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Teaching and Learning Innovation (TLI)

Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Student Success

Presented by Peter Felten
Monday, Dec. 4, 2023, 9 – 10:15 a.m.
K-111

Join us at BCC for a conversation with Peter Felten, Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning, Executive Director of the Center for Engaged Learning, and Professor of History at Elon University in North Carolina.

Decades of research demonstrate that student relationships with faculty, staff, and peers are crucial to academic success and personal well-being, particularly for first-generation and students of color. Drawing on almost 500 interviews with students, faculty, and staff at colleges and universities across the country, this interactive session will explore relationships (in and beyond the classroom) as a flexible, scalable, and humane approach to ensuring that all students experience welcome and care, become inspired to learn, and explore the big questions that matter for their lives and our communities.

CTLE

Welcome!

The mission of the Division of Teaching and Learning Innovation is to support faculty in creating rigorous, equitable, engaging learning experiences for all BCC students.

The primary areas of work are:

  • Academic technology, with an emphasis on high-quality online and hybrid course development;
  • Facilitating ongoing in-house professional learning opportunities for faculty;
  • Assisting in funding external faculty professional development experiences;
  • Supporting classroom-based assessment; and
  • Facilitating new faculty orientation and onboarding.
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Contact Us

tli@berkshirecc.edu
Hawthorne Building, H-431A

Campus Life Spotlight: Teaching and Learning Innovation

More than anything, no matter what course or instructor or modality, I want every BCC student to always know that they are valued, and wanted, and are very much at the center of everything we do.

Lauren Goodman

Read full article

The division accomplishes its mission through the CTLI, a dynamic group of staff and faculty who focus on the areas above and, most importantly, serve as an ongoing resource available to every faculty member at BCC.

  • Meghan Callaghan, Dean of Teaching and Learning

    Meghan Callaghan serves the as Dean of Teaching and Learning. Prior to BCC, she was at Bunker Hill Community College for the past 13 years where she wore a variety of hats. From coordinating the office of Community Engagement, expanding outcome and assessment work into the co-curricular, serving as MCCC union president, being a founding member of the Center of Equity and Cultural Wealth, and to most recently being the Associate Director Academic Innovations and Distance Education office. As Associate Director, she led the team responsible for developing web based courses, taught the Online 101 certification course required of all faculty wanting to teach asynchronous web courses, and BHCC's OER initiative.

    She received her Masters of Arts in Critical and Creative Thinking from UMASS Boston and a Bachelors of Arts in English Literature from Whitworth College in Spokane, WA.

    Meghan Callaghan
  • Janet Collins, Moodle Administrator

    Janet Collins serves as the Moodle Administrator and Administrative Assistant to the Division of Teaching and Learning Innovation. Janet enjoys helping faculty learn to use Moodle to conduct fully online and hybrid courses, and to enhance face-to-face courses. She can help you learn the basics of Moodle, or train you on more advanced Moodle tools to increase engagement in your online course space. Whether it's creating your first discussion forum, setting up your gradebook, making a quiz or figuring out why something isn't behaving as it should, Janet is always available to help with Moodle.

    Janet has worked at BCC for since 1982 and is an expert in Moodle, BCC's Learning Management System, and all its "quirks."

    Janet Collins
  • Matt Martin, Coordinator of Learning Experience Design

    As Coordinator of Learning Experience Design, Matthew Martin enjoys working with faculty and staff to share ideas that make learning experiences — online, hybrid, and in-person — more inclusive and accessible. Matt can help faculty and staff learn to use educational technology, and also work collaboratively to harness technological tools (such as Zoom, Moodle, and other software) to achieve instructors' pedagogical goals. In the spirit of accessibility, he is also a resource for finding ways to utilize open educational resources (OER). Additionally, Matt is passionate about incorporating recent research in cognitive science to improve student outcomes, keeping the learner's perspective always at the forefront.

    After a first year in a shared position with Greenfield Community College, Matt transitioned to working full time at BCC in the spring of 2022. Matt's prior experience in education includes over a decade of online teaching with the Virtual Virginia program.

    Matt Martin
Faculty Fellows for the Center of Teaching and Learning Innovation
  • Pam Coley McCann, Associate Professor in Human Services (2022 – 2024)
  • Stacy Evans, Professor of Sociology (Faculty Lead for the CTLI, 2019 – 2022)
Faculty Fellows for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Chuck Prescott, Professor of English (2022 – 2023)
  • Pam Coley McCann, Associate Professor in Human Services (2021 – 2022)
Faculty Mentors for Hybrid/Online Course Development Workshop (2020 – 2021)
  • Gina Foley, Associate Professor of Life Sciences
  • Chris Laney, Professor of History
  • Nell McCabe, Associate Professor of English

For Faculty

  • CTLI Suggestion and Idea Form

    Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation Wants to Hear from You!

    (optional, but helpful for follow up)

    (optional, but helpful for follow up)

    For example, you might offer topics you want to explore or would like us to expand upon. The more detailed, the better.

    Check all that apply.

     
  • Professional Development Funding Requests

    Berkshire Community College is committed to ongoing faculty professional development. The following process and form applies to professional development funding requests for individual and small groups of faculty. If you have any questions about this process, please contact your Academic Division Dean and/or the Dean of Teaching and Learning Innovation.

    1. A faculty member (or small group) initiates a funding request in writing to their Division Dean (typically by email), and subsequently discusses this request to agree upon a project with their Dean.
    2. The faculty member completes the Professional Development Funding Request Form (note that this form also asks for the submission of an initial travel request form, where applicable, for the purpose of more precise budgeting).
    3. The Division of Teaching and Learning Innovation will work with the faculty member on any necessary logistics, including purchasing materials, reimbursing costs, registration, and developing a plan for sharing professional learning, when applicable.
    4. The faculty member (or small group) completes the professional development project/activity.
    5. The faculty member works with the Division of Teaching and Learning Innovation to facilitate sharing, with specific activities dependent on the project.