Spotlight on Mish McIntyre
The following is a conversation with Instructional Designer Mish McIntyre, who develops professional faculty development opportunities for CCRI faculty and provides coaching around course design, implementing active learning, and effective teaching practices.
Mish is passionate about learning design and helping faculty. In addition to her roles on the Distance Learning Advisory and Educational Learning Space committees, she specializes in learning space design, active learning, and game-based design and has extensive experience with educational technology, including adaptive learning and accessibility.
In this segment, she talks about her numerous roles at the college in addition to how her work is helping CCRI's strategic planning committee its goals, and what she looks forward to the most about the new planning process.
Tell us about what you do at CCRI, and how long you've been with the college.
I am the Instructional Designer, Faculty Innovation in Teaching and Learning for the Academic Affairs Division. I have been with the College for two and a half years. I work with faculty, staff, and administration to design and conduct faculty development programs, including courses, workshops, resources, and individual consultations, for the use of effective teaching methodologies and technology in online, hybrid, and on-ground classes.. I collaborate with academic departments in the design and planning of courses, learning environments, and active learning experiences.
Can you share an example of how your work helps achieve Goal 1?
We have offered effective and innovative programming for faculty to help improve teaching and learning such as Effective Practices in Teaching Online (EPTO), SPOT webinars, Refresh for Success: Course Design Institute and ACUE Effective Teaching Practices. I am looking forward to launching new programs such as a VoiceThread pedagogical pilot in summer and an active learning program in fall.
How have you collaborated with others across the college to achieve this success?
This past year has been a great challenge as we shifted to remote teaching and learning. We were able to build website resources quickly to help faculty onboard to remote teaching. More than 300 faculty have completed the EPTO course and 350+ participated in Blackboard Academy. Working in cross-divisional collaborations is the core of my work and I am supported by some exceptional colleagues including the Academic Affairs team, the Center for Instruction and Technology, Disability Services for Students, The Teaching and Learning Collaborative, and Classroom and A/V Services. Overall, my work wouldn't be able to move forward without the extraordinary dedication of CCRI faculty and adjunct faculty who continue to make teaching and learning a core mission to improving student success.
The Strategic Plan will be updated to guide our work from 2022-25. What is something that you are looking forward to over the next three years?
Over the next three years, I am looking forward to continuing our work in diversity and accessibility. We have made progress with Blackboard Ally and our focus on equity in the classroom. The College now has two technologies that provide auto-captioning for video. Last year, I developed a module on Creating Accessible Digital Documentation for faculty, but it is equally valuable to anyone working in the College who works with digital documentation. There is much more work to be done to improve student success and build inclusive learning environments. I look forward to continuing that work. I am also looking forward to developing resources for High Impact Practices, hybrid and Hyflex, and active learning pedagogies such as team-based learning or Flipped Learning.