Acknowledgements and Thank Yous

Welcome to our ECCTYC blog: a conglomeration of the voices of Optimism One, Jason Wohlstadter, Deborah Gilbert, Adrienne Peek, and Emily Malsam. The included conversations took place over the course of several weeks (end of September-end of October) and extended discussions on preparation, implementation, and academic interest. While we are currently the only contributing members, we humbly invite all those within ear shot (or computer screen) to contribute. Please feel free to contact us for information on contributing.

We invite you to peruse the posts on this page, as well as the mounting comments that are attached to each individual post.

Finally, we'd all like to acknowledge the hard work of Mr. Patrick Bettencourt who provided the catalyst and inspiration for our participation. In addition, we are very grateful to Dr. Robert for her professional and financial support. On a personal note, I would also thank my fellow colleagues for sharing so much of their personal philosophies, materials, and anecdotes.

Preparation and Travel

After a strenuous hiring process, Op and Adrienne approached Deb, Jason, and I about the possibility of presenting at the ECCTYC conference in October. Prior to starting the Fall semester, Patrick Bettencourt, a full time professor at MJC and board member of ECCTYC, inspired and launched an idea to present a workshop on "How to Get Hired for a Full-Time Gig," tentatively to be presented by new full time faculty hired at MJC in the fall. After agreeing to create and present a workshop on this topic, we focused on getting to know our own strengths/weaknesses, creating materials, and organizing our travel information.

What should we do with all of this information?

All of us agree that there is a seemingly limitless amount of discussing that can occur in conjunction with attending a conference such as this one. During walks to and from the conference, during breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and finally during our many hours of shared travel, we shared snippets of our experiences during the conference. These moments of summation and reflection were both thoughtful and interesting, as they invited new information, new understanding, and new perspective. Therefore, we felt an obligation to share some of these insights with a wider audience.

Favorites?

While everyone agreed that there were excellent sessions held each day of the conference, we all had our personal favorites. Some chose a favorite based on the interesting content presented, and others chose a favorite based on its pedagogical implications. To view a schedule for the conference, we invite you to visit the ECCTYC website.

Obligations

We are all very grateful to Patrick Bettencourt for encouraging and supporting the presentation and trip. Not only was the conference an excellent experience in terms of professional development; it was very exciting to get to know our fellow colleagues. While many conversations revolved around instructional and scholarly aspects of our lives (previous experience, reading and writing interests, academic pursuits, professional opportunities, and future hopes for education and our personal careers), there were also moments when we learned a little about the humanity of the profession, the many things we shared in common outside of work, and the "lives behind the curtain" (so to speak). We hope that faculty, both new and seasoned, have this same opportunity for professional growth.

Certainly, in addition to all of this, we also intend to provide an article for the division newsletter, intellectually stimulating discussion to all those who are interested, and materials/handouts to anyone who seeks more information.

Implementation

Because there was such a variety of presentations and we, as teachers, are a very diverse group, we continued to discuss the possibilities for implementation of presentation materials and theories as we left the conference and throughout our trip home. Several sessions stood out as having instructional value, including material on peer analysis essays and peer review techniques.

More information please...

Because there were so many presentations and workshops taking place throughout the three day workshop, we were unable to attend all of the workshops we were interested in. While we chose presentations that suited our scholarly and instructional pursuits, there were other sections that peaked our interest simply because of their interesting topics or their seemingly impossible implementation.

ECCTYC Sessions, Conversations, and Materials

The ECCTYC conference offered many valuable benefits to those who attended. While some of us pointed to particular sessions that peaked our interests, scholarly and instructional, others pointed to the opportunity to build a sense of collegiality among colleagues, and still others discussed the thoughtful sharing of materials during the sessions in regard to the peer editing process, research paper, and decreasing the work load.