The Center for Teaching and Learning at Brightpoint Community College will issues participation certificates for those who attend. Fill out the form to apply for your certificate – contact Dr. Shauna Mayo with any questions.
September 6th
Kickoff
Dr. Elizabeth Bensen, Associate Dean, Brightpoint Community College
Welcome
Dr. Bill Fiege, President, Brightpoint Community College
Introduction to the Keynote
Dr. David Dore, Chancellor, Virginia’s Community Colleges
Concurrent Session I
Room 1
Presenter: Agatha Engel, Northern Virginia Community College
Title: Exploring Experiential Learning Activities for the Introductory Accounting Course
Description: The current CPA exam (AICPA Exam Blueprint, 2023) requires students to show critical thinking skills. A promising method for teaching critical thinking skills involves Experiential Learning Activities (ELAs) (Butler et al. 2019, Gittings et al. 2020). In this talk, I will explore ELAs for the online introductory accounting course in a community college setting.
Room 2
Presenter: Holly Whistler, Virginia Community College System
Title: Integrating Field Work into Your Course
Description: Ethnographic research assignments are easy to integrate into any course because ethnography harnesses the power of the human experience, which can be captured using observation, interviewing, or surveying people. This session is an interactive work session, during which time participants will collaborate and create an ethnography assignment specific to their discipline, using digital templates, tools and feedback from each other.
Room 3
Presenter: Indigo Eriksen, Northern Virginia Community College
Title: The NOVA Outdoors Project: Creating Community and Belonging through Outdoor Adventure
Description: Backpacking teaches students how to rely on themselves, increases self-confidence, strengthens critical thinking skills, and supports collaboration and communication. Spending time outdoors also creates community and deepens connections central to larger feelings of belonging. For all of these reasons, Professor Indigo Eriksen created The NOVA Outdoor Project, a free outdoor adventure program that teaches students and college employees how to backpack and also host monthly hikes. This session showcases how one professor combined her personal love of the outdoors with her commitment to teaching and student success, thus serving as an inspiring model for how other faculty might do the same.
Room 4
Presenter: Kenyada McLeod, Brightpoint Community College
Title: Confronting the Conundrum: Preparing Learners to Be Entry-level Workers with Experience
Description: The Web Design program at Brightpoint Community College infuses experiential learning in each of the core courses of the program. As learners prepare to enter the workforce, they are often faced with the conundrum of seeking entry-level and/or junior roles only to find that in addition to specific skills, employers also want work-related experience. This presentation will address how exposure to work-related experiences in the classroom actively prepares students for a Web Design career.
Room 5
Faculty Sponsor: Karen Livesey, Northern Virginia Community College
Student Panelists: Alexis Knapp, Mayra Lopez Hernandez, Ayla Medrano, Griffin Perry, Mark Engel, Mia Mahmoud
Title: Predicting Student Success in Community College Students – School Belonging and Academic Self-efficacy
Description: This panel will discuss the results of a research project that utilized survey data from the Psi Beta National Research Project 2023/2024. The project investigated the relationship among school belonging, academic self-efficacy, and grade point average in a large nationally representative sample of Community College students.
Concurrent Session II
Room 1
Presenter: Stacy Slaten, Northern Virginia Community College
Title: Connecting the Dots in Community: Building Connection, Cohesion, and Care Through Collaborative Initiatives in the Visual Arts
Description: Correlating student learning to initiatives that culminate in a professional product, not only benefits the wider community by providing a resource or dialogue between disciplines, but also enhances the educational process. This session will discuss experiential learning projects that combine visual arts with community engagement as a way to offer a rich, multifaceted educational experience and to encourage students to develop as a whole person.
Room 2
Presenters: Kerrigan Sullivan, Brightpoint Community College and Bryan Brown, Northern Virginia Community College
Title: Study Abroad and Educational Travel
Description: Travel programs create opportunities for synergistic learning. This session will explore the benefits of study abroad and educational travel programs. It will also share the challenges and the nuts and bolts in planning for and developing a program, as well as showcase past and future programs from Brightpoint’s Global Educational Travel Program and NOVA’s Study Abroad Program.
Room 3
Presenter: Taylor Bernard, Thomas Dale High School
Title: Bringing Literature to Life: Devising a New Play with Students
Description: In this session, participants will learn about the process of bringing a children’s book, Abuelita’s American Dream: A Puerto Rican Migrant Story, to life. By sharing tools and procedures to empower students to lead a project from start to finish, the session will inform participants of the processes of partnering with a local author, brainstorming design and performance ideas, and bringing an interactive show to life for elementary schoolers.
Room 4
Presenter: Victoria Brame, Brightpoint Community College
Title: Elements of Portrayal: Portraits as Evidence of Agency
Description: The critical thinking skills required during the writing process are essential for success in all disciplines. In an attempt to better engage beginning writers, I created a thematic unit on identity and selected a series of portraits to use as starting points for discussions and writing prompts. The class takes a field trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The experience informs their final project: the creation of a self-portrait and museum label. It culminates in a gallery-style display at the Brightpoint library. This presentation will include several sample assignments and attendees will leave the workshop with ideas for integrating multimodal projects into their courses.
Concurrent Session 3
Room 1
Presenter: Mihaela Chamberlin, Northern Virginia Community College
Title: Water Pollution and Testing: An International Virtual Exchange Between United States (Northern Virginia Community College) and Germany (University of Education in Weingarten)
Description: During the spring 2024 semester a group of chemistry students from NVCC Annandale, developed and implemented the Winkler method for oxygen titration to quantitate the oxygen in the Potomac River. At the same time, a group of chemistry students from University of Education in Weingarten, Germany analyzed samples of water from lake Constance. Students exchanged their results during a virtual zoom meeting, and students from both countries drew conclusions about pollution levels based on their results. This session will share the results of and report on students’ exposure to pedagogical tools, which increased their engagement with course content, and development of collaborative skills, global competency skills, problem solving skills, and leadership qualities.
Room 2
Presenter: Ryan Youell, Brightpoint Community College
Presentation Title: Authenticity and AI: Balancing Technical Benefits with Reflective Writing in the Digital Age
Brief Description: While the rise of AI continues to magnify concerns over academic dishonesty, it also grants college composition instructors the opportunity to teach students about its benefits and limitations in academic and professional contexts. From tracking potential biases in AI-generated content to educating students on the effective use of AI tools in the revision process, composition instructors should engage with AI tools both inside and outside the classroom. This talk will advocate for writing strategies such as personal reflective writing and focused analysis of textual, visual, and mise-en-scène elements, which presently limit the potential of AI. Additionally, this talk will argue that AI-oriented activities must occur during instructional time so that students better understand AI as a tool that can both help and hinder their writing skills.
Room 3
Presenter: Mike Davis, Northern Virginia Community College and Dr. Mary Crowe, U.S. National Science Foundation
Presentation Title: Opportunities in Experiential Learning for Community Colleges
Brief Description: Broadly speaking, Experiential Learning is an opportunity to blur the line between academic exercises, and professional pursuits. A number of models have been implemented to integrate professional experiences into the academic pathways of students. Sometimes this includes classroom-based projects. Other times, it includes field-based experiences or approximate internships. In this presentation, participants will hear about a number of models for experiential learning, and funding opportunities that support it from the National Science Foundation.
Room 4
Presenter: LuLu De Panbehchi, Brightpoint Community College
Presentation Title: Tandem Learning: Practicing Spanish with Students from Mexico
Brief Description: Learning foreign languages is driven by a desire to engage in meaningful conversations with native speakers, while enriching our understanding of both the language and its cultural context. Foreign language courses aim to equip students with the skills and opportunities to use their language skills and cultural knowledge. This presentation will describe the many advantages of adding tandem sessions to Spanish classes. It will also discuss best practices for organizing these sessions with international partners.
Closing Remarks
Experiential Learning Committee and Brightpoint Community College