STEM Communities of Practice

What Are the STEM CoPs?

The STEM Communities of Practice (CoPs) are faculty-driven learning collectives designed to support STEM educators as they create significant and equitable learning environments for students during COVID-19 that lead with racial equity.

• Faculty Learn Best from Other Faculty: Composed of full-time and adjunct faculty across the major STEM disciplines, each CoP meets regularly to explore challenges and share successes. These meetings are not trainings or webinars; rather, they are collaborative spaces where practitioners learn from and with each other. Conversations cover a range of topics, including designing equitable assessment practices, developing quality labs that are fully online, successfully engaging students, and more.
• Many Hands Make Light Work: It doesn’t make sense for every instructor to work alone in isolation as they rethink what Asao B. Inoue calls “assessment ecologies.” It’s so much work … and entirely overwhelming when you are trying to teach and assess while designing curriculum at the same time! In the STEM CoPs, faculty work together to build and share open instructional resources via Canvas that faculty across the 34 CTCs can use to authentically serve the diverse students at our institutions.

What Are Faculty Saying About the STEM CoPs?

“This was a lifesaver when we were suddenly forced online. Thank you! I think the reason I keep going is a chance to share ideas across the colleges. It’s worth it.”

“I do really enjoy the community aspect of this. It’s important that we are able to check in with others generally, and other biology instructors specifically. I think all of us work really hard to create a community of learning for our students, and it is equally important that we create a community of learning and sharing among faculty. It’s great to exchange ideas and content, but also just to touch base with others and support each other.”

How to Join a STEM CoP?

To join one or more of the STEM communities of practice, please email Lori Crist

Read More About Each STEM CoP

Biology CoP

The Biology CoP is a collective of full and part-time (adjunct) faculty across the many biology subdisciplines. Our CoP meets regularly to discuss topics that change organically based on what members want to discuss and have included assessment, lab development, engagement, and more. These meetings are not trainings or webinars – they are collaborative spaces where we learn from each other. In addition to regular discussions, we are working together to create tangible resources to share. We are using the “many hands make light work” model to build and share tools that we can all use to authentically serve the students at our institutions.

 We approach each meeting with an intentional focus on our faculty-developed Biology CoP Vision: To provide a supportive space for biology faculty to collaborate and share resources, with the goal of creating flexible, low-tech, high-impact learning experiences that meet the diverse needs of the students we serve.

Feel free to contact any member of the leadership team with questions or to learn more: Bobbi Johnson (bjohnson@wvc.edu) or any of the faculty leads: Bryce Battisti (bbattisti@batestech.edu); Barcin Acar (Barcin.acar@lwtech.edu); Suzanne Schladror (suzanne.schlador@seattlecolleges.edu); Lisa Carlson (lisa.carlson@centralia.edu); Katrina Fuller (kfuller@lcc.ctc.edu).

To join the CoP, please email Lori Crist

Chemistry CoP

The Chemistry Community of Practice (CoP) supports faculty with shared online resources and discussions focused on (but not limited to) teaching remotely. We encourage sharing of resources and practices for teaching chemistry, whether face-to-face or online. Our Canvas shell is a growing repository for assignments, with lots of room to grow!

We meet every two weeks, generally on the first Monday of the month and third or fourth Thursday of the month.  Past discussion topics have included: assessment, teaching with an equity lens, and increasing engagement in an online format.

We welcome your topics and ideas! Feel free to contact any member of the leadership team with questions or to learn more: Jennie Mayer (jennie.mayer@bellevuecollege.edu); Kalyn Owens (kalyn.owens@seattlecolleges.edu); Suki Smaglik (ssmaglik@yvcc.edu); Anthony Smith (anthony.smith@wwcc.edu); Lee West (lwest@pierce.ctc.edu).

To join the CoP, please email Lori Crist

Computer Science CoP

The Computer Science Community of Practice (CS CoP) welcomes faculty, full-time and adjunct, who teach transfer and/or professional-technical courses in programming, information technology, and data analytics. We also welcome program staff who support students in technology programs. The CS CoP meets virtually every two weeks to foster community sharing and discussions, including closing equity gaps in remote/online instruction, while also building and sharing a repository of CS teaching and learning resources and student support practices.

Feel free to contact any member of the leadership team with questions or to learn more: Ken Hang (khang@greenriver.edu); Sharon Huitsing (shuitsing@pierce.ctc.edu).

To join the CoP, please email Lori Crist

Engineering CoP

Welcome to the Engineering Community of Practice!

We are a collective of faculty from community colleges and universities from across Washington State dedicated to creating course content with racial equity as its forefront. Check out our website!

If you are interested in participating or just finding out more reach out to one of the faculty leads: Pat Burnett (pburnett@whatcom.edu); Albert Engel (albert.engel@seattlecolleges.edu); Mohan Raj (mraj@cascadia.edu)

To join the CoP, please email Lori Crist

Geosciences CoP

The geoscience Community of Practice (CoP) was created so faculty could support one another in the sudden transition to online and in shifting curriculum towards racial equity by creating community and sharing resources, techniques, and perspectives. The geosciences CoP is a wide array of geoscience domains including: Astronomy, Environmental Science, Geology, and Oceanography. We meet once a month as individual disciplines to investigate subject-specific topics such as teaching labs and addressing field skills in an online environment. We also meet once a month as a larger geoscience community to talk about more general issues of assessment, racial equity and online instruction. In addition, we have a rich and growing resource of activities and conversations on our Canvas site. This combination affords both expertise of individual domains and from a larger geoscience community perspective.

Interested to learn more? Contact: Kaatje Kraft (kkraft@whatcom.edu), Eric Baer (ebaer@highline.edu) or Anthony Smith (anthony.smith@wwcc.edu)  for more details.

To join the CoP, please email Lori Crist

Math CoP

Check out our website, which houses  information about coming virtual meetings for Washington CTC Math faculty, documents from previous meetings, and other resource documents. We also encourage you to join the Math CTC listserv, which allows math faculty across the state to easily connect directly with each other and share ideas and issues.

Interested and want to learn more? Contact Laura Schueller with questions, concerns, or suggestions  via e-mail at lschueller@sbctc.edu.

Physics CoP

This Community of Practice was created so Physics faculty could support one another in the sudden transition to online and in shifting curriculum towards racial equity by creating community and sharing resources, techniques, and perspectives. We meet every other week on Tuesday mornings and talk about preset items and things that are on people’s minds at the moment. In addition, we have a rich and growing resource of curriculum and conversations on our Canvas site.

Interested in learning more? Contact Kristine Washburn (kwashburn@everettcc.edu) Stephanie Bartlett, Shoreline (sbartlett@shoreline.edu), Mohan Raj (mraj@cascadia.edu), Anthony White, Walla Walla (Anthony.Smith@wwcc.edu)

To join the CoP, please email Lori Crist