9x9x25 Challenge

Todd ConawayYavapai CollegeAlisa CooperMaricopa Community Collegeshttp://9x9x25.wordpress.comI’ll start by saying this is an interesting concept. It’s not surprising that at institutions that are focused on teaching and learning, that many faculty are not going to take the time to write about what they’re doing. The concept is to have faculty write 25 sentences about teaching & learning. Who cares if the first time around it took some bribing with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream?The intersting part about this project/experiement was that not only did the faculty do this regular writing exercise, but it became a competition. After leafing through one of the spiral-bound books that Todd passed around, some of these were 1-3 pages long. Faculty were writing about the innovative things that they were doing to share with other faculty at the institution. On implementation, they were careful about the wording that they used. They stayed away from “invite” and “mandatory,” and went towards words like “challenge.” Going back to the incentives, Todd made phone calls to lots of vendors who provided free swag to give away as more incentives rather than just the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.After 3 weeks of implementing the 9x9x25, other institutions started picking it up. And as it turns out, every institution implemented it differently. Some do 4 weeks, 6 weeks, etc., but the concept of the challege went “viral” (IMO).Some of the important things that were brought up include:

• The faculty felt like they were part of a team;
• The writings were outward facing – not confined to only be visible within the institution;
• Some of the faculty indicated that this challenge was some of the best professional development.

Here’s an interesting point – Maricopa CC had a faculty member that wanted to participate, but preferred to do so in Spanish. Well, of course they can participate! Even if you have to provide an English counterpart (thanks to Google Translate), someone will benefit from it!At the end of the session, Todd and Alisa challenged everyone in the room to participate in an upcoming 9x9x25 challenge – of course I accepted! To reward us in doing so, we all got Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/699341047508258816Such an exciting session – looking forward to participating!