on the teaching experience.