The Office of Professional Development in collaboration with Title V—Gateway to Success and Guided Pathways presents

Fall 2021 Teaching & Learning Series

Welcome

Our goal is to provide our ELAC family with workshops on self-regulated, active, research-based principles for building inclusive communities and teaching to increase student learning as well as developing a first-gen mindset. In addition, T&L Series workshops consider how information about who our students are and how they are performing can be used to ensure their success.

Happy ChatsGrab your favorite late afternoon beverage and join us for an informal chat on teaching, learning, best practices, and tech tools.

4pm-5pm on September 16 and November 18

Our Community of Practice (CoP) Our CoP offers a forum to discuss and collaborate on best teaching practices. What holds the CoP together is the passion, commitment, and the collective experience of its members. We welcome all members of the ELAC community to join our CoP. Because we have a holistic approach to education, we value the voices and input of all campus constituents and friends.

4pm-5pm on October 21

The purpose of our CoP is: • to develop the members’ capabilities.• to exchange knowledge.• to build expertise.

The intention of our CoP is:• to develop a campus-wide plan to

create a community of support.• to identify professional development needs. • to offer suggestions for workshops.• to develop a lab of innovative and student-

centered strategies to ensure student success.

For more information about the Community of Practice, contact Nora Zepeda: zepedans@elac.edu

Workshop themes: Adapting into a 21st Century Instructor Ensuring Equity and Inclusion Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Workshop Schedule at a Glance

SeptemberMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

1 2 3

6 Labor Day 7 8 9 10 Data: Making the Case for Equity in STEM

13 14 15 Applying Growth Mindset and Community Cultural Wealth

16 17 The Learning Pit

20 21 22 23 24 Culture Matters

27 28 29 30

OctoberMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

1 Take the Next Step with OER

4 5 6 7 Strategies Toward an Anti-Racist Classroom

8

11 12 13 14 15 Identities in STEM

18 19 20 Creating Engaging and Interactive Course Materials

21 22

25 26 27 28 29

NovemberMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

1 2 Reflect, Respond, and Resolve

3 4 5

8 9 10 11 Veteran’s Day 12

15 16 17 18 19 Leveraging Students’ Capital in STEM

22 23 24 25 Thanksgiving 26

29 30

Happy Chats CoP Meeting

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WorkshopsSeptember

Date & Time Title & Description Presenters

Friday, September 10 10:30-12

Data: Making the Case for Equity in STEMNot all students experience our STEM classes in the same way. In this workshop, participants will engage in discussions on the importance of equity issues in STEM, equity gaps in success and retention in STEM fields, and resources for accessing equity data. Participants also will explore teaching and learning strategies to improve equity in student outcomes.

Raymond Oropeza

Lilit Haroyan

Steve Reynolds

Wednesday, September 15 10:30-12

Applying Growth Mindset and Community Cultural Wealth: Models to Increase Student EquityParticipants will explore the equity gaps that exist at our college and learn how asset-minded practices can help close those equity gaps. The two theoretical models, Community Cultural Wealth and Growth Mindset, will be considered to examine how they can be applied to our teaching and services to foster student success. Participants will discuss effective ways to adopt an appreciative lens when working and creating classroom or office environments that support students as individuals with cultural capital and growth potential.

Mandy Kronbeck

Arpi Festekjian

Friday, September 17 10:00-11:30

The Learning Pit: Fostering Independent Learning through Facilitation, Cognitive Strategies, and Wise FeedbackTeachers light the way and welcome students into their disciplines, but they cannot and should not be the sole source of illumination in the classroom. This workshop will explore how to foster independent learners through normalizing struggle and offering goal-oriented feedback. Participants will examine how these approaches of supporting students through cognitive as well as facilitation strategies can be applied to their own practice.

Elena Tinker Diaz

Friday, September 24 11-12:30

Culture Matters: How to Support Culturally Responsive TeachingThis workshop will examine how to foster culturally sensitive teaching and to understand students through the lens of the cultural contexts that they bring into the classroom. Since culturally responsive teaching practices strengthen student-teacher relationships and bridge the cultural and equity gaps, it is imperative to cultivate this practice into our curriculum and instruction. Therefore, this workshop will create space to analyze and reflect on our own teaching methods and identify several effective strategies to create and support culturally sensitive teaching pedagogy.

Rokeya Rahman

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To R.S.V.P or for more information, please visit https://bit.ly/Teaching-Learning-Series

OctoberDate & Time Title & Description Presenters

Friday, October 1 10:30-12

Take the Next Step with OERThis workshop is for those who are ready to take the next step forward in utilizing OER in a course. Participants will learn about the 5 R Permissions of OER (Retain, Revise, Reuse, Remix, and Redistribute) and Creative Commons licensing rules. Participants also will have the opportunity to either search for OER materials or begin adopting OER in a course. Those who wish to start adopting materials should have a Canvas development shell to work with and an OER that they would like to use for the first time.

Mandy Concoff Kronbeck

Krishana Hodgson-DeSilva

Nick Barkawitz

Thursday, October 7 10-11:30

Strategies Toward an Anti-Racist ClassroomThere is a continued need to create space for faculty to discuss, reflect, and create informed and intentional change that will challenge the racism that exists within education. To that end, participants will be introduced to anti-racist principles and teaching practices as presented in Ibram X Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist, Bettina Love’s We Want to Do More Than Survive, and Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How To Decolonize the Creative Classroom. In a collaborative and supportive space, participants will be encouraged to reimagine their role within the classroom as well as the assignments and methods of assessment they incorporate into their coursework so that they may begin to create their own anti-racist classroom.

Lorena Madrigal

Mandy Kronbeck

Raeanna Gleason

Friday, October 15 10:30-12

Identities in STEM: Overcoming Stereotype Threat and Cultivating Possible SelvesThis workshop will address the importance of STEM identity in success for traditionally marginalized student populations. Depictions of scientists in the media and the STEM classroom, messages conveying race- or gender-based limitations, and past experiences with stereotypes can limit STEM identity formation in students from underrepresented minority backgrounds. Tenuous STEM identity can heighten feelings of stereotype threat and lead to deleterious effects on student success in the STEM classroom. Yet practices such as incorporating “scientist spotlights” into curricula have proven to increase students’ success in STEM courses and their likelihood of entering STEM career fields. This workshop will cover classroom strategies to encourage and cultivate students’ perception of their possible selves as scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

Arpi Festekjian

Emily Haddad

Wednesday, October 20 12-1:30

Creating Engaging and Interactive Course MaterialsIn the past year, we have all experienced how important it is to create appealing course materials to motivate students and keep them engaged. Whether you are teaching online, hybrid, or face-to-face, your course materials should be highly responsive to stimulate involvement. This workshop will help participants create interactive presentations, motivating and engaging videos, and fun content to connect with students on the device that they never put down, their phones.

Diler Yuksel

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WorkshopsNovember

Date & Time Title & Description Presenters

Tuesday, November 2 12:15-1:30

Reflect, Respond, and Resolve: Finding Common Ground on Race, Religion and PoliticsThis workshop will examine how to build trust and connection when discussing high- stakes topics such as politics, race, and religion. Participants will explore how to build broad coalitions among diverse individuals and find common ground within any discipline, field, or community to lead to positive, mutually beneficial outcomes.

Felipe Agredano

Friday, November 19 10:30-12

Leveraging Students’ Capital to Maximize their Persistence and Success in STEMThis workshop will explore two asset-minded theoretical frameworks that STEM professionals can use to see dramatic gains in student persistence and success in STEM. Using Dr. Tara Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth model, this workshop will take an appreciative lens and focus on the extensive strengths - or capital - that students possess and bring into their STEM journey. In addition, Dr. Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset theory will be discussed as a way to reframe STEM professionals’ communication and feedback. Recognizing students’ capital and STEM professionals having a growth mindset about students’ abilities can unlock students’ potential, especially among students of color who are traditionally marginalized in STEM fields. The workshop will include meaningful interactions and pedagogical activities that are culturally affirming for traditionally marginalized student populations, with the goal of increasing their retention and success in STEM.

Nohelia Canales

Raymond Oropeza

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To R.S.V.P or for more information, please visit https://bit.ly/Teaching-Learning-Series

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Meet the Speakers

Felipe AgredanoFelipe Agredano holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Chicana/o Studies from UC Berkeley and a M.A. in Theological Studies from Harvard University. Felipe provides professional consulting to a diverse number of corporate and nonprofit boards, private, public, and government organizations where he has facilitated discussions on high conflict and resolution topics like race, politics, and religion. Felipe has over 20 years of experience in working with fast paced, high- stakes environments from executive level negotiations to broad coalitions in diverse sectors of education, government, business, corporations, and faith communities.

Nick BarkawitzAs a product of multiple area community colleges and universities, Nick is continually grateful and excited to have an opportunity to teach at an institution like ELAC. Nick’s main interest is integrating elements of the current media landscape into the composition classroom to meet students while simultaneously imparting and supporting interdisciplinary academic skills. From OER to teaching via social media platforms, Nick works with the emerging technologies that are quickly changing our already dynamic learning environment.

Nohelia Canales Nohelia Canales is an educator-scientist and social justice leader who teaches full-time in ELAC’S Life Sciences Department. She strives to decolonize science education and create transformative, affirming learning spaces for students where they recognize their inherent brilliance and capacity for success in science. She is an NIH/NIGMS MARC Program scholar, earning her B.S. in Biology & Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University and her M.S. in Tumor Biology at Mayo Clinic Graduate School. As a biomedical research scientist, Nohelia has studied and presented research in endocrine physiology & hypertension, the role of cell adhesion molecules, cancer immunology, and the role of transcription factor NF-B in cancer. Nohelia has received various awards/recognition including AACR’s Scholar in Cancer Research Award, NIH/NIGMS MARC Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, MS. Foundation’s Woman of the Year, and selection as one of the Top 21 Young Feminists for the 21st Century in MS. Magazine’s 25th Anniversary issue.

Arpi Festekjian Arpi Festekjian has been a professor of Psychology since 2010 and a Guided Pathways Facilitator since 2018. As a first-generation college student with a bi-cultural identity, she sees herself in the students she serves and is committed to their success- both in the classroom and through the college-wide redesign of Guided Pathways. Arpi strongly believes that a transformational change in the way we teach and deliver services to students is central to closing equity gaps. Her interests include Growth Mindset, Community Cultural Wealth, collegiality, and data-informed decision-making.

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Raeanna GleasonRaeanna Gleason is a professor of English, the Director of the Delloro Transfer Program in Social Justice, and an Equity Lead. Her experience as both a community college graduate and former community organizer informs her deep investment in advocating for social justice, community empowerment, and equitable educational access now as a professor. Raeanna has participated in the Community of Practice Summer T &L Series, served as a Student Success Advocate, and presented a wide range of workshops for ELAC’s campus community.

Emily HaddadEmily Haddad is an assistant professor in the Anthropology, Geography, and Geology Department, teaching Geology and Earth Science. She earned a B.A. in government from Harvard University and Ph.D. in organic geochemistry and paleoecology from the University of California, Riverside, where she studied mass extinction and ancient environments. Emily decided she was going to be a paleontologist when she was 5 years old but was dissuaded from pursuing a STEM degree as an undergrad, until encouraging professors and family prompted her to return to her original passion. She is now an advocate for breaking stereotypes in STEM and creating more inclusive STEM classrooms at ELAC.

Lilit HaroyanLilit Haroyan teaches Physics and Astronomy at ELAC. She earned her M.S degree in Physics at Yerevan State University, Armenia, and further continued her research in Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, Germany, and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy. Her postgraduate studies in Astroparticle Physics with specific focus on nuclear interactions have been published and presented internationally. Lilit heartily accepts the motto, “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think” (Socrates), and she strives to see it acted upon more rapidly and systematically.

Krishana Hodgson-DeSilvaKrishana Hodgson-DeSilva is from London, England where she earned bachelor’s in English Literature from Roehampton University of Surrey. She earned her master’s from Cal State LA. Since 2014, Krishana has been teaching at East Los Angeles College in the English Department. Krishana focuses on creating an engaging and interactive learning environment by emphasizing student-to-student based learning, “learn by practice,” and technological tools to address different types of student learning styles. Krishana also uses a variety of multi-media to connect with her students and to humanize her classes.

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Meet the Speakers

Mandy KronbeckMandy Kronbeck has been teaching English at ELAC since 2010 and is currently co-chair of ELAC’s OER Taskforce. She believes in helping students in any way she can, including through promoting Growth Mindset, equity through anti-racist practices, ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost), and OER (Open Educational Resources). Mandy’s other interests and endeavors on campus include online teaching, global awareness, the International Students program, and Safe Zone (creating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ and Undocumented students).

Lorena MadrigalLorena Madrigal has been teaching English at ELAC since 2016, including for the Latina Completion and Transfer Academy that aims to address equity issues experienced by our Latina students. Having grown up taking various community and academic classes at ELAC, she understands the experience that many of our first-generation, immigrant, and English-learning students face and uses this understanding to inform her teaching.

Raymond OropezaRaymond Oropeza teaches Anatomy and Physiology at ELAC. He earned his B.S. in Biology and his M.S. in Biology at Cal Poly Pomona, where he studied membrane transport proteins using electrophysiological techniques. He is passionate about STEM teaching and learning techniques and student-centered learning. Outside the classroom, he works with the Professional Development Committee to advance professional development opportunities. Raymond also is a doctoral student in Educational Leadership at Cal State Fullerton.

Rokeya Rahman Rokeya Rahman is an associate professor in the department of Child, Family, and Education Studies at ELAC. She has worked closely with children and families for more than fifteen years as a pre-school teacher, site program supervisor, site director, and instructional coach. Besides teaching classes, she presents parenting trainings and workshops throughout California for large and small groups of teachers, students, and conference attendees. Rokeya also is a frequent facilitator for the ELAC campus community with such workshops as “Creating Classroom Community,” “Student-Centered Classroom: How to Implement the Student’s Perspective,” and “Six Success Factors”. Additionally, Rokeya offers soft-skills training, child development workshops, and parenting classes for ELAC students and for the local community. Rokeya earned her A.A. from LA City College, her B.A. and M.S.S. from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh as well as a master’s from Cal State Northridge.

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Steve ReynoldsSteve Reynolds is Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences and oversees Math and Sciences Departments. He joined the Husky family in 2019, three months before the pandemic hit. He has a passion for student success and comes to us with 24 years of community college teaching experience with students from diverse backgrounds.

Elena Tinker DiazElena Tinker Diaz is an associate professor of English. With over fifteen years teaching experience, Elena uses her time as a language arts teacher at both the middle school and high school levels as well as her work developing ELAC’s English Supplemental Instruction program to inform her understanding of how to promote student-to-student interaction and independent learning while also fostering meaningful connections with course content. Since 2019, Elena has worked with ELAC’s Professional Development Department to organize and facilitate the Teaching and Learning Workshop series and the Summer Academy.

Diler YukselDiler Yuksel implements needs analysis to create learner-centered face-to-face, blended, and distance learning content using tools such as Canvas, Flipgrid, Kahoot, Canvas Studio, Microsoft Office, Camtasia, Articulate Storyline, and Adobe Captivate. Additionally, she designs courses using micro and macro learning materials to meet established objectives, to connect with her learners, to foster a growth mindset, and to innovate. Diler also has expert knowledge and certification in learning theory and uses these extensively while developing engaging content and materials.

Office of Professional Development

Title V - Gateway to Success

ELAC encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. For more information on workshops and for disability accommodation requests, please contact the Office of Professional Development at professionaldevelopment@elac.edu.

Grant Objectives:• Improve academic practices and retention.• Develop new capacities for groups

of faculty and students.• Develop curriculum to train faculty that

introduces best practices and teaching strategies, and improves rates of completion.

• Train faculty coaches and peer-to-peer counselors in coaching methods that will cultivate a “student” identity among poorly-prepared, high-need, first-generation students.

The Office of Professional Development is committed to providing faculty, staff and administrators opportunities for improvement that enhance and support student learning and student success, as well as encourage innovation and professional growth.

To sign up for an appointment, please go to: https://elacpd.appointlet.com

We are offering trouble-shooting assistance on the following topics: • Zoom• Basic Canvas • Office 365

• SIS Portal • FLEX Q&A • Vision Resource Center

For more information: http://bit.ly/ElacProDev

Open to all faculty & staff