CTN’s Director of Professional development, Allegra Villarreal, along with CEO, Dr. Chavez, leadership fellows, guest speakers, and CTN staff offered professional development seminars through virtual conferences in the month of July.

CTN hosted the Ascender Foundational Summer Summit through a two-day virtual conference on July 27^th and 28^th. The Ascender Summer Summit is the first in a series of three seminars providing training for CTN new cohorts. There were over 25 attendees at this conference which was centered around two themes: “Exploring Aspects of the Program” and “Creating Community on Campus.” The summit focused on a variety of topics and goals that included: literacy across disciplines, ways technology can be leveraged across discipline, and student equity. Participants were also introduced to key components of the Ascender program including culturally relevant curriculum, student recruitment and retention, mentoring, student engagement, and data collection.

The first day guest speaker, Norman Eng, founder of EDUCATIONxDESIGN, introduced participants to high-impact teaching strategies and Luzelma Canales, Associate VP for Leadership, Learning and Activation, Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, spoke to participants about the importance of equity and inclusion in instructional, advising and institutional practice. The next day, guest speaker, Sonya Armstrong, Professor and Director of the Doctoral Program in Developmental Education at Texas State University, discussed reading expectations at the college level and the misassumptions both instructor and students make about literacy.

At the request of THECB to provide a summer workshop for the TX CoReq Project, CTN’s Transformative Teaching Track zoom session was offered on July 15^th from 10:30 to noon to over 100 registered participants. This session explored the theory and practice of culturally responsive/sustaining pedagogy and how it can be utilized in hybrid and online delivery of course content. It included discussion of suggested assignments, culturally relevant literature for the classroom and issues of digital equity that should be considered in curriculum design for the fall. 

Facilitators for the session were Allegra Villarreal, CTN Director of Professional Development and Assistant Professor, English, Austin Community College and Rafael Castillo, CTN Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and Professor, English, Palo Alto College. After their presentation, Carolyn Reed made announcements regarding the TX CoReq Project, and Erin Doran, CTN Director of Research and Evaluation, announced other CTN seminars for the month.

TTT is tailored to meet the needs of faculty who the state hopes will play a leadership role in the implementation of House Bill 2223 and the 60×30 campaign on their campuses.