Rediscovering the Joy of Teaching
An Instructional Skills Workshop

During the week of August 7-11, ten LACCD educators from six different colleges spent eight hours a day participating in an Instructional Skills Workshop or ISW.

The group who attended included experienced, veteran teachers like Alex Slabo, an English instructor from Southwest, and Adrienne Zinn, a Fashion Design instructor from Trade-Tech, as well as several relatively new and expert instructors like David Jordan, an attorney and instructor in the Paralegal program from Mission and Amy Baldwin, a Psychology instructor from City. Others who devoted a week to the project were Carlos Martinez, Dean of Academic Affairs and Staff Development Coordinator at Pierce, Lloyd Thomas, English instructor and Staff Development Coordinator from West, Mary Ellen Eckhert, Staff Development Chair, from East, Bernadette Tchen, PACE Director from City, Pamela Atkinson, Coordinator of Academic Computing from City), and Roberta Holt, Coordinator of Staff & Organizational Development, from City.

Whether they had been teaching three years or thirty-five years, everyone who attended the ISW felt it was one of the highpoints of their teaching career.

Basically, an Instructional Skills Workshop or ISW gives instructors a chance to focus on the instructional design and delivery of their lessons. Through carefully focused and facilitated feedback, an ISW provides a non-threatening way for teachers to discover areas in which they themselves wish to improve.

Two facilitators work with a group of five instructors. After allowing the groups a day in which to organize themselves, establish comfort zones, and discuss and agree upon procedures and goals, the two facilitators conduct forty-minute sessions in which each of the five instructors gives a ten minute mini-lesson and then receives peer feedback, both written and oral. The lesson is also videotaped, so that the instructor can study how effective he or she was in translating instructional goals and objectives into new learning for the participants.

To facilitate the weeklong ISW, City College's Roberta Holt, who is the chair of the District Staff Development Committee, contacted Charles Miller at "The Company of Experts" and invited four experienced and creative trainers--three from Canada, where the ISW idea began, and one from Southern California. The ISW cycle of mini-lessons and feedback continues for three days.

Although most of the instructors felt a bit nervous for the first lesson, the Canadian facilitators established a feedback environment in which instructors felt open to truly "learn" as much as they wished about their lessons. The emphasis was on allowing instructors to talk about what they had discovered from the lesson based on their own intuitions and carefully focused responses from their peers.

By the third cycle of mini-lessons, instructors had discovered ways to sharpen their objectives, invite more group participation, modify their lesson in progress, if necessary, and ensure that the learners actually "learned" what the teacher intended to "teach."

The ISW technique began in Canada twenty-one years ago, which is one reason why three Canadian trainers were invited to the City College series. The trainers for the ISWs were Glynis Boultbee from Alberta and Pat Pattison and Judy Wilbee from British Columbia. In addition, there was Bruce Willats -- an ISW trainer from Laguna Beach).

Over fifty California community colleges have already hosted ISW trainings. Although this was the first time an ISW training had been held in the LACCD, plans are already in process for ISWs to be offered at City and other LACCD colleges during the January 2001 Flex weeks--or other appropriate times-for instructors who are willing to devote a week to renewing and deepening their own joy in teaching.