Overview

CCCOnline’s Professional Development program creates and delivers a variety of synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities that support both CCCOnline instructors and instructors from the CCCS member colleges in achieving best practices in online teaching and learning. All opportunities are free of charge and registration is open to anyone. CCCOnline’s opportunities are focused mainly on the topics of online education technology and pedagogy, with the following two goals in mind:

• Providing CCCOnline instructors with information and skills relevant to working as a CCCOnline instructor.
• Providing engaging, inspirational professional development opportunities that will benefit all individuals in the field of eLearning by delivering technical and pedagogical growth.

Types of Professional Development

CCCOnline professional development opportunities usually fall into two main categories:

Workshops

CCCOnline workshops are asynchronous, online sessions held in D2L that cover a variety of topics related to effective online teaching. Workshops run like short, online courses. They are typically anywhere from 1-2 weeks long, require an average of 5 hours of activity per week, and include activities that follow a schedule.

Webinars

CCCOnline webinars are synchronous, online sessions that use the web conferencing software WebEx. Webinars are offered regularly on a variety of topics including effective online teaching, academic technology, and news, events, or culture related to CCCOnline or the Colorado Community College System. Webinars typically last from 20 minutes to 1 hour. Recordings of webinars are posted in the Webinar Archive for later viewing.

CCCOnline Professional Development Policy

CCCOnline instructors are required to meet the following professional development requirements:

Pre Hire

• Prior to teaching, CCCOnline instructors are required to successfully complete the one-week Getting Started at CCCOnline workshop and the two-week Teaching with D2L (formerly Teaching with Brightspace) workshop. Each workshop operates on a calendar with regular deadlines; successful completion in both workshops is defined by a score of 85/100.

Post Hire

• Instructors are required to complete the self-paced CCCOnline Policies, Procedures, and Resources workshop within one month of the start of their first semester of teaching for CCCOnline. New instructors will be enrolled and notified of login information after the semester begins.
• Within the first 12 months of teaching for CCCOnline, instructors are required to complete successfully the two-week Managing Discussions workshop and the brief, self-paced annual FERPA Training.

Following successful completion of the above requirements, continuing instructors are required to complete a minimum of one professional development session per calendar year, the annual FERPA Training refresher course, and any other professional development work as required by the Associate Dean and/or the Department Chair in your academic area. The requirement can be fulfilled as follows:

• With prior Department Chair approval, completion of a webinar or workshop offered by CCCOnline
• With prior Department Chair approval, attendance or presentation at an external academic training or conference (F2F or online)
• Facilitation of a webinar or workshop offered by CCCOnline
• Attendance at the annual CCCOnline CONNECT Conference

Failure to meet the requirements of the professional development policy can result in non-advancement in pay level and/or non-renewal of instructional contract(s).

More information about CCCOnline’s Professional Development Program.

CCCS Training Requirements

In addition to the above, Human Resources (HR) at the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) authors and disseminates the following trainings that CCCOnline instructors must complete. HR communicates with instructors via CCCS email to give login directions.

• Accessibility Training – implemented August 2015
  New instructors are enrolled in the Accessibility Training around the first of the month; after receiving an email confirming enrollment, the instructor has 30 days to complete the training.
• CCCS Introduction to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Basics – implemented February 2022. This is training to provide an introductory understanding of DEI at CCCS.
• Workplace Harassment Prevention for Faculty and Staff Training – implemented annually each February. This is training pertaining to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
• Security Awareness Training– implemented as HR directs. (For instance, Security Awareness Training was required in February 2021 and February 2022.)
  

New instructors are enrolled in the DEI and Workplace Harassment trainings, and Security Awareness training if applicable, around the 25th of every month, excluding semester breaks (December-January and May-September). Anyone hired during the breaks will be added in the next deployment (e.g., if an instructor’s hire date is Jan. 23, they would receive notice of the training around Feb. 25). After receiving an email confirming enrollment, the instructor has 90 days to complete the trainings.

Test Your Knowledge: PD at CCCOnline!

Image citation:

Rawpixel. Professionally dressed people sitting at a table with laptop computers (2018) [Photograph]. Retrieved July 19, 2019, from https://pixabay.com/photos/achievement-agreement-arms-3658088/