Stipend Policy: Most Faculty Commons workshops advancing teaching, learning and assessment frameworks and methodologies offer participants the opportunity to earn a stipend. The workshops with a stipend available may include such activities as scholarly reading, reflective writing, curriculum revision, lesson planning, classroom observations, or presentations. Stipends are tied to deliverables and hours. To receive the stipend, participants must be a current BC faculty member and successfully complete the course and its activities, as well as provide feedback in the form of a course evaluation. Instructors may take a workshop more than once but will receive a stipend only once per workshop.
Faculty Development Workshop Strands and Suites
The Faculty Commons has put a new twist on Faculty Development with the introduction of strands and suites of workshops that follow a meaningful path based on your current needs as a faculty member. We’ve done the research, created the workshops, and collected the opportunities both in the Commons and other areas on campus where faculty engage in PD. We develop a mix of on-ground, hybrid, online, and remote-accessible offerings to meet the variety of needs of our faculty.
Our workshops are designed to help Bellevue College faculty think creatively about their teaching and make valuable, innovative changes in the classroom. Workshops focus on scholarly research about teaching, learning, the assessment that meets the demands of teaching at Bellevue College.
Our workshops are facilitated by Bellevue College faculty members, staff, or community guest presenters. We encourage and support faculty who have never led a workshop to design a new offering and try it out. We also seek out people in our community who might bring a special perspective to facilitate a workshop for us. We engage with different areas around the Bellevue College campus that have staff who have creative ideas for leading faculty in a quarterly workshop.
Strands and Suites
Faculty Showcases
One of the coolest things about Bellevue College faculty is how dedicated we are to improving our instructional effectiveness. We know that our success translates to our students’ success. As much as we may like to participate in every single workshop, learning community, teaching square, and book club on campus, it is simply not possible. So, in this new series, we’re bringing the learning highlights to you! Faculty who have engaged in professional learning through the Faculty Commons over the past year will be presenting some key takeaways, how they’re implementing the learning, and ways their teaching and students’ learning have been impacted by the changes to their instruction.
Teaching Squares
You may have heard about them, or even been a part of one before! They’re fun, engaging, collaborative, and meaningful. A Teaching Square is a group of four faculty members ideally from different disciplines who work together to explore their teaching. Teaching Squares are designed to improve teaching skills and build community through a positive process of classroom observation and shared reflection. They run the full quarter to allow for deep engagement.
Participants meet 2-3 times per quarter as a cohort and observe each other’s classes. A facilitator will provide literature on the theme of your Teaching Square and guide you through the process.
All first-year tenure-track faculty are provided the opportunity to participate in a Teaching Square through the Tenure Mentoring Program.
2017-2023 Teaching Square Themes
- Winter 2023: Engaging Students
- Spring 2020: Inclusive Pedagogy
- Winter 2020: Preparing for Your Class Observation
- Fall 2020: Online Teaching Squares
- Spring 2019 + Fall 2019: An Opportunity to Observe and Reflect
- Winter 2019: Universal Design for Learning
- Winter 2018: Building Community in Your Classroom, Preparing for Your Official Classroom Observation
- Spring 2018: Classroom Management, Encouraging Self-regulated Learning, Interdisciplinary Sustainability
- Fall 2017: Online Teaching Squares, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Diversity
Brown Bags, Quick Dips, Have You Ever Thought About…?
Since 2018, we’ve held a variety of drop-in, informal style offerings led by a variety of faculty from across the campus.
Discussion and Presentation Topics
- Assessing Your Classroom Climate
- Work/Life Balance
- End of the Quarter Self-Reflection
- How to Talk with a Student Who Might be Struggling with Drug/Alcohol Use
- Mid-Term Evaluations and Other Ways to Gather Feedback on the Class and Teaching Approach
- Using Technology to Improve Student Learning
- Mid-Term Evaluations and Other Ways to Gather Feedback on the Class and Teaching Approach
Last Updated August 14, 2023