As some of you know I've been thinking about ways to make this UCIPD Special Interest Group (SIG) space more lively and valuable. As I understand it, the reason for creating the SIG was to offer a space for sharing resources, conducting polls, planning events, publishing information about your various PD activities, discussing topics related to your work, etc. One advantage to using a SIG is that the information is centralized and searchable.
From the outside looking in, It seems your UCIPD group mailing list has continued to be your main means of communication. I believe you should simply use what works best for the group, and sometimes email just works! On the other hand, there may be great little gems that get shared in your private list that could be of value to "outsiders". I wonder if there is a way we can have the best of both worlds?
So here is my little proposal and I look forward to hearing what you think about it...
We have hosted 2 SCoPE seminar discussions on Teaching and Learning Centres, facilitated by Vivian Neal and Alice Cassidy. This group would like to take the discussion to the next level by inviting further participation from you and participants in 2 key EDC conference sessions:
- SFU's Cheryl Amundsden session where ideas around what institutional structures effectively support faculty development were discussed
- Five Effective Practices for Centres of Educational Development with Heather Kanuda (U. Alberta) and Margaret Wilson (Norquest College)
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Reconfigure the UCIPD SIG to be the Educational Developers SIG. This will open it up for more possibilities, such as this project.
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We also have other ideas in the bag...such as organizing discussions around Kwantlen's Transformative Dialogues journal issues.
What do you think? Should I move ahead with this plan?
