Success Accelerator Communities of Practice

Virtual Faculty Professional Development Experiences for OHM and Waymaker Users

What is Success Accelerator?

Success Accelerator is a complement faculty professional development experience for experienced OHM and Waymaker users. Success Accelerator is grounded in evidence-based teaching practices. It is designed for users of OHM or Waymaker to make their instruction more active, effective, and impactful in their chosen courseware.

Success Accelerator is for faculty who:

  • Are experienced OHM/Waymaker courseware users of at least 2 terms

  • Looking to expand their teaching toolkit

  • Want to explore additional ways to engage their students in their chosen courseware

  • Interested in incorporating evidence-based teaching practices in their instruction

Success Accelerator Areas of Focus

Enrich Lumen’s standard Waymaker implementation with mentoring and peer support around course design, pedagogy, use of learning data, and best practices to increase student engagement and success. Explore evidence-based practices for effective teaching and how to use Waymaker’s unique personalized learning toolset to support your student’s learning and success. Suitable for veteran users.

Prerequisite Required: Minimum of 2 terms of teaching with Waymaker

Enrich Lumen’s standard OHM implementation with mentoring and peer support around course design, pedagogy, use of learning data, and best practices to increase student engagement and success. Explore evidence-based practices for effective teaching and how to use OHM’s highly flexible toolset to support your student’s learning and success. Suitable for veteran OHM users.

Prerequisite Required: Minimum of 2 terms teaching with OHM

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Program Descriptions & Schedule

What’s Included

  • 6-week virtual learning circle to build skills and effectiveness teaching with courseware
  • Weekly activities to explore, apply, and reflect on effective teaching practices (around 2 hours/week)
  • Leverage courseware capabilities to enhance learning activities, assessment, student engagement and success
  • Individualized coaching focused on your goals for teaching effectiveness
  • Community of peers for collaboration, sharing ideas and feedback
  • Access to resource-rich Lumen Circles platform evidence-based teaching framework
  • Asynchronous program to fit busy schedules
  • Earn a Lumen Circles Certificate in Effective Teaching Practice
  • Opt in to a Lumen Circles Fellowship during a future term

How Does Success Accelerator Work?

  • Set goals. Identify how you want to develop your teaching practice and pedagogical profile.

  • Build skills. Virtual, workshop-style learning opportunities expand your teaching repertory, help you work smarter through teaching “hacks,” and deepen your understanding of evidence-based practices.

  • Teach and reflect. Apply what you’re learning, consider how it’s working for your students and where to improve.

  • Share via virtual learning circles. Connect with peers, exchange feedback, and collect new ideas through expertly-facilitated learning circles. Our user-friendly platform makes it simple to connect and collaborate.

  • Recognize growth and progress. Track progress towards goals and see your teaching evolve as you incorporate new practices with students.

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What Faculty Say About Success Accelerator

You can read about best teaching practices, talk to fellow colleagues in passing or at development days but actually putting your lesson plans out there for others to review and critique forces you to analyze your own teaching. I grew and learned so much over the last 6 weeks – I can’t wait to incorporate what I have gained through this fellowship.

Jen Eaton, Lumen Fellow , OHM Success Accelerator

My participation as a Lumen fellow has given me the opportunity to receive feedback on educational practices I am currently using in my classroom. The reflections made me think about the learning objectives for my students and how the activity worked toward those objectives. The questions from fellow educators gave me insights on ways I could modify the activity to make it even better.

This directly benefits the students currently in my class as well as future students. My advise to other educators is to take the time to be intentional in your classroom. Using evidence-based teaching practices to evaluate your classroom activities is an excellent way to determine what is working well and identify small changes that can go a long way to making it even better.

Tiffany Martin, Lumen Fellow , Waymaker Success Accelerator

Focusing more on student success from an angle that encourages students and delivers a constant presence to them is essential for them and for myself. We only have our students for a limited amount of time and in that time we have an opportunity to impact them and their learning. I like the campsite rule, “Leave it in a better condition than you found it.

Stephanie Krueger, Lumen Fellow, Waymaker Success Accelerator

The best way to create a learning environment in which students grow and thrive is to reflect on what is and is not working effectively and make necessary adjustments accordingly. This Waymaker Circle not only gave me many ideas I will continue to implement in my classes, but it also gave me the opportunity to learn from the reflections of other dedicated educators.

Jeniah Jones, Lumen Fellow, Waymaker Success Accelerator

There are so many things that we do everyday that are so worthy of sharing with others. The best part of this fellowship was learning how others are using Lumen Ohm in their teaching. I have picked up so many ideas on how to better use this technology just from the comments of others I have been partnered with. But it has also taught me that I have so much more to learn!

Kathleen Speicher, Lumen Fellow, OHM Success Accelerator

If I had another course in OHM, I would be so much better prepared for my students. The customer service (Dan Ly) was excellent in all ways. Our Circle facilitator, Corri, was positive, encouraging, and knowledgeable. I learned a lot from both.

Hearing from other math instructors with regard to their suggestions, questions, or math tools is always a plus and helps you feel part of a community.

Rachel Morgan, Lumen Fellow, OHM Success Accelerator

Pick the Offering that Works for You

We offer Lumen Circles experiences with different areas of focus, levels of depth and duration.

  • Lumen Circle Fellowships: Build skills in targeted areas, apply what you’re learning, and collaborate within a virtual learning circle
  • Success Accelerator: Engage with peers and accelerate the path to effective teaching and learning using Lumen courseware

Learn more about which fellowship suits you in a Lumen Circles 101 webinar. These 30-minute webinars will briefly overview Lumen Circles and how they help instructors hone their expertise as student-centered teachers through a collaborative and reflective process.

Explore Circles
Register for Circles 101

What’s Your Role?

Your connection with students is paramount to their success, but knowing how to reach them can be challenging. Lumen Circles provide opportunities to expand your teaching repertory in areas you want to grow. You can join colleagues to learn, share ideas, compare experiences, and be part of a thriving community focused on evidence-based teaching for today’s students.

Lumen Circles complement your center’s resources and priorities. Some centers offer a full menu of programs but struggle to generate meaningful evaluation data. Others cater to new faculty, but they sometimes overlook faculty who are later in their careers. Still others struggle to meet the needs of part-time faculty or graduate students. We can tailor offerings to fit the faculty members you want to reach with skill-building and professional growth focused on teaching practices that impact student success. We also offer flexible options around pricing and scale.

Recognizing student success is a result of faculty success, Lumen Circles can help you provide a broader foundation of faculty support to transform teaching and learning with a focus on evidence-based instructional practices. We can also help you track alignment and measure progress towards institutional and faculty goals for improving teaching practice.

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Lumen Circles FAQs

Do you have a question we don’t answer here? Contact us or send a note to circles@lumenlearning.com.

Lumen Circles’ evidence-based teaching framework uses a methodology and process originally adapted from research published in Taking College Teaching Seriously: Pedagogy Matters by Gail Mellow, Diana Woolis, Marisa Klages-Bombich and Susan Restler. In work funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumen expanded the framework to add a “Belonging” theme that fully incorporates practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion into the Lumen Circles model. The framework identifies practices that increase student success, according to research evidence. Lumen Circles’ methodology guides faculty members through a process to recognize, explore and apply these effective practices in their teaching. It helps them become more aware and purposeful about making pedagogical choices that support student success.

Primary principles include:

  • Self-reflection: Faculty fellows examine their own teaching practices to become more aware of pedagogical choices and their impact on student success.
  • Appreciative Inquiry: This inquiry method invites educators to recognize and celebrate their strengths and what’s working in their teaching practice, and then using this as a foundation for self-directed growth and improvement.
  • Evidence-based Instructional Principles: To help faculty make the learning environment more student-centered, we encourage them to explore and try out specific practices aligned in four distinct dimensions of teaching practice: Supportive, Challenging, Organized, and Varied.
  • Pedagogical Analytics: As fellows progress through the Lumen Circles experience, we measure changes in faculty teaching patterns, progress towards their teaching goals, and how this aligns with institutional goals and changes in student outcomes.

Yes. The Lumen Circles professional development platform and learning circle-focused methodology are based the work of Faculty Guild, a faculty-focused coaching service created by serial education technology entrepreneur David Yaskin and a talented team of educators. As part of a strategic decision to expand our support for effective teaching and learning practices with professional development services, Lumen Learning acquired intellectual property and the higher education assets of Faculty Guild.

We construct virtual learning circles with careful attention to the goals and context of faculty members participating in Lumen Circles fellowships. Learning circles always align with the theme of the fellowship to connect faculty with peers working to expand their teaching practice in similar directions. As a rule, learning circles include faculty from multiple institutions teaching in related disciplines, such as STEM or social sciences. We may make exceptions to this rule in order to support specific institutional objectives, such as learning circles to connect faculty with peers from their own institution.

We coordinate start and end dates for Lumen Circles fellowships and other professional development programs to align with the academic calendar and windows when the experience will be most productive for participating faculty members. Staggered start dates generally coincide with the start of term for spring (winter), summer, and fall. Depending on interest, faculty availability, and demand, we can add additional fellowship terms as needed.

Note the Lumen Circles experience does require that faculty are actively teaching during a majority of their fellowship term because reflective practice is most beneficial when there are immediate opportunities to consider teaching choices, evaluate what’s working and try out new pedagogical directions.