April 17 Flex Day

The late scholar Edward Said asserted that Palestinians have been denied “permission to narrate.” With Palestine at the center of global politics and a frontline issue in defense of academic freedom, faculty may wonder how to teach about current events in ways that promote understanding and belonging, rather than polarization and silencing. This address will begin by unpacking Orientalist frameworks that distort Palestinian lives, culture, and history, and offer alternative frames of understanding, including national narratives, international human rights laws, and feminist intersectionality. In this interactive session, we’ll engage with interdisciplinary strategies and resources for teaching Palestine/Israel that promote critical inquiry and understanding, foster student engagement and belonging, and explore life-affirming possibilities for equitable futures. (This is an in-person event only)

We have heard from many faculty and classified staff that want to learn more about using AI. Here is an exciting opportunity to pilot PlayLab AI with support from UC Berkeley faculty & students. The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office has collaborated with PlayLab AI and the UC Berkeley School of Education to provide an exciting pilot opportunity for educators to create impactful AI-powered tools to enhance the teaching experience, improve student learning, and complete administrative tasks. In this flex day session, we invite faculty, classified professionals, and administrators who are excited to engage with PlayLab, an AI-powered platform that allows users to create custom bots to provide tailored solutions that will support student needs, enhance educational outcomes, and support administrative efforts.

Join our campus community to learn about the upcoming Equity Plan template and share ideas on strategies to best support our disproportionately impacted students.

Join our campus community to learn about the upcoming Equity Plan template and share ideas on strategies to best support our disproportionately impacted students. Session objectives will include: 1) Gain an understanding of the Equity Plan Template 2) Awareness of the disproportionately impacted students across the Equity Plan metrics 3) Provide ideas and strategies across the 5 primary Equity Plan metrics to better support impacted students

The Stewardship for Equity, Equal Employment and Diversity (SEEED) has been charged with writing the college's 2025-28 Student Equity Plan. In this interactive session learn about the work involved in drafting our college's equity plan. This is your opportunity to be help craft a bold vision for equity through the development of strategies that will remove barriers from student’s lives, and increase their achievement.

Learning is serious business. That doesn't mean it can't be fun, too. We all know students who play difficult video games for hours without fear of failure or boredom; why not employ some of the same gamification strategies to increase engagement and risk-taking in your class? In this workshop, you'll learn a variety of strategies and tools--both low-tech and high-tech--that can help you add intrigue, motivation, competition, and just plain fun to any lesson, unit, or semester.

Hosted by First Year Experience (FYE) students, join members of our newly found birdwatching club, Skyline Birders’ Brigade, as we view and identify various birds that are found on Skyline’s campus. Birding offers students and faculty many benefits; in fact, a North Carolina State University study found that “university students who went birding reported higher gains in subjective well-being and more reduction in psychological distress” (Forbes). Ever wonder what the difference is between a crow and a raven? Why are some blackbirds brown? These and other questions will be answered! Join the Brigade!

As a college that seeks to empower students, how can we leverage our courses to inspire civic engagement? Hear from colleagues in art, math, and the physical and social sciences who cultivate their students’ sense of agency by prompting them to apply classroom knowledge to real-world challenges. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to share their own assignments and design new ones that promote civic engagement, leaving with actionable ideas to enhance their teaching and students’ impact on their communities.

Have you used prebuilt Canvas pages with the DesignPlus software?Creating engaging and effective content pages, discussions, and assignments in Canvas can be fun. Bring your laptop for a hands on session to introduce easy-to-use DesignPlus templates in Canvas.

Skyline College will be hosting an Adult CPR/AED and First Aid training with American Red Cross. This training will be open to all district employees. The Adult First Aid/CPR/AED course incorporates the latest science and teaches students to recognize and care for a variety of first aid emergencies such as burns, cuts, scrapes, sudden illnesses, head, neck, back injuries, heat and cold emergencies and how to respond to breathing and cardiac emergencies for victims about 12 years and older. Successful students will receive a certificate for Adult First Aid/CPR/AED valid for two years. Course is open to all district employees and is capped at 25 participants. Course will take place in 6-202 and 6-204 from 12:30P-4:30P. Please wear comfortable clothing and be prepared to sit, stand, kneel and move around the room.

In this session, we will - 1) Meet the Skyline ZTC Team; 2) Learn about local and state-wide initiatives; 3) Encourage the adoption of ZTC and co-develop future ZTC program plan.

In this interactive workshop we will discuss findings from the 2024 Online Student Experience Survey and identify trends over years of data. We will then review updated Title V standards for Regular and Substantive Interaction, as well as success criteria outlined in the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) Quality Continuum Rubric for Distance Education - which will be used by review teams to assess online courses during the upcoming accreditation process. With all this in mind, we will then develop RSI-based course design and instructional strategies to respond to online student needs.

We preach learning strategies to our students; but do all strategies work the same for every discipline? Part presentation, part thought-group, this session aims to explore ways to identify discipline-specific learning strategies and center them in the classroom to increase learning. What does it take to learn the material we teach, and how can we guide students to adopt maximally effective strategies and behaviors to ensure greater learning? Come with ideas about your own discipline and what you know it requires as well as practices to share that you feel have the most impact for students learning that discipline.

Did you learn math facts through flashcards and worksheets? There is another way. In this hands-on workshop, we will use whiteboards and unifix cubes to approach numeracy as a collaborative puzzle, rather than a individual checklist.

Fundraising 102 will focus on the basic components of designing and executing a successful fundraising campaign. Topics will include peer-to-peer fundraising, grant research tools, corporate sponsorships, and the pluses/minuses of events. Feel free to reach out with any questions to Megan Barber Allende, Executive Director, allendem@smccd.edu.

This workshop will be an opportunity for Promise Scholars Program to re-group with campus faculty and staff in an effort to increase support for students, increase awareness of Promise at Skyline College, and build upon ideas for future semester offerings, events and workshops series.

In this hands-on workshop we will look at recent W3C guidelines on cognitive accessibility (COGA) and discuss how incorporating COGA into course design and pedagogy supports learning for all students - and especially for students who are neurodiverse or have learning differences. We will then explore Universal Design for Learning 3.0 as a framework to support COGA and consider how this relates to our own pedagogy.

Faculty, staff, and their families are invited to enjoy good food, music and outdoor games. Please mark your calendars and RSVP to let us know how many will be joining us. We look forward to being in community with our Skyline College family!