Graduate Equivalency Courses (GECs)

A GEC is a graduate-level course on a particular topic or theme at a level of rigor equivalent to a graduate course in an accredited college or university. GECs address teaching and learning issues faced by faculty across many disciplines including liberal arts, social sciences, STEM, health and technical careers, counseling and advising. The credits from these courses are included in a faculty member’s application for tenure and promotion as professional development credits. They are also internal credits only and are not transferable to another institution. All Harper College faculty (full-time and adjunct) can register for GEC courses at no cost.

Scroll to the bottom of the page for archives with links to more information about previous course offerings. For questions and more information about GECs, please contact the Academy at academy@harpercollege.edu.

Summer 2024

Click on the toggle to view course details, syllabus, and information about how to register.

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Unlocking the Potential of Drones and Geospatial Technology in Education
  • Format: Blended. This is an online anytime course May 1 – 19 with on-campus meeting dates May 20 – 24 from 9 – 11 a.m. in Building I, Room I-225.
  • Course Dates: May 1 – May 19, 2024
  • GECs: 2
  • Instructors: Mukila Maitha, Geography and Crystal Peirce, Biology
  • Details: This course equips educators with the fundamental skills necessary to seamlessly integrate drones, also known as Small Uncrewed Systems (sUAS), and geospatial technology into their curriculum. Participants will acquire essential skills in safely operating drones, capturing high-quality imagery, and learning core geospatial technology principles for creating visual content and informative data products. Furthermore, this course explores innovative teaching strategies and offers a variety of customizable activities to enhance classroom engagement.
  • View Syllabus
  • Register Now
Teaching Online Successfully: Create (register by May 27)
  • Format: Online, asynchronous
  • Dates: June 10 – June 23, 2024
  • GECs: 1
  • Details: This two-week, online course prepares and supports faculty who are developing an online or blended course in Blackboard, and any faculty who have an interest in exploring best practices in online and blended course creation. Faculty will learn about critical components of quality course design, receive an introduction to the OSCQR rubric used at Harper for evaluating online and blended course quality, modify an existing course syllabus for use in an online or blended format, and build one complete course module and orientation module inside a provided model course shell in Blackboard.
  • View Syllabus
  • Register Now (Registration Deadline: May 27, 2024)
Teaching Online Successfully: Facilitate (register by June 24)
  • Format: Online, asynchronous
  • Dates: July 8 – July 21, 2024
  • GECs: 1
  • Details: This two-week, online course prepares and supports faculty who are teaching an online or blended course in Blackboard, and any faculty who have an interest in exploring best practices in online and blended course facilitation. Faculty will learn about critical components of effective course management and communication, develop a faculty schedule to aid in the management of their course, and enhance their course and syllabus using tools to encourage faculty-student and student-student interaction.
  • View Syllabus
  • Register Now (Registration Deadline: June 24, 2024)
Teaching Online Successfully: Enhance (register by July 8)
  • Format: Online, asynchronous
  • Dates: July 22– August 4, 2024
  • GECs: 1
  • Details: This course provides faculty with tools and techniques to enhance their online course in ways that encourage student engagement. Faculty will explore basic screencasting/lecture capture tools and best practices, incorporate web-based tools into their course, use Respondus Lockdown Browser and Monitor for online exam proctoring, facilitate group work inside of Blackboard, and make online materials accessible for students and compliant with copyright guidelines.
  • View Syllabus
  • Register Now (Registration Deadline: July 8, 2024)

GEC Archives

Previous course offerings are organized by semester below. Click on the title to view details and more information.

  • Teaching Online Successfully: Create
  • Teaching Online Successfully: Facilitate
  • The Reflective Educator (Level II Adjunct Faculty Engagement Program GEC)
  • Teaching Online Successfully