Skip to main content
Get help paying for college! The FAFSA priority deadline is April 17.
  1. Home
  2. For Faculty
  3. Teaching & Professional Development
  4. Training Calendar

Professional Development Workshop Listing

New virtual workshops are now open for registration in CougarConnect.

Faculty Professional Development Initiative (FPDi) Workshops

Our faculty-moderated virtual workshops are informative, convenient, fun, and highly interactive. We foster a culture of growth, support, and a collaborative environment for our learners. Faculty Professional Development Initiative (FPDi) offers virtual workshops on:

Active and Collaborative Learning
Alternative Assessment
Critical Thinking
Teaching with Technology
Student Conduct
Classroom Management
And many more...

To register, go to CougarConnect. Search for “FPDI” in the Search tab. 

To see the current workshop schedule, go to https://cs-cc.net/connect

Adjuncts and ACFs will be compensated for attending the workshops listed below (up to 9 hours per academic year at the meeting pay rate). 

Here are the descriptions for some of the FPDi workshops.

FPDi Applying Active and Collaborative Learning (ACL) Workshop

Are you curious about how to incorporate active and collaborative learning into your classroom? Do you want to learn about specific strategies for using ACL? In this interactive workshop, you will learn about different active and collaborative learning techniques and how to use them in the classroom. You will learn about different ways to structure an ACL classroom experience as well as ways to troubleshoot common roadblocks that can appear along the way.

FPDi Assessment and ACL

Do you want to learn how you can use Active and Collaborative Learning (ACL) techniques to assess your students' knowledge base and understanding of course concepts? In this interactive workshop, you will learn about specific active and learning strategies and how those can be used to assess your students both in the traditional classroom as well as in the virtual classroom. This workshop will highlight both summative and formative assessments as well
as explore the connection that Active and Collaborative Learning has to Alternative Assessment Techniques.

FPDi Getting Started with Alternative Assessment

Do you want to learn how you can use Alternative Assessment to assess your students' knowledge and understanding of course concepts and encourage students to learn to apply the knowledge?  In this interactive workshop, you will learn about the benefits and strategies of using Alternative Assessment and how those can be used to assess your students both in the traditional classroom as well as in the virtual classroom. 

FPDi Alternative Assessment in your Classroom

Do you want to learn more about how to incorporate Alternative Assessments into your classroom? In this interactive workshop, you will learn about specific alternative assessment strategies and ways that you can structure them in both the traditional and virtual classrooms. You will also explore the advantages and challenges of these forms of assessment as well as their connection to Active and Collaborative Learning.

FPDi Critical Thinking Online Workshop

What is Critical Thinking and why do we struggle to teach it? This two-week fully online self-paced workshop is designed to take an in-depth look at critical thinking skills and dispositions and address some of the problems that get in the way of our efforts to teach critical thinking effectively.

FPDi Addressing Academic Misconduct

Are you wanting to learn more about preventing and reporting academic misconduct? In this interactive workshop, you will learn about the types of academic misconduct, the importance of reporting, common misunderstandings surrounding the process, and how the Student Conduct Hearing Board meets, deliberates, and makes decisions. You will learn how to collect evidence and report academic misconduct in your own class. This workshop will also provide tips and strategies to promote academic integrity.

FPDi Creating a Positive Classroom Environment

What increases student academic performance, ownership of learning, supportive behavior, and persistence? Having a positive classroom environment! In this interactive workshop, you will learn how to create a positive classroom climate by promoting student belonging, engagement, and connection. You will also learn strategies to address and manage barriers and common hurdles in creating a welcoming space in both the traditional and virtual classroom.

FPDi Using Emotional Intelligence in the Classroom

Are you interested in finding out about Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and how it impacts student success? In this workshop, an FPDI facilitator will share EQ competencies, benefits, applications and its impact on student success. In addition, Active and Collaborative Learning (ACL) activities will be demonstrated.

FPDi Leveraging Teaching with Technology  Workshop

  • Meeting the Challenges of Student Testing  

This workshop is designed for faculty who are teaching a live online or blended course and are concerned about academic integrity. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Respondus Lockdown browser, Respondus Monitor, and Lockdown browser with live proctoring using Zoom. Various Blackboard test options will also be discussed, as well as best practices that faculty may use in the virtual testing environment.   

  • Effective Student Interaction Via Discussion Boards

This workshop focuses on how to design and facilitate meaningful and engaging discussion boards in your online courses.  More specifically, this session will cover:  

creating guidelines/netiquette standards for student interactions  

using rubrics for discussion boards  implementing strategies for the facilitation of constructive student interaction   

  • Time-Saving Blackboard Tools: Annotate, Rubrics and the Calendar

Most instructors have been teaching online for a while now—is it time to get a “tune-up”? This workshop will focus on how to use the LMS tools that will streamline your grading and course design.

Annotate, the inline grading tool, allows instructors to comment on student work directly in Bb, without having to download and upload attachments. Bb Annotate offers a variety of markup features, including in-text comment bubbles, highlighting, freehand drawing, strikethrough, underline, customizable arrows and shapes, and others.
Rubrics clarify grading criteria, allows students to perceive improvements needed in their work, and offer a consistent and efficient method of assessment in courses.
Blackboard Calendar allows instructors to create a clear, color-coded schedule, with dates appearing in not only in the calendar, but in the location of the assignment and in the grade center. Updating between semesters is a breeze and modifying dates is as easy as a drop and drag. In the upcoming Blackboard upgrade, students will also be notified about upcoming deadlines.
These time-saving tools lead to greater efficiency and organization in courses. Ann and Jane will provide best practices and tips and tricks for using them.

  • Virtual Proctoring

Here’s an opportunity to see how virtual proctoring works with Lockdown Browser.  

 There are two types of virtual proctoring available to faculty at CSCC:

1) Virtual proctoring with Zoom (synchronous), and

2) Respondus Monitor (automated proctoring where a video recording is captured of the student’s testing session).  

This workshop is designed for participants to experience virtual proctoring with Zoom and Respondus Monitor. The use of virtual proctoring from a student’s perspective and an instructor’s perspective will be covered. 

  • ChatGPT : Its Capabilities, Its Limitations, and Ways to Respond Both

You’ve heard it often enough: ChatGPT is a game-changer. But how do we play the game when no one seems to know its rules? This session covers AI’s potential, its limitations, and different strategies that can be used to promote authentic learning in today’s classroom.

  •  Using Blackboard Groups for Online Collaborative Learning

Distance learning faculty have discovered that using active and collaborative learning is the key to engaging students in online classrooms. But putting students together to work in groups can be a messy, challenging process. If you'd like to learn some tips about how to make collaborative learning run more smoothly in your course, this session is for you. Distance Learning Faculty Fellow Ann Palazzo will offer some pedagogical insights on designing and facilitating online group projects, which will be followed by FAC member who will present a step-by-step guide on how to use the Blackboard Groups tool.

  • Better Live Online Sessions

This workshop focuses on creating a strong foundation for live online sessions, including netiquette guidelines, rubrics for online interaction, and engaging activities for live online students.

  • Engaging Students in Your Online Course 

Research is unequivocal; the best predictor of student success in online courses is their level of engagement. When students can feel a sense of ownership in their learning, contribute and connect with other students, and perceive that their instructor is invested and supportive of their efforts, they do better than when they are passive and expected to simply replicate static information being presented to them. This workshop focuses on strategies that will anchor students in your online course and engage them in the experience active and authentic learning.

 

Related Categories