Our Sloan-C Certificate Featured Graduate of the Month is James "JJ" Johnson of Pierce College in Lakewood, WA.

James, who normally goes by "JJ," serves the Pierce College Military Program as a Special Assistant Program Manager/Coordinator for IT/Networking/Instruction. He explains, "Basically, I am the eLearning and Technical Support Manager for our program." 

Pierce College is a public community college and part of the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges. The Military Program has three locations on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and is focused at providing educational opportunities for our US Military students and their families. With a majority of students enrolled in online courses and  many of them overseas on deployment, JJ serves a number of important roles.

JJ writes, "Like others in my Sloan-C Certificate Program cohort, I'm a jack of all trades. I administer the instruction, curriculum and course development efforts for our online program. I provide instructor training and professional development opportunities for our faculty, administer our Canvas learning platform (just recently migrated from Blackboard CE8), and lead a fantastic Quality Assurance Team. Additionally, I am an adjunct instructor, teaching Computer Science and Computer Networking topics in F2F, hybrid, and online formats."

As a participant of the certificate program, JJ was able to specialize in two areas of interest specific to his context - Administration and Blended Learning - which allowed him to supplement the Certificate program's foundation course. "I am thrilled to be a part of the Sloan-C Certificate Program," he added. 

In his final portfolio presentation for the program, JJ described a significant impact on his course design as a result participation. In the foundation course JJ "created more clear and concise instructional elements" and applied design strategies such as chunking content and increasing the variety of assessments, increasing student satisfaction with his course design. 

JJ also described how the elective workshops "helped me focus my efforts for faculty recruitment and retention" while supporting the development of workload management strategies that helped him balance both a personal and teaching life. In an academic integrity workshop, JJ was able to "maximize opportunities for learning, minimize opportunities for cheating and integrate instructional methods to assess the integrity of student work."

JJ lives in in Puyallup, WA, with his wife and family.  

Congratulations, JJ - Sloan-C is proud to have you as our Featured Graduate!

To learn more about the Sloan-C Certificate for teaching and improving online courses, visit http://sloanconsortium.org/sloanc_institute#cert