Welcome to the QV Center For Teaching page!
The Center for Teaching (CFT) is a program within the Connecticut Community College System that is meant to promote teaching excellence through the sharing of ideas, the interaction of faculty members on each campus, and the creation of coordinated professional development opportunities within and between colleges.
The system-wide Center For Teaching supports and develops all-college activities such as the annual Barnes Seminar, the Spirit of Teaching Workshop, the New Faculty Workshop, and the Schwab Institute for Academic Leadership. Annually, each college receives a budget to support and stimulate Center For Teaching activities on its campus.
At Quinebaug Valley, the current Center For Teaching contact is Kudzai Zvoma (CFT Chair and Teaching and Learning Consultant (TLC)), who works with the members of the CFT Committee to develop and provide a range of resources and activities for professional development for both full and part-time faculty
Kudzai Zvoma
Professor of Mathematics
QV Center for Teaching Committee Chair
and Teaching and Learning Consultant
2024-2025 QV Center for Teaching (CFT) Committee
Jon Andersen, Jodi Clark, Brian Donohue-Lynch, John Lewis (top row, left to right).
Erin Pagano, Cindy Shirshac, Eric Spencer, Jakob Spjut (bottom row, left to right).
Kudzai Zvoma (picture not available).
We’re on FaceBook – Click here to access the Connecticut Community Colleges Center for Teaching FaceBook page.
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UPCOMING PROGRAMS at QV
There are no events scheduled at this time.
SAVE THESE DATE(S)
Spirit of Teaching
A Retreat for Community College Teachers
Empathy
Friday, September 27, 2024 – 9:00-3:00 (Registration 8:30-9:00)
Holy Family Retreat Center, West Hartford
Please join us for this year’s in-person Spirit of Teaching event on empathy. We will explore the role of empathy in our own personal and professional lives, considering how it can shape our interactions with our students and our peers. What are the different types of empathy? How can empathy inform our teaching practices? Can empathy ever undercut student learning and classroom discipline? How can we create empathetic campus cultures?
As always, we will be sharing our stories, offering times for reflection, and interacting with one another in small groups. Although Spirit is not a formal academic conference, the issues and questions raised will be grounded in contemporary research on empathy, especially in academic contexts.
Please apply for the program through the Connecticut Center for Teaching HERE.
Team Spirit looks forward to welcoming you to this year’s program. Space is limited as we strive to have representation from multiple disciplines across all twelve campuses. You will receive a follow up email on the status of your application. If you have any questions, please contact Program Chair, James Gentile at james.gentile@ctstate.edu.
PAST PROGRAMS
Lunch and Learn – Spotlight on Teaching
Tuesday, April 30. 2024 at 12:00 – 1:00 pm in room W210
Please join us for the first in a new series of presentations elevating examples of creative and effective teaching and teachers. We have four special guests presenting on their experiences learning, debating, re-enacting and questioning history with Dr. Thomas Army.
Wednesday, March 29, 2023 – 12:00pm to 1:00pm in room W202,
Lunch and Learn – Professor of Political Science Jayne Battye will be presenting on her sabbatical. After two years of COVID travel restrictions, Jayne finally completed her sabbatical. Join her as she shares experiences on traveling to Israel, Greece, Turkey, and Tunisia in search of new materials for Western Civilization courses.
Wednesday, March 22, 2023 – 12:00pm to 1:30pm in the Danielson Campus Auditorium C124
Lunch and Learn – It is Not What you Think it is; It is All That you Think it is.
Dr. Brian Donohue-Lynch will be hosting a Lunch & Learn on Ireland. Brian was sabbaticalizing, renewing, living for at least six months in the in-between. Between work and resting, he renewed his teaching and learning energies, with a focus on his ancestral homeland. This session will be his effort to share some of his waking-insights about Ireland, from this time of study, rest and reflection (sabbatical). He’s never done this kind of presentation/performance before, so come and humor him. As the saying goes: Everything he will share is true, except for the parts that are made up.
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 – 12:00pm in room W100
Lunch & Learn on Open Educational Resources with the Associate Vice President of Digital Learning Kevin Corcoran and Librarian James Thibeault.
Open Educational Resources (OERs) present a necessary and growing opportunity for savings without loss of quality or rigor for students, but there are understandable questions, misconceptions and hesitation that comes with implementation and course redesign. Beyond the immediacy of cost savings, incorporating OER benefits students in a variety of ways. Join us for a Lunch & Learn where Kevin Corcoran will via Webex present how OERs can improve equity in areas of accessibility, representation, and opportunities.
Current users of OERs, those who are new to OER or are interested in learning how to implement OER in the future are all welcome.
Thursday, November 10, 2022 – 12:30 pm in room W101
Lunch and Learn: Promotion & Tenure Process – with the assistance of the 4C’s Union and CEO’s Office we are gathering for an informal discussion on the basics of the Promotion & Tenure Process.
The program will include an overview of the promotion, tenure (and sabbatical) processes, an outline of the important forms for staff and for faculty, a primer on professional files and documents and a listing of the important dates to keep in mind.
The goal is to help make the process clearer for current and future applicants and give senior and supervising staff and faculty an opportunity to assist as they themselves were assisted and guided. This is a busy time of year, but your attendance whether you are just beginning to think about this process or whether you have a helpful experience to share would be welcome and appreciated. Please RSVP for lunch and bring your questions, observations, perspectives and tips.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 – 12:00pm in room W101
Lunch and Learn – Jakob Spjut, Professor of Engineering Science, will host a presentation on all the new technology now standard in many of our classrooms.
Have you ever wondered about those new monitors in many of the classrooms around campus? What about the microphones, the webcams, and that thing with a lot of buttons on the desk? Jakob will demonstrate the basics of using the new technology for traditional classes, for recording class, and will provide attendees with a chance to try for themselves (Yes! You will actually get to push these buttons!). Whether you are an expert or a novice with these tools your experience and questions will be valuable.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022 – 12:30 pm in room W101 – BEYOND GOOGLE
Lunch and Learn – Our new colleagues Tamara Greer and James Thibeault from the Library will host a Lunch & Learn entitled “Beyond Google” looking at how instructors can learn and model use of the highest quality information on the internet while minimizing loss of personal data.
Thursday, October 6, 2022 – 12:30 pm in room W210 – Lessons from the Start of the Semester
W210 join us for a discussion on Lessons Learned from the start of the semester. We have finally completed September and (whether it feels successful or not) navigated the start of the fall and arrived at the results of first tests, first projects, first papers. While the creative solutions, syllabus policies, adjustments, class reconfigurations (and the gaps and scenarios they might not have covered) are still relatively fresh in everyone’s minds please come and share the lessons learned while enjoying lunch with your colleagues.
Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 12:00pm in room W210 please join QVCC yoga instructor Karla Desjardins for a Lunch & Learn & Breathe & Stretch session. Bring your questions, bring your curiosity. Come (RSVP) and learn more strategies to calm your mind, relax your body and find some balance and peace amidst the chaos. Karla will take everyone through a series of chair Yoga asanas (poses) with a focus on unwinding and stretching your body as well as pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditation to relieve stress. Slow down and take some time for yourself to re-center and refocus as we sprint to the end of the semester.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 12:00pm in room W210 please join us for a Lunch & Learn discussion on The Challenge of Staying Engaged and open while teaching and meeting our various responsibilities in the face of frustration and fatigue in and around the classroom. This Lunch & Learn will begin with a video to help us to set an aspirational goal and then the session will move to discussion of the kinds of challenges attendees are facing and how they themselves are responding to those challenges.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019 at 12:00pm in room W210. Karla Desjardins and Mark Lowe will present on the “Not Anymore” training program designed to raise awareness and prevent sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, and stalking.
Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 12:00pm in room W210 Debbie Rimkus and Matt Soucy will host a Lunch & Learn introducing the coming systemwide Achieving the Dream initiative. Matt and Debbie recently attended Achieving the Dream’s national conference in Long Beach, CA. They will talk about their experiences at the conference, and the steps going forward as a Campus Student Success Team (CSST) is assembled here at QVCC. Come and get some lunch (RSVP) and learn more about the changes we can make to ensure equitable, accessible and relevant student experiences and how we define this.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019 (after the Spring Recess) at 12:00pm in room W210 Pauline Clifford and Brian Lynch will host a Lunch & Learn serving as an Early Introduction to the 2021 NECHE Self-Study. Join in on the discussion as we all learn more about what the initial steps of the Self-Study are and what the timeline actually looks like.
Objectives:
To lower the affective filter related to the accreditation process
To introduce the timeline for our self-study process
To review the importance of getting the data first
To provide resources relevant to the writing of the self-study narrative
Questions/Discussion
Tuesday, March 5, 2019 at 12:00pm in room W210, Nicole Marcoux-Bowen hosed a LUNCH & LEARN on FERPA and what we all as educators need to know. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) information can seem confusing. This Lunch & Learn will shed some light on your responsibilities, clear up some misconceptions and provide information on how FERPA is applicable to you.
Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 12:00pm in room W210 in celebration of Black History Month I will be presenting a Lunch & Learn on my journey through 100 Years of Black History in Television & Cinema. A great deal has changed since America’s first popular cinematic release, D.W. Griffith’s 1915 “The Birth of A Nation”. Last year saw the release of Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” a global cultural and financial record setting phenomenon. Which of the steps along the way do each us recognize? What were the landmark moments in our own lives learning about the black experience through television and cinema?