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Academic Professional Development Hub

Welcome

Welcome to the Teaching & Learning Professional Development Guide!

Sign up for Spring 2025 Mini Workshops, Book Study, and Cohorts

Sponsored by CCA’s Teaching and Learning Transformation Hub, this comprehensive resource is designed to support our learning a community in developing effective, innovative, and inclusive teaching practices.   

What You'll Find Here 

This digital hub offers a wealth of resources to aid in your ongoing professional development, including:  

  • Sign up for Spring 2025 Mini Workshops, Book Study, and Cohorts: Sign up for the Hub's professional development activities. Please register by January 30.

  • Teaching & Learning Strategies: We've included information about High Impact Practices and other Teaching and Learning Strategies that are aligned with educational initiatives at CCA.   

  • Resource Libraries: Explore our curated collections of articles, videos, tutorials, and other tools covering a wide range of topics relevant to academic professionals.

  • Event Calendar: Stay up-to-date with upcoming academic professional development opportunities, including workshops, seminars, and institutes.  

We are committed to fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth at CCA. Whether you're looking to enhance your teaching skills, explore new pedagogical approaches, or stay current with the latest in your field, the Academic Professional Development Hub is here to support you on your journey. 

We welcome your feedback and suggestions as we continue to develop and improve this resource. For questions or comments, please contact TheHub.CCA@ccaurora.edu

Download the Spring Semester Academic Professional Development Calendar 

Sign up for OER & Open Pedagogy Workshop by January 25

Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities

Register for Teaching and Tacos

We're excited to kick off the spring semester with our Teaching & Tacos Professional Development Days, offering flexible attendance options and valuable learning opportunities from January 14-16. This year’s format is a little different: We're offering the same valuable content on Tuesday and Wednesday so you can choose the format that works best for you. Thursday's hybrid format allows you to mix and match in-person and virtual sessions throughout the day. Regardless of how you participate, you’re invited to join us for an in-person, catered lunch at noon Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Schedule Overview:

Tuesday, Jan 14 | Virtual Only

Access all events.

  • 10:00 AM: Grading Strategies Workshop, led by Tanya Cook, Hub Scholar

  • 11:00 AM: Project-Based Learning Session

  • 12:00 PM: Lunch: Join us for tacos and an overview of the services provided in the hub.

  • 1:00 PM: Virtual Cohort Meetings

Wednesday, Jan 15 | In-Person Only

All events in the CentreTech Hub | Classroom Building 107

  • 10:00 AM: Grading Strategies Workshop, led by Tanya Cook, Hub Scholar

  • 11:00 AM: Project-Based Learning Session

  • 12:00 PM: Lunch: Join us for tacos and a discussion of using AI in your classroom and administrative work.

  • 1:00 PM: Cohort Meetings

Thursday, Jan 16 | Hybrid

All in-person events at the CentreTech Hub

All virtual events.

  • 10:00 AM: Navigate Overview & Educational Technology Sessions (in-person)
    Tech Tools (virtual)

  • 11:00 AM: Tech Tools (in-person)
    Navigate Overview (virtual)

  • 12:00 PM: Lunch: Join us for tacos and an overview of classroom technology!

  • 1:00 PM: Let’s work together! Join us for Individual coaching, consultation, and collaborative course shell development

 

Whether you join us virtually or in person, you'll gain practical strategies to enhance your teaching while connecting with colleagues. Don't miss this opportunity to start your semester strong (and enjoy some tacos with us)!

Questions? Contact Heather Lang, Director of Academic Professional Development (heather.lang@ccaurora.edu)

Mini Workshops

Mini workshops are completely online and take about 3 hours to complete. You can work on them at your own pace over the course of a month. The Spring 2025 Workshops are: 
  • Working with Multilingual Learners
  • Delivering an Inclusive Space
  • AI for Higher Education

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Workshops

Workshops are completely online and take about 5-8 hours to complete. You can work on them at your own pace over the course of a month. The Spring 2025 Workshops are: 

  • Effective Teaching 
  • Supporting and Understanding Autistic Students in Higher Education 
  • AI for Higher Education

Sign Up for Spring 2025 Workshops

CCohorts are special learning and working groups that focus on special topics related to trends in higher education, directions in CCA's strategic plan, and the needs of our teaching and learning community. Cohorts meet once a month and may required up 2-3 hours of work outside of the cohort meeting. The Spring 2025 semester will feature 3 cohorts: 

  • Service-Learning Cohort: This group is laying a foundation to support current and future service-learning courses. This group is led by Hub Scholar Tanya Cook. 
  • AI for Higher Education: This cohort is exploring issues related to the use and abuse of AI in higher education. This group is led by Director of Academic Professional Development Heather Lang. 
  • Open Education: This cohort is exploring pathways to using open educational resources (OER) and to supporting open pedagogy on campus. This group is led by OER and Digitial Initiatives Librarian Allyson Turner. 

Sign Up Here to Join a Cohort

Join us for an engaging book study group focused on James Lang's influential work Small Teaching led by Hub Scholar Art Vaughn. The book study group will explore Lang's practical strategies for implementing small but powerful changes in teaching methods. The book study club will meet monthly February - April to unpack Lang's evidence-based approaches, share experiences, and develop actionable plans for incorporating these techniques into their own classrooms. 

Sign Up for the Book Study

Open Educational Resources & Open Pedagogy

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The CCA Library is offering OER mini-grant awards from Spring 2025 – Summer 2026! There are 3 levels of participation, aiming for a total of 15 projects. 

OER (Open Educational Resources) are teaching and learning materials (such as textbooks, slideshow presentations, readings, videos, etc.) available for educators and students to use and reuse for free. This is possible because OER have open licenses, which specifically state how the material may be used, adapted, and shared. More information about OER.  

Open Pedagogy is a strategy to empower students in creating open-access textbooks, contributing to public research projects, or designing resources like lesson plans that future students can use and refine. This is a new branch of Open Education work that is showing great promise for student success. More information about Open Education and Open Pedagogy

The CCA Library is offering OER mini-grant awards from Spring 2025 – Summer 2026 to support faculty and instructors in adopting, adapting, and creating OER materials. We're also here to support you in developing Open Pedagogy approaches to your course. 

Level I: Adoption ($1,000 Stipend)

This level focuses on the adoption and integration of OER into courses. Participants will locate an OER to use in their course and redesign their courses to fully implement the OER. 

 Level II: Adaptation/Curation ($2,000 Stipend)

This level focuses on the adaptation and integration of OER into courses, with an emphasis on redesigning courses with the resources. Participants will locate OER materials and edit or curate them as needed to fit their course(s). 

Level III: Creation ($3,000 Stipend)

This level focuses on the creation of an OER and restructuring of related courses using backward design methods. 

The Open Education Workshop ($500 Stipend)

All OER mini-grant participants will be enrolled in the D2L module “Open Education Workshop” to receive training on OER, open pedagogy, open licenses, the levels of OER work, and accessibility. The Open Education Workshop prepares faculty and instructors to adopt, adapt, or create Open Education Resources (OER) with culturally responsive, open pedagogy learning activities. Participants will create and share a plan for adopting, adapting, or creating OER that is culturally responsive and includes students in the process.  

Sign up with proposal by January 25: Pitch your project level and idea! 

Join Our Mission to Create More Inclusive Learning Materials and Transform Course Materials While Earning a $2,000 Stipend

The Hub's Open Education Projects Team invites you to participate in an exciting initiative that will help shape the future of learning materials at CCA. Through our Title V grant-funded program, we're launching a comprehensive review process to ensure our Open Educational Resources (OER) truly reflect and serve our diverse student community.

What Is the Culturally Responsive OER Review?

This innovative process brings together faculty teams to evaluate and enhance the open textbooks and resources currently used in their departments. Working alongside our expert editor and OER support team, you'll help ensure our educational materials incorporate evidence-based practices and reflect the diverse perspectives of our student population.

The Review Process

We've designed a straightforward, supported process to make your participation both meaningful and manageable:

  1. Training & Orientation
    1. Learn to use our comprehensive Style Guide
    2. Master our scoring system for evaluating cultural responsiveness   
    3. Receive ongoing support from the Hub's OER team
  2. Collaborative Review
    1. Work with colleagues from your department and our editorial review team
    2. Evaluate current open textbooks
    3. Identify areas for enhancement
  3. Professional Editing
    1. Partner with our expert editor to implement changes
    2. Refine content to better serve our students
    3. Create a CCA-specific version of the text

Want to learn more? Contact Heather Lang at heather.lang@ccaurora.edu to express your interest or learn more about this opportunity. We're happy to answer any questions and provide additional details about the process.

This initiative is supported by a Title V grant as part of CCA's broader commitment to accessible and inclusive education. Stipends associated with this program are funded by the Title V grant. 

Compensation Policy

Academic professional development workshops are typically not compensated with a stipend. For instructors, participation in academic professional development workshops may count toward instructor pay advancement. For faculty members, participation may count toward institutional service. We encourage you to chat with your department chair to explore how these benefits apply to you. We can't wait to see you there and grow together! 

In rare cases, a stipend may be available for mandatory training and workshops or for grant-supported professional development. If a stipend is available, we'll provide an explicit statement indicating the amount of the stipend and what you'll need to do to receive it.  The Hub's PD calendar flags professional development opportunities that are compensated with a green dollar sign.

If you have any questions about our professional development opportunities or this compensation policy, please don't hesitate to reach out to The Hub at TheHub.CCA@ccaurora.edu. We're always happy to help you navigate your professional development journey at CCA.

You Made It!

If you made it to the bottom of this page, please contact Heather Lang (heather.lang@ccaurora.edu) and let her know. Your tenacity has earned you a free prize!