SWGTC earns re-accreditation with Quality Enhancement Plan | News

THOMASVILLE, GA (WALB) - With all of the online or "drive thru" colleges available these days, checking for proper accreditation should always be a priority.

"Accreditation not only is a sign that you have quality instruction and quality services for students, but it also helps students when they're transferring to other institutions," said SWGTC President Dr. Craig Wentworth.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools recently added a new requirement for accreditation and re-accreditation.

Each school must create a Quality Enhancement Plan to enhance student learning. "What we want to do is enable students to become more effective learners through effective teaching. So we've developed a life center which is basically a faculty effectiveness center here at the college," said QEP Chair Summer Mills Washington.

At Southwest Georgia Technical College, the instructors are going to class to learn about effective teaching strategies.

"One we want our students to become better at higher order thinking skills and we also want them to be more engaged in the classroom. Because if they have better higher order thinking skills and they're more engaged in the classroom, they're going to improve their learning," said Washington.

The QEP department teaches these higher order thinking skills to 9 instructors at a time.

"They take it back into their classroom, they practice those strategies, they come back and they debrief with each other. You know this worked for me. Well this didn't work for me. What did you do different that I didn't do and it's really helped them kind of come together as a group of students per se," said Washington.

At Southwest Georgia Tech they refer to their QEP group as L.I.F.E., which stands for Learning is For Everyone.

Copyright 2012 WALB. All rights reserved.