Thursday, November 14, 2019 
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Pomona College, Claremont, CA

Click here for a draft of the program schedule.

Description

In this interactive workshop, our facilitators will lead participants through a comprehensive exploration of transformative learning principles and practices that support students’ personal development as well as their career-readiness for the complex world of work they will be encountering. In doing so, the workshop facilitators will focus on how we teach, assess, and design programs, as well as design or re-design institutional structures to support this new transformative learning paradigm. This work will be considered in the context of strategic partnerships with stakeholders outside the academy, including how collaboration with employers and community partners can provide students with experiential opportunities to apply learning, reflect, develop, and grow. Through case study, analysis, and discussion we will explore how these principles can be enacted and developed at the institutional level. This workshop is designed to provoke new ways of thinking about the strong connections between transformative learning, curricular and co-curricular learning design, institutional strategy, and students’ development for employability: the ability to find, create and sustain work and learning across lengthening working lives and multiple work settings.

Workshop Learning Outcomes

In this workshop, participants will:

• Identify and analyze multiple promising practices in transformative learning, teaching, and assessment to promote the development of learners’ personal and professional qualities.
• Explore institutional structures and practices that best support this new paradigm of learning and attending to students’ professional development.
• Assess their own program’s and institution’s practices in light of a 21st century learning paradigm, and develop a plan of action for their own context.
• Review and add to an initial learning resource collection to share with each other and disseminate more broadly.

Intended Audience

This workshop is designed for faculty, administrators, assessment leaders, student affairs personnel, and career development professionals who will benefit from assessing existing approaches in their programs and institutions; considering the potential impact of new approaches, tools, and methodologies; and creating a plan of action to adapt or incorporate new approaches or ideas into their own work.

Workshop Facilitators

Melanie Booth 

Melanie Booth, AVP for Institutional Effectiveness & the Dominican Experience, Dominican University of California

Melanie Booth was the Founding Executive Director of The Quality Assurance Commons and led the development of the Essential Employability Qualities program. Prior to this, Melanie served from 2013-2016 as the Special Assistant to the President and Vice President of Educational Programs for WASC Senior College & University Commission (WSCUC). From 2005-2013, Melanie was the Dean of Learning & Assessment and Director of the Center for Experiential Learning and Assessment at Marylhurst University in Portland, OR, where she led the connections between prior learning assessment, career development, the Liberal Arts Core, and degree programming to learners’ employability development. She has also held positions at Saint Mary’s College of California, Grays Harbor Community College, and San Diego State University, and most of her postsecondary work has been with and focused on non-traditional (now “new traditional”) learners. Melanie is a recognized expert on Prior Learning Assessment / Credit for Prior Learning, and she has consulted with institutions nationally and internationally about PLA and the assessment of learning from traditional and non-traditional sources. Her other areas of expertise include experiential learning, heutagogy, faculty development, and adult learning and development. She is also one of the original co-founders of the international Heutagogy Community of Practice, a teaching approach that facilitates learners’ self-direction and capacity for continuous learning.

Jeff King

Jeff King, Executive Director, Center for Excellence in Transformative Teaching and Learning, University of Central Oklahoma

Jeff King is Executive Director of the Center for Excellence in Transformative Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma. His research and application interests have long focused on what college faculty can do to help their students learn, to be motivated toward deep learning strategies, and to persist in their educations. Dr. King works to provide information and tools shown by quality, applicable research to help students succeed, whether via cutting edge approaches or time‑tested strategies. Because evaluating one’s success at helping students learn is important for becoming a better teacher‑scholar, Jeff is also interested in ways faculty can gather feedback about their teaching and use it to fine‑tune their effectiveness. Before moving to UCO’s Transformative Learning‑focused environment, Jeff was the Director of Texas Christian University’s Koehler Center for Teaching Effectiveness. No matter his location, though, his work over the years both as college faculty member and in faculty professional development matches passion to position in helping students learn.

Hotel Reservations: We encourage participants to make their hotel reservations as soon as possible. Given the workshop is being held on a campus, WSCUC has not contracted nor secured a group rate with any particular hotel. There are many websites online that help with finding reasonably priced hotels.

Registration
Registration fee includes lunch. Beverages and snacks will be available during breaks. Attendees will be on their own for all other meals.

Registration fees: $350/per team member until 10/31/19.  After the registration deadline, if space is available, the late registration fee will be $395/per team member.

Discount for Combined Registration: The Assessment 101: Meaningful Assessment for Student Learning workshop will be offered on November 15, 2019 at Pomona College. The special rate for a combined registration for The Ready for Life, Ready for Work and Assessment 101 workshops is $595 until the registration deadline on 10/31/2019. After the registration deadline, if space is available, the late registration fee will be $695/per team member.

REGISTRATION DEADLINE:  October 31, 2019

This educational program has been developed by national and regional experts and is offered as a service to WSCUC member institutions and others who wish to learn about good practices applicable to all institutions. It is entirely optional, and our hope is that member institutions will find it helpful. WSCUC staff will be present to answer questions related specifically to accreditation expectations.