CW’s Associate Senior Chairperson, Janet Thompson, Shares Insights on Blended Learning

Janet Thompson, Professor at The College of Westchester presented at the 11^th Annual Sloan Consortium Blended Learning Conference and Workshop: Pathways to Student Success, in Denver, Colorado. A conference devoted to the purposeful, strategic, and comprehensive approach to blended teaching and learning with a focus on improving student learning, supporting students and providing them access to a quality education. Professor Thompson presented Student Writing and International Collaborations in Two Flex Courses in which she shared the Flex mode of teaching and learning in international student collaborations at The College of Westchester.

With CW Flex schedule, the college has been an innovator in blended learning making extensive use of the combination of in-class and online activities in its day programs and instituting blended learning in all of its evening and weekend adult division classes. Professor Thompson shared, “Releasing part of the required classroom schedule for adult learners allows great flexibility for students to complete coursework, manage obligations and reach their goals of completing their degree. Students have been very positive about CW Flex schedule.”

Prof. Thompson has also collaborated with Empire State College Professor, Lorette Calix, located in Honduras, to bring their students together from CW Critical Issues in Business Seminar with students in ESC Cross Cultural Management course. With the help of Zoom, a cloud meeting platform, students at CW in White Plains, NY, video conferenced with ESC’s online students in Panama and the Dominican Republic.

Other efforts in e-Education via Zoom at The College of Westchester include ‘The Nascar Experience,’ where students were invited to participate in a conversation to discuss several topics about NASCAR. Scott Rovn, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Phoenix International Speedway, answered many questions that focused on topics such as NASCAR’s diversity initiatives among minorities, marketing strategies and how the Mexico Toyota Series Practice plans to attract the whole Latino audience in the country.

The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is the leading professional online learning society devoted to advancing quality e-Education into the mainstream of education through its community. Sloan-C is dedicated to providing access to high quality e-Education to individuals, institutions, professional societies, and the corporate community. The Sloan Consortium has made its presence known to the majority of all major online learning providers regardless of whether they are public, private, non-profit or for-profit. As the largest recipient of funding from this program, it continues to provide a host or services to the online learning community. Sloan-C remains committed to helping institutions create high-quality educational experiences, improving the U.S./international field of online education, contributing to the creation of an educated workforce, and creating mutually-beneficial partnerships with like-minded organizations.