Welcome and thank you for exploring my professional profile.
As an accomplished community college administrator, I bring a rich background in teaching, complemented by a history of building meaningful relationships with staff and students. My journey in higher education began as an adjunct professor and then full-time professor (faculty member), granting me invaluable insights into curriculum development, course design, and effective teaching practices, both in traditional classroom settings and the digital realm. This firsthand experience has shaped my approach to education, emphasizing the importance of engagement and innovation.
Currently, I serve as the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, where I continue to learn, and develop my leadership skills in advancing inclusive, engaging, and transformative teaching practices to empower faculty and staff.
In this role, I have the unique opportunity to oversee a comprehensive Open Learning program that encompasses a growing Open Educational Resources (OER) program which allows faculty to create, adopt, reuse, remix and publish open and accessible educational materials that are free for students. Also, the wider LCC community may request individual WordPress websites to use in a variety of ways that foster digital autonomy and creativity.
Additionally, I am proud of my contributions to the development and implementation of the following CTE courses and programs that promote faculty growth and development:
- Professional Activity Days (PA days)
College-wide professional development, twice per academic year with the goal of engaging faculty through various methods of professional interaction to inspire educational approaches that support creativity, agency, inquiry, and culture. PA days includes esteemed key note speakers, executive leadership presentations and discussions, concurrent sessions, and more.
- Semester Workshop Series
Connecting faculty with innovative technologies and evidence-based instructional practices that supplement their expertise in the classroom.
- Professional Learning Circles (Communities of Practice)
Groups of colleagues from across the college who work together on a shared area of interest to create connection across the college and remove barriers while focusing on a High Impact Practice to address student equity gaps.
- CTE Courses
The CTE currently offers five courses that are open to all LCC employees. I participated in the development and have taught of each of these courses:
- New Faculty Orientation: The goals of the Faculty Orientation sessions are to create a welcoming transition for new instructors and connect them to resources, services, college systems, policies, and professional development opportunities.
- Transforming Learning through Teaching: In this transformative course, a collaborative approach is used to model various teaching and learning strategies and create a faculty learning community. This course provides an opportunity to reflect upon current teaching and learning practices with faculty from across disciplines, as well as exploration student perspectives. This is a pass/fail course that requires weekly discussions, plus two reflective capstone assignments including applying newly learned techniques with the support of colleagues, and a deep reflection of a personal teaching experience.
- Teaching Online Certification: Participants will develop an understanding of D2L and other online tools, and gain knowledge of pedagogical approaches, assessment options, and inclusive student engagement techniques in the online learning environment. Participants will explore existing and evolving technologies, including communication and collaboration applications as well as educational technology systems and trends. This is a pass/fail course that requires weekly discussions, assignments and a guided creation of a D2L course that incorporates the TOC course concepts.
- Pedagogy of Equity: The Pedagogy of Equity (POE) course focuses on intentional inclusive pedagogical design and building critical communities that embrace diversity and engage students in course work that is meaningful, relevant, and accessible. Participants examine their own practices and learn how to apply concepts and strategies from the course to their own work and learning environments. The course requires weekly discussions, reflection, analysis, and creating an action plan, based on course concepts, for implementation.
- Teaching with HyFlex: The HyFlex training covers applying effective course design and pedagogical concepts, determining and addressing potential barriers, and incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion with the Universal Design for Learning and Accessibility guidelines.
Additionally, an accomplishment I hold dear to my heart is the creation and implementation of the RISE (Reframing Inclusion through Scholarship and Equity) Institute in collaboration with LCC’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Through self-reflection and focused pedagogy, the year-long institute helped to address unconscious bias and critical issues that educators face every day.
Leveraging my multifaceted experience, my aim is to promote transformative change, fostering inclusive practices and academic excellence. –Megan Lin
