Faculty+Bios

=**TEAM ONE**= toc

**Jim Lee** is an electrician program instructor at Bellingham Technical College and has been teaching since February 2007. Prior to teaching here, he was an electrical contractor providing the industrial segment of the electrical market with engineering and technical electrical services. He was an electronics instructor at Texas State Technical Institute from 1982 – 1984. The Electrician program provides a wide variety of general electrical apprentice subjects with hands on labs that make our students ready to enter the electrician field. Washington State recognizes this training by awarding graduates 1550 hours credit towards Residential and non-residential maintenance electrician certification.



**//Coach's Reflection//**
"I found that participating in the eFLC rewarding.In mentoring another faculty member, I had to make sure I knew how to do what I was teaching them.I liked the brown bag sessions which allowed me to see what others were doing and learn some of those techniques that I had not done before.I also learned how the other faculty member saw it and what problems they had, which may have been different than the problems I had encountered at first.I learned a lot and enjoyed the whole process."

**Earl Steele** teaches the Fisheries Technology program at Bellingham Technical College and runs two hatcheries.One is a salmon hatchery and the other is a trout hatchery.The job skills that he teaches are Hatchery Techniques, Aquaculture, Fisheries Research, and Habitat Restoration.He has used many of the new distance learning programs and uses Angel in all of his hybrid classes as well as Elluminate, recorded lectures, and posted notes.Earl has taught for 31 years for BTC and continues to use high tech methods in education. back

=TEAM TWO=

**Leah Lippman** worked in Kenya with the Archaeology unit of the National Museums and later as Program Director's Assistant for Long Island University in Kenya coordinating logistics, field studies, and lectures for international students.Leah taught Cultural Anthropology, Cross-cultural studies, and Psychology courses in the classroom for ten years at Wenatchee Valley College.For eight years she has been instructing Anthropology courses online for Pierce College.Mostly recently, Leah is instructing Lifespan Psychology online for the Bellingham Technical College.



//Coach's Reflection//
"The last several months of participation in our e-Faculty Learning Community was a great opportunity to work more closely with one of our new adjunct faculty. Since my coachee was hired solely to teach an online course, we wouldn’t normally have had an opportunity to work face to face. While she was new to our institution, and developing/teaching her course for the first time, she had many more years experience teaching online than I’ve had. She put together a beautiful course, and I learned at least as much from her as she did from me. My online course is improving each time I teach it, partly due to the interaction we’ve had through this FLC. Of special interest to my coachee and I has been ways to increase small group interaction online. We have each experimented with a number of different strategies and tools (some with more success than others). We had the opportunity to present our progress to our broader community as part of our Brown Bag discussion series. From that series, our campus community of online instructors has grown more collegial; we are now seeing each other as resources and co-learners in the field of online education."

**Carl Oekerman** has been teaching Interpersonal Communications and General Psychology at BTC for the past six years, and teaching an online class for the past three years."Because a psychology course is a degree requirement for nearly all students at BTC, I have the opportunity to work with the full spectrum of BTC’s diverse student population.It’s never boring.Always on the lookout for ways to develop my skills as an educator, I’m moving from being a mentor in our e-Faculty Learning Community to training in how to become a peer-reviewer for online courses."

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=TEAM THREE=

**Mark Hubner**, or Scrub for most of his life, taught high school English (mostly in Bellingham) for 30 years.Changing gears. " I taught one year in the Southwest at Laughlin, Nevada, and then bounced back to Whatcom County for a year at Nooksack Valley.Three years ago I landed as an adjunct at Bellingham Technical College and have been reborn as a post-secondary English instructor teaching Communications and English.I have worked fairly extensively with collaborative teaching at the high school level.My Master’s Degree in Teaching was completed via distance learning through Grand Canyon University.At that time the true online classroom didn’t exist, and most work was transmitted courtesy of the postal department.Using computers as a tool for peer feedback and editing has become an integral part of my class structure, and I continue to explore it in the Angel environment.(I also use computers and online tools in my avocation as a musician.)"



**//Coach's Reflection//**
"Participating in the eFLC was rewarding. I enjoyed the blogging and the responding to other's writing enjoyable. The process caused me to reflect on a variety of elearning topics and allowed me to refine my own thinking concerning elearning issues ."

**Bob Mathews** is an adjunct English instructor at Bellingham Technical College. He currently teaches Communications 170 and English 101. He uses many features of Angel and Elluminate in his online Communications 170 class. Bob retired as a high school English teacher after thirty years and has been teaching at Bellingham Technical College part-time for three years.

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=TEAM FOUR= **Kate Yamamoto** is an adjunct instructor at Bellingham Technical College.She teaches courses in the Health Sciences field including Chemistry, Cell Biology, Anatomy and Physiology and Medical Terminology.



**//Coach's Reflection//**
"The eFLC gave me an opportunity to revisit and think on my experiences integrating online learning techniques and systems into my courses. Working with a fellow faculty member new to technology helped me to distill in my mind what I have found to be best practices and pitfalls. I’ve also had opportunities to expand my network of fellow professionals using these tools."

**Gregory Rehm** teaches in the Computer Network Technology program at Bellingham Technical College.Prior to education, he worked in front-line systems administration and IT administration.The job skills that he teaches include system administration of Windows and UNIX systems, switched networks, web server administration and email server management.He has embraced the use of new distance learning systems and methods and uses them in all of courses, hybrid and face to face.

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=TEAM FIVE= **Paublo Baca** is in his 2nd year as an instructor for the Building Construction Technology Program at Bellingham Technical College.Paublo, who has an M.A. in Elementary Education, returned to instruction after spending 17 years as a custom home builder & General Contractor in New Mexico.His primary focus at this point is to create a paperless classroom where students have access to all course materials 24/7.



//**Coach's Reflection**//
" I enjoyed my participation in the eFLC community.I allowed me to connect with a newer faculty member that I may not have interacted with normally.My mentee was as curios and excited as I was about exploring new tools and techniques to reach our students more effectively.It afforded us both opportunities to explore each other’s instruction methods while it allowed me an opportunity to pass on successes I have had and guide him through the acquisition of hardware on campus.In addition I was able to help my mentee navigate through the sea of web 2.0 tools to determine what meets his needs today.The Brown Bag sessions were another high light.I really enjoy seeing how others in my exact situation use various tools to provide solutions I had not even conceived of.It is also nice to know I am not alone in my challenges."

**Dan Beeson** has been an instructor in the Automotive Technology program at Bellingham Technical College since 1996.Throughout his tenure at BTC, he has been constantly exploring alternative methods of instruction.Previously Dan was a Master Automotive Technician working in new car dealerships throughout the West Coast.During his time as a technician, he was adjunct faculty at Clark College in Vancouver, WA.This was the first time he was exposed to the limitations of “lecture” as a learning tool.Since that time Dan has been seeking out more learner centered methods of instruction.He has tried many Web 2.0 tools and works to apply them to a learning environment that is more engaging for students.Among them are wikis, discussion boards, poll software, social networking, social bookmarking, and YouTube.All of Dan’s courses are currently taught as hybrids using Angel. back