LifeMap Certification
LifeMap Certification is designed to support all faculty members, full-time and part-time, as they expand their knowledge and integration of LifeMap and College Success Skills with the goal of enhanced student learning. To attain this certification, faculty will complete 32 hours of foundational courses and 4 hours of electives.
LifeMap: Essential Competency of a Valencia Educator
Valencia educators will design learning opportunities that promote student life skills development while enhancing discipline learning. Through intentional inclusion of growth-promoting strategies, faculty will facilitate the students' gradual assumption of responsibility for making informed decisions and formulating and executing their educational, career, and life plans.
LifeMap Testimonials from Our Colleagues
In demonstration of this Essential Competency, the faculty member will:
- establish student & faculty contact that contributes to students' academic, personal, and professional growth
- employ digital tools to aid student contact (e.g., A teaching-learning-academy's, MyPortfolio, Canvas, Ask-A-Librarian, email, etc.)
- seek out struggling students and identify options through dialog and appropriate referrals
- help students assume responsibility for making informed academic decisions (e.g., degree requirements, transfer options, financial aid, etc.)
- guide students in developing academic behaviors for college success (e.g., time management, study, test and note taking strategies, etc.)
- help students identify academic behaviors that can be adapted as life skills (e.g., library search skills, decision-making, communication skills, scientific understanding, etc.)
- assist students in clarifying and developing purpose (attention to life, career, education goals)
Certification Outcomes
- Faculty members will apply the principles of LifeMap, one of the Essential Competencies of a Valencia Educator, to improve their practice.
- Faculty members will integrate LifeMap and College Success Skills into their current practice.
- Faculty members will engage in continuous improvement processes, through the completion of an infusion project, with the goal of enhanced student learning.
- Faculty members will develop professional relationships throughout the division, campus, and college.
- Faculty members will contribute to an evolving community of peers focused on reflection, innovation, and enhanced student learning.
Congratulations to our Valencia faculty and staff who have achieved the LifeMap Certification!
Certification Planning Document
The planning document provides a list of required and optional courses which can be used to plan your certification or program. It is available as a printer-friendly fillable PDF.
Required Foundational Courses (32 Hours)
*The Foundational Courses must be taken in a specific sequence and have required prerequisites.
To begin the certification you must register for the Fundamentals of LifeMap course first.
- 1. LFMP3339 Fundamentals of LifeMap (Previously LFMP3340 and LFMP3341)
- 6 PD Hours
-
LifeMap is Valencia's name for a developmental advising system designed to increase students' social and academic integration, development of education and career plans, and the acquisition of study and life skills. LifeMap describes the ideal progression of a student in a five-stage model. This course provides the LifeMap conceptual framework including an in-depth review of the developmental theories on which LifeMap was created. In addition, the course will focus on the learner-centered advising strategies utilizing LifeMap concepts and tools.
Note: This course is required for the LifeMap Certification program and must be taken first in the series of required courses.
- 2. LFMP3344 Infusing College Success Skills
- 6 PD Hours
-
Faculty from all disciplines who are committed to enhancing student learning will benefit from this interactive, project-based course. Participants will develop the knowledge and strategies to effectively infuse college success skills into student- learning experiences and will view examples from Valencia peers who successfully infuse these strategies.
Note: This course is required for the LifeMap Certification program.
- 3. LFMP3346 LifeMap Certificate Capstone
- 20 PD Hours
-
This LifeMap Certificate Capstone course is designed as the last course within the LifeMap Certification Program and involves the completion of a LifeMap Infusion Project. Participants will be asked to integrate what they learned about the LifeMap model, developmental advising, LifeMap Tools, and LifeMap College Success Skills into a learning opportunity for one of their courses. Participants will study LifeMap infusion examples and develop learning outcomes and assessments for their own discipline. The faculty will implement the project and assess results during the current term (participants must be teaching in the term registered for this course). Each faculty member will share the project and the results in implementation and student learning.
Note: This course is required for the LifeMap Certification Program . Participants must successfully complete the following required prerequisites prior to enrolling in this course: Fundamentals of LifeMap (LFMP3339, previously LFMP3340 and LFMP3341), Infusing College Success Skills (LFMP3344) and a minimum of 4 hours of LifeMap electives coursework.
Electives (a minimum of 4 Hours)
- 1. LCTS1117: Using Metacognitive Strategies in Your Course
- 20 PD Hours
-
This online course focuses on practical strategies and techniques to enhance students' reading and writing skills in any course. Participants will develop and revise a plan for implementation of these strategies.
- 2. LCTS2221: Impacting Student Motivation
- 10 PD Hours
-
In this course, participants will discuss and apply strategies for helping students to understand motivation and how it influences their thoughts and behaviors. Participants will read Saundra McGuire's Teach Students How to Learn as background for the discussions. In registering for this course, you are committing to attend two meetings, read the book, and develop one activity/lesson on motivation.
- 3. LFMP1151: Reading Circle (topics vary from year to year)
- Variable PD Hours
-
A reading circle discussion of a selected text on LifeMap. Participants will be expected to engage with the text and with each other, as well as being willing to try new techniques with their students and report back to the discussion about their results. (Variable credits; course may be repeated for credit.)
- 4. LFMP2350: Maximizing Student Engagement Hours
- 4 PD Hours
-
This course gives faculty an opportunity to reflect on what's working during their student engagement hours, to learn and share innovative strategies with one another, and to create an intentional plan for communicating opportunities for engagement with students.
Note: This course is intended for faculty who hold student engagement hours.
- 5. LFMP3224: Sensing Thinking/ Pedagogy
- 12 PD Hours
-
One of Valencia College's values states, "Anyone can learn anything under the right conditions." What are we doing to create those conditions? How do we (faculty and students) contribute to these conditions? What frameworks are available to help us reimagine these conditions? Using various works from experts in the field, participants will explore validation strategies, examine the underlying agreements we make in learning environments, and how these impact student learning as we look at ways to teach the whole person.
6. LFMP3345 Learning Support Service on Your Campus 4 PD Hours
This course is designed to help participants learn more about campus Learning Support Services available to students. This course will benefit members from all disciplines.
- 7. LFMP3348 LifeMap Early Alert and Intervention
- 10 PD Hours
-
Faculty will learn about Valencia's early approach, which focuses on student and faculty interactions. The course will improve student learning by developing faculty sensitivity to academic and non-academic needs within their classes. Faculty will learn various resources available to support their students' needs. They will have the opportunity to develop early alert strategies, faculty will be better equipped to develop responsive approaches to learning within their classes.
Note: Please be aware this course was redesigned in 2017 from a 20 PD Hybrid course to a 10 PD Online course.
- 8. LFMP3349 Recognizing and Supporting Students in Distress
- 4 PD Hours
-
Students are faced with many challenges such as balancing academics, work, and personal life. This course focuses on identifying warning signs of students experiencing emotional distress and understanding best practices for providing support and referrals. In addition, faculty will learn about the related resources/services helpful to distressed students such as BayCare and Valencia’s counselors. Participants will engage in discussions in order to better understand how to help students in distress and when to make an appropriate referral. These conversations may include student experiences related to self-harm, abuse, suicide, violence, post-traumatic stress and mental health.
- 9. LOBP3230 Thinking Things Through: Critical Thinking Theory and Practice
- 15 PD Hours
-
Over 2 two-hour meetings, participants will discuss and apply the concepts of Paul and Elder's critical thinking model outlined in Gerald Nosich's book Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines. The text offers both a practical model that can be applied to any discipline as well as exercises and activities for teaching students how to think more critically. Each participant will receive a copy of the book after registering. In registering for this course, you are committing to attend two meetings, read the book, and integrate the model into one activity/lesson in your class.