The Faculty Development Weeks hosted by the Western Academy Support and Training Center (WASTC) have become a staple during the first two weeks of June. This year’s sessions moved online but still brought tremendous value to the nearly 300 faculty who participated.
The week-long intensive training sessions were held June 8-12 and June 15-19. Each participant chose one workshop to attend for the entire week. Topics covered include AWS Cloud Foundations, Google Cloud, DevNet, and more.
The programs are typically held at community colleges but moved to a fully online model this summer. As a result, WASTC waived the registration fees and made them available for anyone who wanted to join.
WASTC Coordinator Karen Stanton said the team also worked with instructors to ensure that the online workshops would deliver the same quality instruction that attendees have come to expect in person.
“Instructor trainers for each workshop were familiar with and could provide a fully online version of their workshop,” Stanton said. “We worked closely with the 12 workshops to make sure all of the attendees received the information they needed to connect with their class and schedule their time accordingly.”
The event team also managed to do a raffle this year, which has always been a highlight of WASTC trainings. Mike Murphy, Computer Science Instructor at Foothill College and Kenny Lou, CIS Instructor at Cerritos College were winners of the two American Express $100 gift cards provided by DHD.
Stanton said attendee feedback was positive, and WASTC is always looking for new ways to improve and continue to meet instructors’ needs. Looking ahead, WASTC’s Summer Cisco Academy has started and there is a full training schedule for the upcoming year. Stanton said the organization expects to add the new DevNet Associate instructor class with a potential “Python for Networks” course that faculty could take as preparation.
Richard Grotegut and Karen Stanton formed WASTC in 2011 to support Cisco Networking Academy programs by sharing best practices, providing professional development and required instructor training, growing high school participation, maximizing lab equipment budgets, and sponsoring webinars and in-person retooling sessions. For more information, visit wastc.org.