Innovation of the Year Winners

The college winners for 2009 are listed below.

Technology Tuesdays@CGCC a.k.a. Funky to Fabulous Fridays@PC
Chandler-Gilbert Community College
Project Team:  CGCC - Linda Zehr, Mary McGlasson;  PC – Julie Magadan, Juliane Roybal
The Technology Tuesdays and Funky to Fabulous Fridays (TT/FFF) workshop series are designed to bring free, simple-to-use, high-impact instructional technologies to faculty in a regular series of bite-sized pieces, minimizing the “fear factor” so often associated with learning new technology. The result: an enriched learning environment for our “Net-Generation” students. Faculty can now collaborate and interact with their students in more meaningful ways, regardless of time or location.

Council for Teacher Education & National Center for Teacher Education:  Teacher Education Resources Project
District-wide Collaboration
Project Team: DO – Ray Ostos, Stu Rodberg, Kelly Dooling; MCC – Richard Malena, Nora Reyes, Tawn Hauptli; CGCC – Brenda Larson, Jennifer Peterson; GCC – Nancy Oreshack, Heather Merrill; SCC – Bobbi Sferra, PC – Ofelia Canez
The National Center for Teacher Education and Council for Teacher Education partnered to develop a teacher education student handbook, common course materials, and an online student portal. These resources were created to recruit and inform Teacher Education students, and enhance the quality of curriculum and instruction in MCCCD foundation courses.  All resources are posted on the NCTE website at http://www.teachered.maricopa.edu/.

Dual Enrollment On-site Registration
GateWay Community College
Project Team:  Janet Langley, Sidney Dietz, Donna Rose, Mary Freeman, Teresa Alday, Cathy Gibson, Rosie Click, Karla DeVoll, Carmel Long, Linda Jensen, Micheile Ujke, Jose Candanedo, Tracy Galentine
With the advent of the new SIS, as well as Proposition 300 requirements, more complications were heaped on the dual enrollment process, and the possibility of errors and lost documents increased.  We knew it was time to step back, review our system, and take bold steps toward improvement.  Various team brain sessions led to our innovative Dual Enrollment On-site Registration, a practice that we implemented in the Fall 2007 semester and having been perfecting every semester since.  GateWay Community College has a large dual enrollment population spread over 34 Valley high schools.  A multi-department team developed a model for mobile registration, taking our entire registration process to high school sites.  The result is increased student service and decreased processing time.  

GCC/NAU Communiversity:  Seamless Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication
Glendale Community College
Project Team:  GCC - Jim Reed, Pam Joraanstad, Marie Baker-Ohler, Norma Peru-Ray, Jean Ann Abel; NAU - Brandt Short, Doug Small
The coordinated GCC/NAU Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication program offers students a seamless Community College–University degree path without leaving the GCC Campus.  Unlike a 2+2 model with discrete cohorts, Communiversity students maintain social and academic advantages of traditional programs that are frequently absent from nontraditional degree programs.  This is accomplished through offering freshman and sophomore level courses taught by credentialed faculty rather than graduate teaching assistants, and having an NAU communication professor (who also teaches the gateway class) located in GCC’s department of Communication and World Languages.

MCC ITS Collaborates with Nursing Department on iTunes U Mobile Course Delivery
Mesa Community College
Project Team:  Andrew Kasian, Martin Lehner, Mary Hefter, Peggy Fridell
MCC on iTunes U provides our global digital community with access to a variety of multimedia content produced at MCC, including recordings of lectures, convocation speakers, sporting events, and archival materials. By subscribing to podcasts of your favorite lectures, courses, special events or archival content, you will be notified when new material is available. Stay connected with MCC at all times, from anywhere in the world.  Utilizing a partnership with Apple Inc. and through the use of iTunes U, the MCC Nursing Department and Information Technology Services have made a semester’s worth of Pathophysiology 104 lectures available to nursing students district-wide, as well as to the local and global community. 

Online Teacher-in-Residence Program
Rio Salado College
Project Team:  Janet Johnson, Jennifer Gresko, Jeanne Christen, Jennifer Gladis, Tanishia Bailey
The Post-Baccalaureate Online Teacher-In-Residence program increases access to high-quality teacher preparation courses for elementary, secondary, and special education through flexible, convenient, anytime, anywhere e-learning. Students who have a bachelor's degree in a non-related education area can work in a classroom while simultaneously completing their education certification coursework.   Rio Salado College’s Online Teacher-In-Residence Program was created to address the critical state and national teacher shortage crisis. It is also designed to help school districts meet the “highly qualified” portion of the No Child Left Behind requirement, by utilizing the Arizona Department of Education’s Intern Certificate. The program is believed to be the nation’s first Online Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Preparation Program that leads students to elementary, secondary, or special education teacher certification, while teaching fulltime in the classroom. The program is approved by the Arizona Department of Education, and provides courses in an Internet format. Students who already have a Bachelor’s degree can take teacher preparation courses at home or at work, anytime, and anywhere in the world. This program enables students to realize their dream of becoming a teacher in an efficient, cost-effective, and timely process. The innovative Online Teacher-In-Residence program is a community collaboration. It is a three-way partnership between the Arizona Department of Education, Rio Salado College, and a school district.

Web-based Class Schedule - Winner of the 2009 Innovation of the Year Award
Paradise Valley Community College
Project Team:  PVCC - Carol Myers, Sam Fraulino, Paul Golisch, Alicann Lunceford, George Mathew, David Preston, Corey Weidner; DO – Jason Pociask
The web-based class schedule is designed as a dynamic environment to assist students in managing their time and resources through a class schedule-building tool accompanied by full course information and requirements.  Enhanced functionality within the class schedule engages students in crafting an appropriate semester timeline that contributes towards their success.
The Maricopa Community Colleges went live with the PeopleSoft Student Information System in February 2008.  Part of the vendor delivered functionality was a web-based class schedule search that allowed students, faculty and staff to find classes across all colleges in Maricopa. At the request of students, faculty division chairs and student affairs managers and staff, members of PVCC’s Information Technology Department (IT) began investigating an efficient and cost effective way of presenting PVCC class schedule information via the web. Team members developed an in-house web-based class schedule that was shared with other colleges, and subsequently adopted by the District Office to replace PeopleSoft delivered functionality.  

Multi-organizational Partnership to Address the Community’s Critical Medical Assistant Shortage Through Education and Training
Phoenix College
Project Team:    PC - Helen Houser, Phoenix Workforce Connection - Jill Buschbaker, Mountain Park Community Health Center, Greater Valley Area Health Education Center – Ellen Owens-Sumo, Native American Community Health Center – Deanna Sangster, Clinica Adelante – Avein Tafoya
Medical assisting is one of the fastest growing careers in the nation and the Valley (77% projected increased need by 2012, www.workforce.az.gov). In Phoenix, the shortage is critical due to the expanding healthcare requirements of the Valley’s booming population.  To address this shortage, Phoenix College (PC), Clinica Adelante, Inc., Greater Valley Health Education, Maricopa Integrated Health System, Maricopa Workforce Connections, Phoenix Workforce Connection, Mountain Park Community Health Center and the Native American Community Health Center formed a partnership to offer a uniquely designed Phoenix College Medical Assisting Program to entry-level employees of the participating healthcare organizations.  The result is quality medical assistants for the community, a successful educational experience and career ladder for entry-level employees, and value to taxpayers and employers for diminishing resources.

“MySCC – Any time • place • device” - Access your software applications, network resources, and files when and where you need them!
Scottsdale Community College
Project Team:  Dustin Fennell, Grant Gagnon, Matt Diglio; Corporate Partners – Citrix Systems, and Thin Client Computing
Scottsdale Community College went to the head of the class by trading in their distributed PC infrastructure for a bold new approach – an end-to-end virtualization solution – that has catapulted this underdog institution to technological leadership and an enviable competitive position in just nine months time. To provide cost-effective, "un-tethered" delivery of educational resources to students, faculty, staff and the community from anywhere, on any device, SCC implemented the full Citrix Delivery Center™ portfolio to power their MySCC portal. After just nine months of effort, from initial whiteboard strategy to rollout, the MySCC program has become a reality. No longer are students required to come in to an SCC computer lab or purchase software and high-end hardware to gain access to their coursework, applications, and network resources.  Citrix server, application, and desktop virtualization solutions have made education more convenient and affordable than ever before.

Automated Telephone Enhancement of College Contact Center
South Mountain Community College
Project Team:  Raul Sandoval, Rob Price
Timely and effective communication with students continues to be at once one of the most crucial, and one of the most challenging, tasks faced by the Maricopa Community College system.  In our search for innovative techniques and strategies within the realm of student communication, it was clear that, even in the face of myriad new electronic devices and networks, an old standby—the telephone—still ranked as one of the most immediate and reliable.
However, through the integration of digital and computer-aided technology, South Mountain Community College, this year, began utilizing the telephone in a new and innovative way, and in the course of doing so, improved both customer service to our students and the fiscal efficiency of the college.  Through structured use of an outsourced automated telephone calling system, South Mountain Community College enhanced its communication with students significantly---achieving not only improved service, but cost-savings to the college. Enrollment has increased, student enrollment problems have decreased, and we’ve improved our call center process in a time of limited resources.