Personal Narrative: My Experience At My Community College

Talofa from American Samoa! I am Lusia Pereira, a college instructor at the Teacher Education Department at our community college. I recently returned to full time employment for nearly a year now, after serving in the ministry with my husband and family for twelve years. Prior to ministry work, I had served twenty years as an elementary and high school teacher in public schools. Five of which were served as a developmental English teacher at the community college. I continued as a volunteer teacher in our Catholic school system for the all the twelve years I served in ministry work. 2016 was a transitional period for me and my family. We finally returned home from the ministry after living away from home when my husband left for medical treatment off island. Despite the circumstances, my children and I were all thrilled to begin our “normal” life after the ministry. Our beautiful home overlooks …show more content…
I returned to lengthy program reviews which involved revisiting institutional learning outcomes, program learning outcomes and course learning outcomes! The major paradigm shift for me was the technology platform, Moodle, which was required for all education instructors. I did not see that coming! Additionally, we recently completed updating all our education course matrixes and all rubrics that we utilize for assessment. In short, I had a crash course in all of the above required activities and brushed up on my technology skills in one semester. I found myself reading and studying the education program manuals late into the night. My MA degree is fifteen years old and the Internet was not even a household name at the time! Also, when I left the community college, I only knew how to create a syllabus. Now, the depth of responsibility and the autonomy that faculty has on curricular decisions is