VALERIE PARKE, MOHAWK COLLEGE
Valerie Parke has taught communications at Mohawk College since 2003 working with first-year, first-semester students to further develop their writing, reading, and presentation skills. As a Language Studies faculty member, she has analyzed, developed, designed, implemented and evaluated curriculum to prepare students, from more than 25 programs of study, with the required workplace communication skills.
In 2012, Mohawk College, under the leadership of its Vice-President Academic, Cheryl Jensen, published a new Academic Plan based on extensive consultations with both external and internal stakeholders. Valerie, who had participated in this consultation process, was seconded to be the Academic Plan’s Project Manager.
Two of the pillars of Mohawk’s Academic Plan were the establishment of Institutional Learning Outcomes and the implementation of e-portfolios. To move both of these concepts to reality, Valerie established a series of project teams. The composition and objectives of these teams was inspired by Tim Brown’s design thinking. The Academic Plan project teams were composed of faculty, support staff, and administrators meeting for 2 hours per week for 10 weeks. A new topic was fully explored each week aided by high-quality coffee, respectful conversation, and active listening.
Over 18 months, project teams defined the college’s five institutional learning outcomes stating that the ideal Mohawk graduate will be a communicator, a collaborator, a critical thinker, a responsible citizen, and a continuous learner. To ensure that current and future curriculum supported the development of the ideal Mohawk graduate, project teams aligned the six Essential Employability Skills to the college’s five Institutional Learning Outcomes. And finally, project teams researched and piloted e-portfolios as a method for students to reflect on their learning, and for graduates to demonstrate their skills to future employers.
Valerie’s skills as a librarian kept the project teams fuelled with evidence of best practices from around the world. The Academic Plan project teams were not interested in reinventing wheels; they wanted only to build on the best. This fall, Valerie has returned to her “happy place” – the classroom – and is eagerly anticipating the commencement of the ski season!
Valerie’s submission attested to her work in making curriculum advances in the areas of Innovation and Best Practices as part of her role as Academic Plan Project Manager where she brought to fruition the Institutional Learning Outcomes: Methods of Assessment encompassing
- Post-secondary Pathways
- E-Portfolios
- Planning for an Online Learning community, and
- 21st Century Digital Skills for all Mohawk college Employees/Students
Valerie successfully elevated the level of discussion about learning outcomes, essential employability skills and the associated alignments by modeling and generating collaboration throughout Mohawk College, and creating excitement at all levels. Valerie accomplished this over an 18-month period by creating a website, blogging, engaging the expertise of various stakeholders, creating a process for assessing student development of critical thinking and ILO’s via Mohawk’s e-portfolio project, facilitating workshops, co-facilitating an 8-week e-portfolio training program, collaborating with student services, as well developing and facilitating a workshop for administration at Mohawk.
You must be logged in to post a comment.