 Learning is the core value of our college. It is what we strive to achieve; it is what we care about deeply. It is our mission, our common purpose.
Learning at PVCC means increasing the capacity of our students, our employees and our organization to achieve the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that will enable success. At bottom, learning at PVCC, as it is in life, is about solving problems and creating opportunities.
Click on the dimensions listed below to learn more about each area of focus.
Employee:
Integrated and systemic approach to employee learning is practiced with a focus on the following goals
- Develop a college climate that encourages relationship building, and rewards innovation and risk-taking.
- Encourage collaboration within and among employee groups, disciplines, work units,
and functional areas.
- Provide opportunities to explore methods of improved teaching and learning and
customer service.
- Provide opportunities for continuous faculty, staff and administrative learning and
personal and professional improvement.
Fall Learning Week for employees is held the week of accountability each August.
Fall Learning Week features a welcome back employee convocation along with 25-30 conference-style learning sessions focusing on achievement of the college’s strategic goals and objectives. Convocation presenters have included Kay McClenney from CCSSE, Mark Milliron, Western Governor’s University and Michael Berens, T-Gen.
Since inception in fall 1998, Learning Week has provided employees with over 400 sessions with an attendance count of over 6000.
Spring Learning Week for employees is held the week of accountability each January.
Spring Learning Week features a structure of 25-30 conference-style learning sessions focusing on achievement of the college’s strategic goals and objectives. Many of the sessions are facilitated by college employees. Over the years special sessions have featured Kati Haycock, Education Trust, Pat Wolfe, Mind Matters, and Janice Denton, Classroom-Based Assessment.
Since inception in spring 1999, Learning Week has provided employees with over 340 sessions with an attendance count of over 5000.
Student
PVCC employees are continuously asking hard questions about what it means to put student learning at the center of our institutional missions. Policies and practices needed to achieve deep and lasting student learning have been a core focus of what we do. Listed below are a few examples.
Organizational:
Organizational conditions are required for an institution to continuously get smarter and better at what it does in order to facilitate high levels of learning among all students, as well as it's employees and the college itself. The need for more systemic approaches to creating diverse learning environments, supporting and rewarding faculty and staff, gathering and using information, developing a working collective framework for accountability, and managing and leading institutions are considered.
Paradise Valley Community College was founded on a student development philosophy and has always maintained learning as our core value. Our motto is “The Power of Learning” and our vision statement includes the aspiration “to be the higher learning organization of choice by creating engaging lifelong educational relationships that inspire and support all learners to increase their capacity for personal growth and positive social change.”
As a Learning Centered College, two questions are at the core of everything we do: How does this course, program, service, budget decision, or process positively impact student learning? And, how do we know?
A Learning Centered College Ensures That:
- Learning outcomes that create substantive change in learners are identified and made explicit and drive course, program, and curriculum development as well as delivery of student, academic, and administrative support services.
- Learning outcomes are assessed for the purpose of demonstrating that learning occurred and to expand and improve learning.
- Learning opportunities are accessible to learners and offered in a variety of formats and options.
- A culture of student success exists: student success outcomes emphasize active and engaged learning, connecting to the college environment, goal setting, successful navigation of college processes, and relationship building with faculty, staff, students and peers. These outcomes are made explicit to students.
Our Systems Support Learning By:
- College’s systems (human resources, policies, procedures, structures, technologies, strategic planning, budgeting and institutional effectiveness processes) and environments designed and evaluated in terms of their support of learning.
- Employee and Organizational Learning programs and the college’s employees demonstrate a commitment to continuous learning.
- Research about learning and learners routinely considered and systemically incorporated into the college’s learning processes, programs and services.
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