Out of Class Commitment to Student Learning
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Student Oriented
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It is important for instructors to not only interact with students in class, but outside the classroom as well. I make it clear to my students that I am highly available. Not only do I have fixed office hours, but I respond to electronic communications within 24 hours seven days per week. I have also called students who needed to talk about a class or just had questions. I have planned activities for cyber-security awareness month each October. For the last several years, I have worked with a visual communications class to have the students create advertising posters to support this event. These posters were discovered by the Department of Energy and they wanted permission to use some for advertising. I have staffed a table for new/undecided students in the commons area of the building during the career fair. I work with my Cybersecurity students while they complete a semester-long service learning project. Sometimes these projects extend into the next semester, and if the students are willing to finish the project, I work with them. I have participated in the C-4 career fair at the local high schools. Below is a picture of me standing at a table at one of the career fairs.
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I participated as a mentor and judge for the first annual statewide IT competition held in April, 2017 in Indianapolis. Columbus had teams go to participate in IT Support, Computer Science, Networking, Cybersecurity, and Database. We had two students (one each in Computer Science and Database) win gold medals!
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I have brought students to cybersecurity conferences like CircleCityCon and Bsides. Below is a photo of students at Bsides Indy practicing their lock-picking skills!
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I also brought students up to Indianapolis to do a photo and video shoot to help advertise our School of Information Technology degree programs. You can see this video on the front page of http://www.ivytech.edu/computers. It is entitled School of Computing and Informatics Overview.
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Sometimes, due to the hours that I am active on Google Hangouts, I get asked questions by students who are not my own. An example of one of these conversations can be found below.
Student Success
Teaching technology classes can be very time consuming; particularly when you teach an online class that uses lots of different types of programs. I will get communications from students having problems with labs, their hardware, laptops, network, and even things like MyIvy and IvyLearn. I am not only an instructor, but also IT support.
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The helping of the students with technical problems is probably something I enjoy the most (I love troubleshooting), but it is very time consuming. In face to face classes this is fairly easy because I can see the student and what the issues might be that they are having and can come to a fairly quick resolution. However, with online classes, it is not as easy or obvious.
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In a recent example, I had an excellent student who was having trouble with some virtual machines. The communication we had about that is at the link to the left. You can see in the communication that it seemed we were working things out. All of a sudden, I get an email saying he was dropping the class - and he dropped it! I was very surprised as all of his other work was excellent. I quickly contacted him and he was frustrated with not being able to solve the problem. I suggested we connect via GoToMeeting where I could then see his screen. I was able to talk him through the setup in about 15 minutes. He was amazed! I then got him back into the class and he will finish up with a successful semester.
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Student Advising
In the IT discipline with eight (now nine with the addition of Visual Communications) degree programs, it is essential that students are advised properly and are in the right major from the first day. To aid in that, I work closely with our general advisor and try to keep him up to date with any changes we have in the curriculum. The IT committee has come up with a "common" first semester for all of our students. We try to encourage our students to take only the four courses that we have identified during the first semester so they are not overwhelmed and we can make sure they are in the correct degree program.
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I have attached a document with a sample of email messages between me, students and other staff members to show how I communicate regarding advising issues. You can access the document by clicking the oval to the left.
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Recognition
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I have won two awards with regard to students and student success. The first, won in 2012, is the President's Award for Excellence in Instruction. Attached is an article announcing that award, and below is a picture of me at the awards ceremony with winners from other campuses.
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Article:
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The next Award I want to mention is the Eagle Award. This is a traveling trophy of sorts. It is a stuffed eagle that is given to a faculty or staff member of Ivy Tech Columbus for recognition of hard work, devotion, and commitment to Ivy Tech's mission and vision. Below, I have pictured the Eagle helping me with a problem in the wiring closet.
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