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DMS Short Courses

By • On • In Instruction and Curriculum Development, Presentations, Projects, Teams and Groups

In an effort to promote Digital Media Services support services and wider use of digital media on campus, Alma and one of her colleagues developed an structure to deliver short courses in six different tracks. These tracks included Computer Solutions, Web Apps, Media Theory, and Mobile Computing as well as a track that focuses on equipment and software available through Digital Media Services and a Contest Track.

The tracks were developed to tie course topics together and enable students to become “certified” in an area, with the exception of the contest track. The contest track intended to tie together short courses that would benefit students interested in entering one of the planned monthly contests.

All short courses were developed to be 60 minutes long and be conducted within the Digital Media Lab at one of Loyola University Chicago’s Lakeside campuses. Continue Reading →

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Digital Media Specialist: Loyola University Chicago

By • On • In Employment, Instruction and Curriculum Development

Loyola University Chicago: December 2011 to September 2016

While working in Digital Media Services, under Loyola’s ITS department, there are many opportunities to reach out to students of all majors, faculty in all colleges and staff from all departments. By encouraging the use of digital media and technology, Alma feels that DMS encourages the development of a more well-rounded digital citizen in all members of the Loyola Community.

In addition to her regular duties, which are listed below, Alma has undertaken many other initiatives and projects detailed throughout this CV.

Continue Reading →

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Oakton Community College Tutor Training Development

By • On • In Instruction and Curriculum Development, Presentations, Teams and Groups

In developing annual tutor training with her colleagues, Alma sought out different resources and even non-academic approaches for inspiration. Many tutors in attendance would have had multiple years of training, so adding some variety to the training repertoire would be worthwhile.

Tutors must build a rapport and constantly read the comprehension level of those they’re working with. Comics must, similarly, know and adapt to their audiences while maintaining a quality of performance. Why not apply some advice from stand-up-comedians to tutoring situations?

Some topics may include: Continue Reading →

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Learning Specialist: Media-Based Academic Support

By • On • In Employment, Instruction and Curriculum Development, Presentations

Oakton Community College: September 2010 – December 2011

Alma supervised and scheduled tutors for all Foreign Languages, Computer Topics, Humanities and Social Sciences courses. She participated in a team with other supervisors in developing and implementing quarterly training activities for all tutors.

Alma developed and provided asynchronous in-services on technology topics for the staff and administrators of the Learning Center. She investigated and proposed an online tutoring platform and integrated other technology resources into daily operations. Alma also provided basic maintenance to the on-site computers and copy machines. She maintained the online tutoring schedule and all other contents of the Learning Center website and marketed Learning Center events.

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Viking Academic Boot Camp SLA Leader

By • On • In Employment, Instruction and Curriculum Development, Teams and Groups, Volunteering

After graduating, Alma volunteered as an Structured Learning Assistance Leader for the pre-algebra portion of the Viking Academic Boot Camp. This was the second summer she had been part in the program, having been a leader for pre-algebra during its inaugural year (2009).

This was a summer-only program organized by University Advising and Tutoring and Academic Success Center that allows at-risk incoming freshmen to place into a credit-bearing, non-developmental math or English class during their first semester at Cleveland State University.

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Dropbox in Education

By • On • In Employment, Instruction and Curriculum Development, Presentations

In order to keep up to date attendance statistics for Structured Learning Assistance and Supplemental Instruction tutoring sessions, student staff had previously emailed updated excel spreadsheets to both the instructor they worked with and the head of the SI/SLA programs. This became problematic after several weeks of those emails flooded inboxes and the SI/SLA courses became more commonly offered.

After becoming a Graduate Assistant with the Tutoring and SI/SLA programs, Alma make a staff-wide recommendation for the use of the cloud service: Dropbox. Student staff managed a single spreadsheet in their Dropbox, and sent a download link to the professor and the program head. This minimized the potential confusion between old and new versions of the file, lost or deleted emails, and corrupted attachments.

As a part of her position, Alma gave a series of presentations to the full staff of SI and SLA leaders (nearly 35 in total). The presentation covered a description of Dropbox, a step-by-step for the implementation and several other uses for the service.

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Using Dropbox for Communication

By • On • In Instruction and Curriculum Development, Presentations

In the Supplemental Instruction and Structured Learning Assistance programs at Cleveland State University, student workers must share up-to-date attendance information with both professors and the SI and SLA program coordinator. In previous semesters, this involved sending excel spreadsheets multiple times per week and submitting hard-copy attendance logs.

Alma opted to harness the newer technology of cloud storage (Dropbox) coupled with an excel template. The template would show attendance and produce other metrics such as average session size, and attendance percentage by student, which is necessary for the SLA program. Continue Reading →

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SI/SLA Program Administrative Organization in Blackboard CE 8

By • On • In Instruction and Curriculum Development, Productions, Teams and Groups

In the highly regimented Supplemental Instruction and Structured Learning Assistance programs there is a lot of paperwork.

This communication between students, SI and SLA leaders, faculty and staff helps the program grow through suggestions and comments. In addition it also allows the program coordinator to ensure a somewhat standardized student experience across SI/SLA Leaders. In the past, Cleveland State’s program used hard-copy weekly reports, this lead to large binders and folders and confusing files as well as late submissions.

Alma designed an assessment in the the Tutoring and Academic Success Centers’ Blackboard community, it remained open for a full week so student workers could fill in their paperwork and submit it on time, from any computer. This regimentation helped the staff develop a routine and allowed the program Coordinator to do her review of these reports all at once. Staff were also able to complete the report more quickly as the original report was scaled down to fit into an electronic format and more quantitative metrics were involved.

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Technology Implementation Specialist, Tutoring and Academic Success Center

By • On • In Employment, Instruction and Curriculum Development, Presentations, Teams and Groups

As part of my Graduate Assistant role at the Tutoring and Academic Success Center, Alma had the opportunity to provide technology in-services and implement tools for the organization of the entire tutoring staff (which ranged from 60 to 90 students).

AlmaI focused on finding technology tools that would increase efficiency and communication amongst staff and faculty while not jeopardizing the confidentiality of student records. She implemented those tools with the support of the TASC Coordinator and provided training and support for the use of the tools to the tutors and involved faculty members. Alma also organized the use of social media to increase visibility to students and edited a short promotional video on the programs, which is still in use.

Continue Reading →

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