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Jacobs Honored with KCIA Award

published January 8, 2015Jacobs Honored with KCIA Award

Jacobs Honored with KCIA Awards

Lauren Jacobs is one of two members of the Highland Community College faculty who have been honored by their selection as recipients of Scholarship Awards from the Kansas Council of Instructional Administrators (KCIA).   Jacobs joins Melissa Cook, a nursing instructor at the HCC Technical Center in Atchison, as two of the four recipients of this year’s $1000 awards to community and technical college faculty in Kansas based on the quality of their applications.

Lauren Jacobs is a mathematics faculty member at Highland’s Perry Center.  A recent winner of the Bruning Award from the HCC Foundation that she used to learn about the concept of a “flipped classroom” where she recorded her lectures for students to view out of class and then used class time to help them with homework, she will use the KCIA scholarship to attend the FlipCon15 at Michigan State University. FlipCon is an annual conference dedicated to applications of a flipped classroom and networking among educators using different styles of flipped classrooms.  Explaining how this professional development will improve her leadership skills, she wrote:

By attending FlipCon15, I hope to learn more strategies as I move into the next stage of classroom flipping, which is mastery flipping. With technological advancements, it is important that educators stay current. We need to branch out of our regular teaching routines and try new methods of information delivery. Last year’s conference (funded by the Bruning Award) taught me enough to get started, and attending another conference will enhance my techniques. As a leader for my fellow educators, I shared my education from the three-day conference, as well as my own experience flipping my classes. By next summer, I will have two semesters of flipped classes, and I have already learned from my first semester’s experience with the new model.  

Highland Vice President for Academic Affairs Peggy Forsberg, a previous KCIA scholarship applicant reviewer noted, “The KCIA scholarships have been an organizational project for at least 10 years.   One of KCIA’s goals is to promote leadership opportunities for faculty and staff members at member institutions.  Highland has not had a recipient for at least five years, so having two this year, given the excellent field of applicants, is a real honor and speaks well of our innovative faculty.”

 

   

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