Jay Hollowell

One of The Lounge's bloggers, Kevin Shockency, recently noted in his blog, "Selling the Goods," similarities between sales and teaching, and concluded "...finding the value in the content I create and deliver, is not hard to find, and I can sell that idea and value to the student/customer."

This struck me as interesting and quite true. In many senses, faculty are sales professionals too. This does not diminish the importance of instructors' educational roles, or the acumen of teaching, but we do sell ourselves not only as subject-matter experts, but as agents of the disciplines we represent, the workplace… >>>

Scores of information have been written about effectively managing and empowering workplace teams. The basic precept has centered upon ensuring that your workplace team members are together focused on a common goal. Yet in the competitive spirit of the career college environment, empowering team members to achieve performance results, in whatever their functional or departmental responsibilities are, is much more than simply the emphasis upon a unified strategic goal.

To take it to the next step, as managers we must ensure that 4 Keys are accomplished as follows:

1. The specific expectations of our team members are clearly articulated
2. The necessary
… >>>

Recently, one of The Lounge's bloggers, Jeremy Miller, commented on the need for teachers to reflect, and then build on their strengths while improving on weaknesses. This struck me as a major facet of ongoing faculty development and professional growth - ongoing not only through more formal studies and continuing education, but also from experience gained, as a classroom manager, instructional planner and deliverer, and subject matter practitioner. 

As Jeremy stated, "We learned much in school to sharpen our skills, but we must learn outside of the classroom post-graduation.  Things we learn about ourselves may not be found in… >>>

While on business travel I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review that suggested technology was outpacing evolution. Though I don't want to necessarily initiate an argument on the validity of the evolutionary process, it did initiate my thinking on our use, as educators, of available technological resources.

We have sought creative ways to integrate technology into our learning environments to support teaching, enhance communication challenges with our students and speak the language that today's learner understands. It is no doubt an excellent tool!

Perhaps though the question is - from an educational perspective, has technology itself,… >>>

First, an effective Faculty Development program is an ongoing and communicative partnership among faculty, staff and school leadership where colleagues actively engage in their own development and are totally supported by their mentors.

Second, such a program is multifaceted, including not only the identification and accomplishment of teaching performance goals, but also attendance in discipline-specific activities and membership in professional organizations.

Third, an effective Faculty Development Program is performance-based. Rather than simply completing a training module or attending a workshop, it provides opportunities for faculty at all levels of experience, through demonstration and observation, to apply newly… >>>