The League for Innovation in the Community College, an international nonprofit organization, recently presented a 2021-2022 Innovation of the Year Award to Montgomery County Community College in recognition of its creative Flex Classroom for Remote Learning & Instruction.

Every year MCCC holds an Innovation of the Year Awards competition for which employees can nominate projects that advance the College’s strategic plan and meets one or more of the following criteria: cost effectiveness, creativity, efficiency, impact, quality, replication and timeliness. MCCC’s Innovation of the Year committee identifies the top three innovations and submits its recommendations to the College president, who selects the winning innovation and submits it to the League for Innovation for recognition.

The Flex Classroom with its reimagined approach enabled students to continue their education successfully as they returned to MCCC’s campus locations during the pandemic. Through the use of technology, MCCC was able to provide flexible learning spaces that supported both in-person and remote instruction. Faculty easily and effectively can add remote instruction for students who cannot attend class in person due to sickness, childcare issues or other challenges.

“The pandemic was an unprecedented time, creating an opportunity to find innovative solutions to enable students to continue their education remotely,” said Dr. Celeste Schwartz, MCCC Vice President of Information Technology and Institutional Effectiveness. “The Flex Classroom gives students the option to learn remotely if they can’t attend class in person.” 

During the nine months preceding the fall 2021 semester, a collaborative group of faculty and IT staff designed and implemented Flex Classrooms to include technologies and automation to support both types of instruction. MCCC piloted the designs with faculty and made refinements based on their feedback. The College then held a comprehensive summer training program to support the 40 new instructional spaces in preparation for the fall semester.

One of the key features of the Flex Classroom is its user-friendly design. An intuitive control panel at the podium automatically configures all of the technology in the classroom. With a single button-press, all displays, microphones, cameras, and speakers are powered on and ready for use.

The new design also allows for additional instructional opportunities. The improved microphone and dual-camera system support an enhanced lecture capture that allows lectures to be viewed at another time. A second display mounted above the SMART board enables the instructor to dedicate the entire SMART board for instruction while remote participants appear on a second display screen. In addition, the second screen can be used for other functions, such as PowerPoint presentations, if remote instruction is not needed.

The Flex Classroom experience also can be adapted for hybrid meetings in which some participants are in-person while others are remote.

The Flex Classroom team of innovators includes Vice President for Information Technology & Institutional Effectiveness Celeste Schwartz; Director of Enterprise Infrastructure Services Jim Stasik; Assistant Director of Client Technologies, Media Production and Services Eric Karol; Multimedia Specialist Frank Lieb; Director for User Success and Learning Technologies Mary-Kathleen Najarian; Instructional Designer Kimberly Springfield; Instructional Technology Specialist Julie Lopez; Manager of User Support Services Preston Hess; IT Manager Pottstown Campus Ryan Foster; Psychology Senior Lecturer Valerie Baker; Psychology Associate Professor Steve Baron; Economics Instructor Michael Costantino; History Professor Cathy Hoult-Shewing; Dental Hygiene Assistant Professor Linda Teal Mercer; Strategies for College Success Associate Professor Jennifer Mullen; Nursing Probationary Lecturer Stephanie Plunkett; Radiography Assistant Professor Dana Smith; Office Management Associate Professor Theresa Sullivan; and Accounting Assistant Professor Heather Thomas.

For MCCC’s 2022 Innovation of the Year competition, employees nominated 10 projects, including the Flex Classroom:

• Academic Honesty & Avoiding Plagiarism Course Modules (Kimberly Springfield, Kevin Strunk) - These modules allow students to examine intellectual integrity issues within complex modern information ecosystems, and to demonstrate both the theory and practice of ethically giving and receiving credit for ideas.
• Automation of Dual Admission Process (Kimberly Murphy, Sherry Phillips, Andrew Rosner, Valerie Smith, Kimberly Van Strien and Robert Vogel) – the student application and submission process to four-year schools was automated to allow students to do everything electronically.
• Creation of Section Banners and Hover Text in Self-Service (Amelia Fox, Erin Jellesma, Sherry Phillips, Stephanie Prazenka, Andrew Rosner and Robert Vogel) – The Registrar, IT and Marketing departments collaborated to create banners for each section modality. Each banner contains an icon that matches the iconography used throughout the website and hover-over functionality that displays a text description of the modality.
• Financial Responsibility Agreement (James Adams, Mary Beaver, Heather Meier, Andrew Rosner, Robert Vogel and Nina Xu) – Students now are required to sign a Financial Responsibility Agreement before registration occurs. The Agreement outlines and informs students of their financial obligations.
• Global Academy (Dilek Arig, Barbara Auris, Barbara Maurer, Jennifer Mullen and Mary Kate Najarian) – The Global Academy provides American higher education opportunities for students and adults who live abroad by partnering with international institutions and government entities.
• Java Bootcamp (Mary Beaver, Taylor Bellegue, Sarah Johnson, Kendall Martin and Lynn Yip) – This project engaged computer science students during the summer and winter breaks to help reinforce skills and confidence.
• Launching Women Leaders (Shuktara Das, Amanda Gatchet and Jeslin Mathew) – This workshop teaches female students the professional communication skills they need to successfully navigate a competitive job market.
• Report Creation (Chris Carbone, Sam Coleman, Michael Harcum, Heather Meier, Phil Needles, Tiffany Webber and Michelle Woodward) – Several reports were created to support the pillars of the College’s Strategic Plan, including Enrollment Tracking, Funnel – 5 year, Power-BI, Retention, Fall 3-Term Enrollment Trends and Fiscal Year Credit.
• SAP Process (Mary Beaver, Christal Chapman, Sherry Phillips and Nina Xu) – This new process identifies and tracks students who are not making SAP progress.

The League for Innovation in the Community College is an international nonprofit organization with a mission to cultivate innovation in the community college environment. The League’s Innovation of the Year Awards recognize significant innovations of members at Board and Alliance member colleges. Participating colleges announce the Innovation of the Year competition internally, and after selecting a winning innovation, the institution submits it to the League for Innovation for recognition.