Celebrating Teaching Circles at Century

Century College, in White Bear Lake, has had great success for 10 years now with a collaborative faculty-development approach that they call Teaching Circles. (Milton Cox and his colleagues at Miami University of Ohio would say that these teaching circles--though not all--are fine examples of Faculty Learning Communities.

I had a chance last month to participate in the end-of-semester celebration of Century's spring Teaching Circles, and got just a sampling of the good conversation, presentations of actual work, enthusiasm and good food that constitute meetings of these faculty learning communities.

Century faculty members Michele Neaton and Connie Poferl act as facilitators and organizers for the Teaching Circles, and they had put together a great jigsaw activity for that afternoon. About 60 of us sat at tables that by design included some members from each of the teaching circles. Each faculty member shared an overview of their group's purpose as well as something they'd produced or learned in the circle.

I'm convinced that the immediate future of effective faculty development will lie in peer-based, ongoing, problem-focused activities like these circles. Anyone in the Minnesota system would be well-served to learn more about how it's done by talking to the smart folks at Century.

Recognizing Student Work

I'm still thinking about the experience a month ago, when on a Friday at noon I visited Normandale Community College to attend the science faculty's Student Recognition event. NCC has a huge single lab used by all of the natural science departments, and every lab table was surrounded with students. In many cases, they were accompanied by family members--from infants to grandmas.

There were no prizes; the students gave no speeches; there was no guest speaker. Each of about 10 faculty members in turn identified several students who stood out during spring semester. They stood out for various reasons: for the improvement they'd made over 15 weeks, or for the obstacles they'd overcome, or for the long hours they put in in lab, or for the way they worked with a study group to make sure they got it.

The students got a round of applause, a letter from their instructor, and a light-snack reception afterward. And they all beamed. It wasn't graduation or scholarships. It was just a moment to shine, to hear that they mattered and that at a big school in busy classes, they were persons of distinction.