Alternatives to CollegeNow Conference

CollegeNow understands that it may sometimes be difficult to attend our conference day in August. For that reason, we accept other forms of professional development to meet the program’s requirement. There is no minimum number of hours required; we are looking for quality professional development that you have identified as meeting your professional needs in support of your CollegeNow courses. Some examples of acceptable alternatives are below. In some cases, documentation is required, as described below.

If you participate in any professional development activities that are not "live" with TC3 or your liaison, please complete this online form to document your activity. This same form should be used if you are viewing professional development content that your liaison has posted to your Blackboard organization. Even beyond, COVID, the form will be our way for instructors to report their participation in professional development in lieu of live attendance at a TC3 conference liaison workshop, or TC3 course. If you attend a TC3/CollegeNow conference, have a liaison meeting, or audit a TC3 course, we do not need the the report form.

  • Observe a course at Tompkins Cortland CC. Contact the Director of CollegeNow or your Faculty Liaison to arrange.
  • Audit a college course in your discipline or a closely related area. Tompkins Cortland courses are tuition-free for CollegeNow adjuncts (sign up through the Concurrent Enrollment Coordinator).
  • Phone or video conference with your Faculty Liaison individually or as part of a group meeting.
  • Receive professional development as part of a site visit by your Faculty Liaison to your school. Let your Faculty Liaison know what areas you would like to focus upon.
  • Review content liaisons post in the Blackboard organization for your discipline.
  • Each April, Tompkins Cortland hosts a conference for community college faculty. This "Connecting, Collaborating and Celebrating the Art of Teaching Conference" (known as CCCAT) is open to CollegeNow instructors. Victoria will email registration information in the spring.
  • Meet with a Tompkins Cortland Librarian to discuss course materials, research databases, or academic integrity resources. Contact the Concurrent Enrollment Coordinator or the Library.
  • Attend or review webinars and other curricular resources from SUNY. In most cases, you will be asked to log in by selecting Tompkins Cortland as your campus and then entering your myTC3 username and password.
    • SUNY's Remote Teaching Institute hosts high quality webinars regularly, recordings of which are shared in the SUNY RIT Playlist. SUNY's Remote Teaching Clinic also has a playlist of webinar recordings and other resources. SUNY has also compiled several resources for remote teaching, which includes discipline-specific resource collections, sources for labs, instructional design support, etc. If you are looking for still more support for your discipline, SUNY has "faculty/adjunct workgroups" organized by field: Workplace Groups for Remote Teaching. These workgroups were created to provide a forum for all SUNY-affiliated instructors to connect as they move to remote instruction, share experiences teaching remotely, ask questions about specific courses, assignments, activities, etc., and share best practices, examples, or research. 
  • Review journal articles on pedagogical trends or research in your field.
  • Work with our Campus Technology staff on remote/hybrid tools, such as Blackboard and OER, for your course. Recordings of any group trainings, as well as a host of other resources for online, blended, & remote teaching are available at the Transitioning to Remote Education Blackboard page (use your myTC3 login when prompted).  You may reach out to techsupport@tc3.edu for any specific help you may need in learning to use Blackboard. Please identify yourself as a CollegeNow instructor.
  • Attend a workshop at another college. SUNY Cortland, Ithaca College, and Cornell University host several workshops on a regular basis (see links below). If you also teach concurrent enrollment with another college (such as Syracuse, Broome, Corning, Onondaga, or Mohawk Valley), you may be able to use attendance at that college’s professional development workshops to satisfy the requirement.

Other Sponsors of Professional Development

Some providers of CollegeNow approved professional development: