This month, TTT's new regular column, "Meet the Experts,"
features Kayt Sunwood, UW-Superior's representative to the Learning Technology
Development Council.
TTT:
Please describe your work at the Faculty Development Center.
KS: I understand my job to be facilitating teaching and
learning at UW-Superior, in whatever ways best suit each particular situation.
I wear many hats simultaneously and/or in quick succession. Some of the
things I do include:
- Meeting regularly with
the Dean of Faculties to plan for and coordinate support to faculty
for curricular redesign;
- Facilitating dynamic connections
between UW-Superior and UW System around teaching and learning;
- Championing and facilitating
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning;
- Presenting workshops on
curricular design/redesign;
- Maintaining and enhancing
the Faculty Development Center (FDC) website as well as a physical library;
- Showcasing curricular redesign
resources;
- Attending/advising UW-Superior
committees & advisory groups;
- Coordinating with the Distance
Learning Office for pedagogical aspects of online learning support;
- Presenting at, supporting,
and attending Teaching, Learning & Technology Roundtables.
TTT: How long
have you been in your current position?
KS: I started at UW-Superior in October of 1998, so that makes
it 3-1/2 years that I have been here now. The Faculty Development Center
Director position at UW-Superior was created through System Curricular
Redesign funds which are distributed to campuses. Faculty here felt that
what UW-Superior needed was a Faculty Development Center (FDC) with a
Director whose job it was to support the enhancement of teaching and learning
from a pedagogical as well as a technological standpoint, so that became
the mission/vision/goals for the FDC. I was the first person hired into
this new position, and have had the pleasure of actualizing this vision
and making it a reality.
TTT: What do
you enjoy most about your job?
KS: What I enjoy most about my job is that my job connects perfectly
with my passions. To explain what that statement means, I will grab a
quote from my dissertation, which I am currently trying to finish writing:
"Community is the core of my life. I have built the foundation of
my everyday upon my connections to community. Little wonder...that building,
facilitating and supporting scaffolded/connected learning communities
is one of my major life passions." My job allows me to follow my
passion(s) and to facilitate faculty, staff, student, and technological
infastructure scaffolding and connections with and to learning community(ies).
TTT: What's
the most memorable thing that has happened to you at this job?
KS: The most memorable thing that has happened to me at this job
is the time that I had three meetings that I was participating in simultaneously
(two online-plus-audio-over-the-phone conference calls...a phone to each
ear, both on mute...AND a meeting with my boss in my office). While all
of this was going on I was ALSO carrying on email consultation with a
couple of faculty, AND, also over email, I helped to solve a major online
learning crisis at the same time. Multi-tasking is taken to new heights
at Superior!
TTT: What do
you enjoy doing in your free time? Any hidden talents you'd care to tell
our readers about?
KS: Free time! You are kidding, right? I guess walking on Wisconsin
Point with my dog, and if I am really lucky, my partner and both of our
dogs, is about my favorite thing to do if we can squeeze a little time
out of hectic schedules spread across three states. Watching
deer outside my cabin window while I'm dissertating is an enjoyable activity
that is about the closest that I've come to free time in quite a while.
I guess my hidden
talent, which is probably more dormant than hidden, is log building. I
taught log building briefly at the close of the 1970s, and I am quite
proud of a beautiful log cabin with a commanding view of Lake Superior
that I designed and contributed half of the hand-log-labor on. I've combined
my love for log building and for working with wood, and my love of the
sun and solar energy into my name (in case you were wondering where "Sunwood"
comes from...even if you weren't wondering, you know now).
Didn't mean to go
on and on like this, but, guess that is what happens when an "Expert"
is asked!
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