Communities of Practice

In the spirit of the SBCTC vision of “leading with racial equity” and a strategy to mitigate effects of COVID-19, SBCTC began to offer a variety of technology-mediated communities of practice opportunities that forwarded social connection, skill-building, information aggregation, problem-solving, and the sharing of resources.

In communities of practice, organizations collaborate using distributed leadership, reciprocal learning and shared practices and resources to provide curricular and learner support. As SBCTC communities of practice evolve and mature, partnerships and results scale to meet the needs of the system.

Find a CoP

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Guided Pathways CoP

The Community of Practice for Guided Pathways is intended to provide support, by college clusters, to Guided Pathways team members using the Constellations as an equity framework. For the given week, we will convene for 1 to 1.5 hours each day by college cluster (Example: Monday - District, Tuesday - Mid-Sized, Wednesday - Rural, Thursday - Technical, Friday - Urban/Suburban). The purpose is to create a space (requested by colleges) to share how they are developing an essential practice of priority area for Guided Pathways that is directly related to loosely similar college characteristics. Content from each meeting will be collected for the specific essential practice and shared with the collective participants for review before sharing to the Guided Pathways list-serv.

Do not know what college cluster you are in?

All meetings will be conducted via Zoom.

December (week 1)- Career Component of GP
March (week 2)- Gateway/Gatekeeper Courses
May (week 2)- To be decided by group

Contact for Guided Pathways CoP

Claudine Richardson, PhD

Professional Developers CoP

The Community of Practice for Professional Developers (CoPPD) was convened after listening to multiple voices across the Community and Technical Colleges (CTCs) asking for support to lead professional development. As a participatory governance group, the group was established in June 2022.

Meeting 1 (June 2022): Welcoming and Starting our Journey - The Next Elegant Step
Meeting 2 (July 2022): Murmurations - Metaphor for Systems Leadership
Meeting 3 (August 2022): Finding the Conversation and Practitioner Spotlight

Meetings for Fall 2022 will occur on the third Tuesday of every month, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. (subject to change based on Community of practice participant needs). Contact Dr. Claudine Richardson if you are interested in participating.

Objectives:

Equity: Develop a deeper understanding, individually and collectively, around "leading with racial equity" to "create cultures of belonging" in the context of our roles, including (but not limited to) anti-racism, decolonization, neurodiversity, and positionality.
Collaboration, Peer Mentoring, and Resource Sharing: Build a sustainable resources bank to share opportunities collectively. (Actions related to this objective include: upcoming events, concerns, questions; give and receive feedback; partner across campuses).

Focus Areas for Professional Development (Pillars):

Operationalizing equity in professional development
Using data and evidence for improvement and evolution of our work
Building learning communities
Onboarding new faculty members
Sponsorship and mentorship opportunities

Themes/Inquiry Questions Moving Our Work Forward:

Cultivate Professional Identity while Developing Own Professional Identity
Collaboration with Sustainability
Equity, Anti-racism, Decolonization, and Neurodiversity
Meaningful Assessment
Research for meaningful, student-centered, and equity-focused evidence to navigate systemic change

Contacts for the CoPPD:

Undergraduate Research & Equity CoP

Overview

Sign up for our Community of Practice!

The Undergraduate Research & Equity Community of Practice (CoP) is a faculty-driven learning collective designed to support educators as they utilize research as a high-impact teaching and learning strategy for supporting equitable outcomes and increasing student engagement.

Composed of full-time and adjunct faculty across all disciplines, this CoP meets monthly to explore challenges and share successes. One-hour meetings will occur monthly and be co-facilitated by attendees. These meetings are not trainings or webinars; rather, they are collaborative spaces where practitioners learn from and with each other. Conversations cover a range of topics, including sharing existing research projects and curricula, scaffolding research projects, equity-based practices in undergraduate research, successfully engaging students, and more. Topics will be determined by the interest of the attendees.

In addition, the CoP utilize a “many hands make light work” model to build and share tools that faculty across the 34 community and technical colleges can use to authentically serve the students at our institutions.

Fall 2022 Session Dates and Titles

All meetings will be conducted via Zoom.

Sept. 30, 2022: 1:30-2:30 p.m.
- Zoom Link: Introduction to Faculty Learning Community & COP
Nov. 4, 2022: 1:30 - 3:30 p.m.
- Faculty panel (concurrent with FLC Session 2)
Dec. 2, 2022: 1:30-2:30
- Equity and Undergraduate Research

Apply Now!

Applications are now being accepted for our Faculty Learning Community (FLC) on Creating a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE). Please note: Our first meeting (Sept. 30) is designed to be a kick-off/advertising/Q&A session to drum up interest. Please join us to learn more!

Goals

The Faculty Learning Community (FLC) aims to bring together a small cohort (10 faculty) of undergraduate faculty from across the state who are interested in bringing undergraduate research into their classroom through developing a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE).

Professional development offerings, occurring every month over the course of a year, will scaffold strategies for faculty to build their own course-based undergraduate research experience into a course. This is a paid professional development experience that requires a year long commitment and each participant is expected to create a CURE and implement it the following academic year.

Objectives of the FLC include:

Examine the benefits and challenges of integrating CUREs into courses in community colleges
Explore the features and structures of CUREs
Develop or select a CURE that they can implement within an existing course
Identify a set of student learning outcomes that they will meet through the implementation of this CURE
Use a backward design approach to develop assignments, activities, and course materials that scaffold the learning outcomes of the CURE
Build connections and collaborations with other faculty engaged in this work

Session Dates and Titles for 2022-2023 FLC (All meetings will be conducted via Zoom):

October 21st - Session 1: Why UGR benefits students; What is a CURE? What are models of CUREs
November 4th - Session 2: Faculty Panel: Examples of CUREs across disciplines
November 18th - Session 3: Nuts & Bolts: Process of Designing a CURE using backward design
January 20th - Session 4: Facilitated Work Session - Development of a CURE
February 10th - Session 5: Facilitating Students Teamwork (Equity Focus)
March 3rd - Session 6: Scaffolding Research Skills through Assignments
March 10th - Session 7: Facilitated Work Session
April 7th - Session 8: Finding Support and Making Connections
May 19th - Session 9: Faculty Showcase