“Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other.”
Proverbs 27:17 CEV
Collegiality is an important part of personal development. It promotes intentionality in working with others to create the best learning environment for our students.
Since my first year at ACU in 2000, I have worked with individuals across campus in a number of ways to improve the teaching and research conducted at ACU. In the summer of 2015, I was able to participate in a team effort to evaluate the Adobe Creative Cloud suite and begin transforming the Operations Management course as a mobile application for online use. The team, headed by John Weaver, Dean of Library Services, was a collaborative effort of instructional design personnel and the learning studio (see letter from John Weaver here).
The following is a list of activities that emphasize other work done in this area:
Participated in the Master Teacher pilot program during the fall of 2014 and spring 2015. See sample post of contribution to the MT blog, spring 2015, here.
Participated in the summer Courage to Teach program with various ACU faculty
Headed the departmental T&P committee for Alfa Nyandoro, who received tenure in 2015
Published a case study and journal articles with business management faculty.
Presented at conferences with faculty in COBA, Psychology, CBS and the Library and students from various disciplines.
Coordinated a research effort during the fall of 2014 and Spring of 2015 for a biochemistry student using high performance computing in biosurveillance
Coordinated research efforts during the Fall of 2016 and the Spring of 2016 for two marketing students to use high performance computing and analytics to analyze social media data to develop ethical marketing efforts to teens and children.
Worked with management and SITC faculty to co-teach concepts in ERP applications
Worked with Computer Science faculty on mentoring and grant writing
Worked with ACU psychology faculty on participation in the AOM PDW program
Mentored a minority women’s organization with Bible faculty
Mentored an Hispanic student organization with a biology faculty member
Conducted freshman common reading sessions at the Adams Center with Biblical Studies faculty
Taught CORE classes when offered and made recommendations for revision of CORE offerings with the Gen Ed Committee
Participated in team instruction to allow students to benefit from the expertise and unique skills and experiences of different instructors in one class setting. Working as a team to put forth the best class experience also provides a real-life example of collegiality and collaboration within an academic environment that can be extended to their own life experiences.
I have enjoyed the privilege of team teaching the following courses. Descriptions and sample schedules have been added to emphasize contributions made by each instructor.
CS140 – Intro to Programming – taught with Dr. Brian Burton. I introduced freshmen students to Visual Basic and C-Sharp in the .NET development environment while Brian introduced students to Java and the Eclipse environment.
ITC110 – taught with SITC faculty. Introduced freshmen students in computer science, IT, software engineering and information systems to concepts in IS and information management.
CORE 120 – taught with Dr. Jeanene Reese and Dr. Lauren Lemley. Each instructor shared research, concepts, and tools from within their respective disciplines.
MGMT331 – Operations Management – ran the manufacturing game simulation for the course over a 4-week period. Provided students with hands-on experience using an ERP application without taking the full ERP course for technology majors.