Dear MTW Participants,
On behalf of the MTW staff, welcome to what promises to be a fantastic retreat away from campus and its many distractions. Our mission is simple: we want participants to focus on teaching. We hope that during this workshop, you embrace the former MTW mantra: Beg, Borrow, and Steal! Make use of your colleagues’ teaching strategies, hone your own, share your philosophies, tips–even assignments–with your colleagues, gain inspiration and develop a support network to help sustain you after our return to campus.
A bit about the Master Teachers’ Workshop: It started at JCCC in 1992 and ran to 2008, but it was inspired by the Great Teachers movement that began in 1969. Some JCCC instructors attended a series of Great Teacher Seminars and were particularly inspired by those held at Lake Okaboji in Iowa. In 1991, a small group of JCCC professors approached Helen Burnstad, Director of Staff and Professional Development about JCCC starting its own iteration of the Great Teacher Seminars and named it Master Teachers’ Workshop. It was held at Saint Mary College in Leavenworth, KS in Jan. 1992, led by Ellen Mohr.
Four main premises arose that our new Master Teachers’ Workshop likewise endorses:
One: Teachers learn best from one another.
Two: Classroom creativity is enhanced by providing opportunities for teachers with diverse styles, backgrounds, content areas and experiences to mix and mingle.
Three: Drawing from the collective strength of a diverse group of professors is more rewarding than hiring a well-known expert.
Four: the key to success in teaching is simplification.
The symbol adopted to express JCCC’s Master Teacher Workshop is the web. Make connections. Meet and get to know teachers from other disciplines and with different levels of expertise. Doing so will help us build a stronger web of connections once we go back to campus.
There are some important rules that we ask participants to follow:
- Share your knowledge, ideas, and suggestions.
- Give advice and inform others of your personal expertise.
- Give frank and constructive feedback.
- Recognize feedback as constructive.
- Let your colleagues have a voice (equal time for all).
- Exercise your right to say what it is you want to learn.
- Clean up after yourself.
On behalf of the MTW staff, welcome! We can’t wait to get started.
Aaron, Andrea, Barry, Bill, Rhonda
Schedule
Day One, Jan. 9th
10:00-12:00 Check in, orientation, introduction Sister Noreen, Andrea and MTW Staff———–Free time to acclimate, explore
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:15 General Session: Teacher That Mattered
2:15-3:00 Break
3:00-6:00 Master Faculty Presentations. Participants will hear five fifteen- minute presentations from Stu Shafer, Allison Smith, Doug Patterson, Susan Johnson, and Jay Nadlman, who will share their perspectives on teaching at JCCC.
6:00-8:00 Dinner and free time
8:00–9:00 Break-out sessions. Participants choose what session they would like to attend.
9:00– Participants are free to do what they choose but are expected to stay at Marillac for the night.
Day Two, Jan. 10th
7:30-9:00 Breakfast
9:00- 10:15 Teaching demonstrations. Participants will form two groups and present a 10-minute “lesson.”
10:15-10:40 Break
10:45-12:00 Teaching demonstrations continued
12:00-2:00 Break for lunch and free time
2:00-3:15 Teaching demonstrations. Participants will form new groups and repeat their 10-minute “lesson.”
3:15-3:40 Break
3:45-5:30 Teaching demonstrations continued
5:30-8:00 Reception and dinner for participants, deans, and administrators who have been invited to join us.
8:00-9:00 Evening session to discuss take-aways from teaching demonstrations. What will you beg, borrow, and steal?
Day Three, Jan. 11th
7:30-8:30 Breakfast
8:30-10:00 Closing wrap-up session
10:30 Participants leave for JCCC and are back by noon