Acknowledgements Are Also Due to Laura Chenven, Nancy Dellamattera, and Esther Ramirios

Acknowledgements

North Seattle Community College’s 5-credit certificate course (SUST 111) is offered as part of a workforce solution funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration through an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Energy Training Partnership grant (2010-2012). The course was developed in a partnership between North Seattle Community College and Healthcare Career Advancement Program (H-CAP) and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, express or implied, with respect to such information, including any information on linked sites and including, but not limited to, accuracy of the information or its completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability, or ownership. This solution is copyrighted by the institution that created it. Internal use by an organization and/or personal use by an individual for non-commercial purposes is permissible. All other uses require the prior authorization of the copyright owner.

Acknowledgements are also due to Laura Chenven, Nancy DellaMattera, and Esther Ramirios from H-CAP and Steve Miller, from North Seattle Community College, for their national leadership, and for the EVS workers in hospitals around the country who brought local and regional life to this grant. Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

North Seattle Community College

Established in 1967, North Seattle Community College (NSCC) is one of three colleges in Seattle Community College District IV, each a separately accredited college. NSCC, along its sister colleges, provide learning opportunities for over 55,000 students a year through the second largest post-secondary educational system in the State of Washington, second only to the University of Washington.

Each quarter NSCC serves over 4,400 full-time equivalent (FTE) students—over 6,800 unduplicated headcount – in the college’s credit-bearing classes. Of this number, 34% are students of color, 61% are female, 70% attend part-time (less than 12 credits), 52% work while going to school, and 54% take on-campus daytime classes. In terms of student FTES, 48% are enrolled in transfer courses, 22% in professional-technical courses, 23% in basic skills courses, and the balance within the college’s large Parent Education Program. In addition, the college operates a large Continuing Education Program offering non-credit classes to more than 1,300 students each quarter.

Students choose from six transfer degrees, two fine arts certificates, two professional-technical degrees, and numerous short- and long-term certificates. The college’s Associate of Arts (AA) degree is available completely online, including a fully online coordinated studies (interdisciplinary) course, one of the four special requirements of the AA degree.

This certificate course was developed as part of an ongoing partnership with Healthcare Career Advancement Program (H-CAP) to deliver an educational learning experience and career ladder to incumbent workers in healthcare.

The Healthcare Career Advancement Program (H-CAP)
H-CAP is a national partnership of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) locals and healthcare employers including Kaiser Permanente, the NY League of Voluntary Hospitals, Swedish Medical Center, Kaleida Health, Caritas Christi Health Care, HealthPartners Minnesota, and the Los Angeles Department of Public Health. While working with unions and their employer partners to meet personnel needs in demand occupations, H-CAP is building a national collaboration of employers, unions, and educators for innovation and quality in healthcare career education. As new hospitals and unions join, the strength of their labor/management partnership also grows. H-CAP is working to transform healthcare professional education so it better meets the need for quality care and personnel in a rapidly changing industry. For those partnerships new to joint training initiatives, H-CAP shares best practice from other more experienced programs and helps design programs that meet local needs.

In 2010, H-CAP was awarded a Department of Labor Energy Training Partnership grant that is supporting this project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Course Overview
Course Focus
Getting Started

·  About Adult Learning – Basics & Motivation

·  Teaching English Language Learners

·  Understanding Problem-Based Learning

About the Course

·  An Integrated Instructional Model

·  A Partnership Model: Training Fund, Community College, Hospital Employer

·  Relationship to a New Job

·  Course Learning Objectives, Core Competencies and Course Website

·  Pre-Course Orientation Packet (Welcome Letter, Sample Assignment, Assessment)

·  Course Format

·  Course Schedule Overview (for Semester and Quarter System)

Course Content (based on five instructional hours per week)

·  Module 1: Introduction and Identification of a “Green” Problem

·  Module 2: Defining a “Green” Project and Creating a “Green” Project Team

·  Module 3: Creating a “Green” Project Work Plan

·  Module 4: “Green” Project Teams and Intercultural Communication

·  Module 5: Organizational Literacy and Introduction to Systems Thinking

·  Module 6: “Green: Leadership: Problem Solving, Strategy Planning and Conflict Resolution

·  Module 7: Sustainability: Researching Facts, Figures & Regulations

·  Module 8: Sustainability: Science and Green Chemistry

·  Module 9: Sustainability Knowledge: Metrics and Measurements

·  Module 10: Communication: Oral Presentation, PowerPoint and Reflection

·  Module 11: Capstone Presentation -- Presenting Final Project, Project Notebooks and Final Reflection

COURSE OVERVIEW

Sustainability in Healthcare (SUST 111) is a 5-credit certificate course designed as a problem-based learning experience for incumbent healthcare workers who want to increase their knowledge and skills in sustainable (“green”) practices, processes and products. The successful completion of the course leads to the possibility of a newly-negotiated job as an “EVS Green Implementation Coordinator” in hospitals. Course components include:
Problem Identification: Identification of a “green” issue or challenge that currently exists in a hospital that an incumbent worker can play a leadership role in implementing and that will positively affect the hospital’s triple bottom line (planet, people and profit).
CORE COMPETENCIES and COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Course Core Competencies

#1. Communication

#2. “Green” Leadership

#3. “Green” Knowledge

#4. “Green Systems and Processes

#5. Organizational Knowledge

Core Competencies Defined:
Communication Skills:

·  Interpersonal Communication – including active listening, strategic questioning, and conflict resolution

·  Multicultural Competency – including understanding the different cultures within the hospital (ethnic and organizational), cultural verbal and non-verbal cues, assumptions/stereotypes, world view, and helping creating a culture of respect within the hospital

·  Small Group – including facilitating discussion and dialogue within a group

·  Presentational Skills – including delivering an oral presentation with technological
components (Powerpoint)

“Green” Leadership Skills – including principles of systems thinking (interdependence, chaos/order, pattern emergence, purposeful in context); adaptive vs technical leadership; team facilitation, problem solving and strategy development, development of “green” SMART goals.
“Green” Knowledge – including 3 R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle); triple bottom line (principle of planet, people, profit); survey of best practices in hospital’s efforts to reduce waste, conserve energy and water, use of “green” chemicals to increase patient and worker health and safety; and new “green” mandates, regulatory laws and policies (U.N., CDC, EPA, state, county).
“Green” Systems and Processes - Metrics and Measurements including basic quantitative literacy (pre-algebra), basics of “green” chemistry, measurement, low-level audits and reporting (using Excel).
Organizational Knowledge – including understanding hierarchical structure within hospitals; working collaboratively across boundaries (labor/management committee); building relationships with staff, problem solving across the hospital.

Capstone Presentation – including an end-of-quarter project presentation that present the final project in its complexity: problem identification, problem solving, and problem implentation as well as demonstrates competencies of the various skills, concepts and issues covered in the course. Includes a final reflective paper addressing learning process.

Course Learning Objectives
At the end of this course, students should be able to:

·  communicate effectively (interpersonally, multi-culturally and publically) including coaching, mentoring, and orienting workers in green practices, speaking with co-workers, staff (including Labor/Management Committee), and administration about “green” projects, and presenting publically about sustainability at various departmental meetings (Communication)

·  work effectively with diverse teams and across departments to achieve commonly identified sustainability goals by applying systems thinking principles that understand a hospital as a living organism and view workers and others as important parts of a dynamic, interdependent whole system (“Green” Leadership)

·  Be knowledgeable of the core sustainability challenges and opportunities facing healthcare industry today – water, waste, energy, chemicals (“Green” Knowledge)

·  Able to gather, analyze , interpret and report data to inform departments and the Labor/Management Committee of the development and progress of green initiatives that EVS workers play a part in (“Green Systems and Processes)

·  Be knowledgeable of the hospital’s organizational structure in order to effectively negotiate its structures (Organizational Knowledge)

COURSE FOCUS

This certificate course is designed specifically to support a newly negotiated “green” position in healthcare, tentatively entitled “EVS Green Implementation Coordinator.” This position reports within the EVS department and communicates and collaborates across departments to implement EVS green practices.

Purpose: Coordinating and monitoring implementation of EVS “green” practice

Core Functions:

•  Communicating about EVS “greening” efforts

•  Mentoring, coaching, and orienting new EVS employees on “green” EVS practices

•  Supporting the development of “green” projects in EVS and in the hospital

•  Collecting and reporting data and information on EVS “green” practices

•  Working collaboratively with the Labor/Management Committee within the hospital

National Certificate

The 5-credit certificate course will serve as a qualification for consideration for the “EVS Green Implementation Coordinator” position. The certificate program will be offered through community colleges in four different regions in the United States: Los Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore and New York. The national grant will fund a limited number of participants from each participating facility over the life of the grant to attend this course.

ADULT LEARNING: THE BASICS 1

Adult learning is different than teaching younger people. The following are some needs of adult learners:

Adults want to feel independent. Involve adult participants in the learning process. Adult learners want to be responsible for their own knowledge rather than being supplied them with facts.

Adults already have a strong base of life experience and professional knowledge that may include work-related activities, family responsibilities, and previous education. In adult learning, the goal is to connect learning to this prior knowledge and experience by drawing out participants' experience and/or opinions related to the topic being discussed.

Adults are goal-oriented. They usually know what they hope to get out of a course. Having them articulate their goals and being able to show participants how this class will help them reach their goals should be done early in course.

Adults ask why and how. While the course will provide new vocabulary and information, adult learns will want to know why and how it relates to their job, their life, or experience. They want see a reason for learning something.

Adults are practical. They focus on the parts of a learning activity most useful to them.

Adults like to know that they bring value to the class. Workers/Students bring a variety of experiences and expertise to the classroom. These adults should be encouraged and allowed to voice their opinions freely in class.

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1 Adapted from Lieb, Stephen. Arizona Department of Health Services 1991 and the Canadian Labour Congress

MOTIVATING THE ADULT LEARNER

Adults can be motivated to learn by:

Social relationships: Training is a way to meet new people and get to know acquaintances in a different way. The Instructor can use activities and discussions to motivate to relationship building.

Social welfare: to improve the ability to serve the community and participate in community work. The Instructor can reinforce that “greening” the hospital also has a positive impact on the workers, patients, and community at large.

Personal or job advancement: to achieve higher status in a job, secure professional advancement, and stay current on job related information.

Stimulation: to provide a break in the routine of home or work. The Instructor can use the interactive group activities to create excitement around a topic.

Brain Exercise: to learn something new in an area of interest. The Instructor can encourage workers to explore their interests outside of the training. Even something simple like seeing their work environment and duties in a new way can generate ideas.

WORKING WITH ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Incumbent workers/students may be challenged in reading, speaking and writing literacy. Listed are some basic techniques for working with non-native speakers:

·  Keep lectures to a minimum – people learn better when they are interactive with the content.

Insert comprehension checks after presenting a couple of main points, (such as: ―” Are there any questions?” Or “Would you like me to go over anything again?”) Then add on new information.

·  Keep slang and ―big words to a minimum – unless directly needed for the job.

Be aware of cultural references or idiomatic expressions, for example, “A day late and a dollar short.”

·  Encourage discussion and questions.

·  Pause after asking a question – non-native speakers often need an extra moment or two to process the information.

·  Provide hands-on activities.

·  Repeat instruction and assignments in different ways – in writing, orally and by demonstration.

·  Show examples of what your expectations are.

·  Speak slowly and clearly.

·  Make sure everyone feels comfortable and welcomed.

·  It can be helpful if the Green Trainer speaks the native language of some of the workers in the class but is not required.

·  It can be helpful if students with more English ability can translate for those with less. Create discussion groups to allow this process.

·  Allow discussions to occur in other languages besides English and ask groups to share their discussions across language groups.

·  Allow translation to occur in pairs or small groups if needed. Research suggests that learners produce longer sentences and create their own interpretation of concepts more often in pairs and in small groups rather than during a mini-lecture or trainer-fronted instruction.