Abstract

I have strived to be an educational innovator throughout my career at Camosun. As I enter the last few months of my post-retirement contract, I want to share with my colleagues lessons I have learned in promoting student success in online math.

To that end, I attended the 2014 League for Innovations in the Community College conference. I wanted to determine if I have been on the right path with my innovations in encouraging student success in online math learning as well as learn about new initiatives and trends in this area. I have also prepared a training workshop for my colleagues on teaching math online.

At the moment, I am the only math instructor at Camosun teaching online. It is my hope that the result of this SD activity will be to encourage colleagues to make use of the knowledge and resources I am sharing.

Report on Outcomes

I attended the League for Innovations in the Community Colleges Innovations 2014 conference (http://www.league.org/i2014/) to learn what other colleagues across North America are doing to enhance the community college experience. I have shared the insights I have gained at my faculty website at http://legacy.lwebs.ca/index.php/category/professional-development/innovations-2014/

The task of updating and improving my online math system at http://mathxl.com continues throughout the year. Details are available at my faculty website, my Google Plus site and YouTube Channel as well as in my online classroom  This is also a 52 week a year task. Pearson Ed, our math textbook publisher who provides the site, regularly makes changes to its site that I need to keep up on.  There are two MathXL updates in the month of July that I will need to master and then implement in my online classrooms in time for the Fall 2014 term. I begin my orientation to the online classroom by welcoming Fall 2014 student in mid-August. 

My chair and I had originally planned to deliver the online math training workshop in May. However, that will now happen the end of August when faculty and staff return from holidays. It is my hope that my colleagues will be willing to make use of this knowledge and these resources in their own practice, either as a supplement to their current face-to-face practice or in a fully online environment.

Encouraging colleagues to make use of the Internet in service of our students has been a goal of mine for over 20 years. See http://legacy.lwebs.camosun.bc.ca/lwebs/session1.htm for a report of a workshop I helped facilitate in 1996. It was also a goal when I was founding chair of the Community Learning Partnerships Department. Perhaps the time is right for faculty to finally cross Roger’s innovation chasm. See Technology adoption lifecycle for more information.