Standard 4 - Collaborator
Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems.
Standard 4a
The Veteran Resource Centers of two universities utilized digital tools and online communication to pool thoughts, efforts, and resources to a career fair to help veterans gain skills, resources, and seek employment during and after college. Student who attended this two day professional development resource fair had the opportunity to learn about careers and resources that could help propel their future. Career readiness is something important for college students and this event provided authentic learning experiences.
Standards 4b & 4d
I collaborate with the university’s Student Veterans of America chapter to periodically create digital newsletters to that are sent out to student veterans, keeping them informed about the goings on in the campus veteran community. This is a cover page of one such newsletter. The great thing about using a Web 2.0 tool is that the students and I can either collaborate in my office together or, if they are unable to stop by in person, I can share it with them digitally and they can collaborate with me from afar.
Student veterans are a unique group and it is important to practice cultural competency when communicating with them. For this reason, it is important for me to interact with them as co-collaborators so that they have a vested interest in their own learning and so that communication with them will remain seamless.
Standard 4c
This Padlet curation tool allows for students, staff, agencies, and community members to post resources that can be valuable for current student veterans. This tool allows for collaboration across multiple persons and agencies. My aim is for this page to serve as a collaborative curation tool to aid veterans, particularly student veterans, in and around the greater campus footprint. I am planning on including this into my digital welcome kit for student veterans next year so they will know some resources that are available to them. I believe that if I put an easy to use curation tool out there year after year, more and more people will contribute to it and it will become a fairly robust and comprehensive list.
