Teaching Excellence Program
The Teaching Excellence Program (TEP) is a semester-long program offered in the Fall and designed to encourage new instructors, lecturers, and staff who teach to think critically about their teaching craft and to share effective strategies and practices to maximize student learning. Grounded in the Nā Hopena Aʻo (HĀ) framework, this seminar experience engages participants in interactive teaching and learning sessions, cultural concepts and placed-based learning, and builds community through collaboration, discourse and reflection.
Meetings typically occur in person every Friday, 9:00am – 11:30am, from August through November. At the last meeting session, participants present a brief reflection on their experience in the cohort program and its impacts on their teaching.
Registration announcements are made via campus email in August or you can inquire with the ICTL Coordinator, Erin Thompson, for details.
Teaching Excellence Cohort Presentations (Coming Soon)
Teaching Guidelines and Issues for Faculty (TGIF) Workshops
The TGIF Committee is comprised of faculty across the campus who work with the ICTL coordinator to create 3-4 workshops and panel discussions on relevant, trending teaching and learning topics each semester. These workshops typically take place on Friday afternoons and all are welcome to attend.
Workshop offerings are posted on the ʻOhana Leeward Calendar and announced via email.
Recordings of previous sessions can be found in the TGIF Workshop Playlist.
For more information, contact TGIF Chair, Donald Carreira Ching, or the ICTL Coordinator, Erin Thompson.
Teaching Squares
Re-energize and ignite your passion for teaching. Observe, learn from, and connect with other Leeward instructors. Reflect on and improve your own teaching practices?
Teaching Squares enrich teaching and build community through a structured, non-threatening process of classroom observation and shared reflection.
A Teaching Square offers you the opportunity to enhance your own teaching by observing your colleagues in actual classroom (online or F2F) situations. Participants typically spend six to eight hours per term in Teaching Squares activities, which include:
- Initial meeting
- Classroom visits
- Square share session
- Wrap-up meeting for facilitators
- Reflecting on the experience in the Teaching Squares padlet
Everyone enters the classroom with an attitude of respect and support for both the teacher and the students, recognizing that different methods are required in different contexts. Participants are able to meet colleagues from across the campus and make lasting connections that make you feel a part of our ʻOhana Leeward.
Teaching Guidelines and Mid-Semester Assessment (Do-It-Yourself Resources)
The Innovation Center offers “Do-It-Yourself (DIY)” Mid-Semester Student Check In materials that make gathering student feedback quick and easy. Take a temperature check at the semester’s halfway point to see where your students are at, what is working well for them, and what makes learning difficult for them. Validate your teaching practices and/or learn new ways to reach your students.
When you sign up for the Mid-Semester Assessment program, you will gain access to:
- an online google student survey form that you can duplicate and personalize;
- a sample email template to send to your students;
- a suggested timeline for distribution; and
- resources and assistance (if needed) once your feedback is gathered.
Call for participants will be done via campus email and our Leeward bulletin around week 7 of the semester or you can reach out to the ICTL Coordinator to express your interest.
Getting to Know Our Students Series
As educators, we are always looking to do what is needed to support our students. Leeward Community College’s “Getting To Know Our Students” series was our attempt to understand the perspectives, struggles, and triumphs or our students from their point of view. Each session features a different student group where they have center stage to tell us how we can best reach, teach, and support them!
Student Groups include:
- Native Hawaiian Students
- Filipino Students
- Early College Students
- Non-Traditional/ Student Parents
- Students Overcoming Challenges
- Military & Veteran Students
- Leeward CC Waiʻanae Moku Students
- Distance Education (Online) Students
- LGBTQ+ Students
- Working Students
- English Learners & Multilingual Students
Hawai‘i Great Teachers Seminar
The Hawaiʻi National Great Teachers Seminar has been on hiatus since the pandemic in 2020. Information about its revitalization will be posted on this site once available.
