COMMENCE TEACHING
This has certainly been an eventful day. As our beautiful campus has come alive with bright and eager students, we have begun what promises to be a terrific semester. The Teaching+Learning Center is moving forward and I wanted to let you know that I am now in a temporary office (213 Magnolia). If you come there and do not see me, I may be in the T+LC (311 Magnolia) or out visiting one of your colleagues. If you would like to set an appointment, emailing me at pourciaut@mybrcc.edu is still the best way to reach me.

ACTIVE LEARNING WORKS
Since we are all focused on achieving excellence in our goal of student learning, I want to encourage you to implement proven strategies that will help you become a better teacher while providing your students with an enriching and engaging atmosphere. That requires, according to the research on the scholarship of teaching and learning, that you implement active learning strategies in your courses. Chet Meyers and Thomas Jones offer a solid definition of active learning that is useful as we move forward. They note that active learning consists of three interrelated factors: basic elements, learning strategies, and teaching resources. They state that four elements (talking and listening, writing, reading, and reflecting) singly or in combination are the building blocks common to all active learning strategies. Finally, they conclude that learning is by its very nature an active process that has been reversed by a lecture-first mentality and that different people learn in different ways. You can discover more ideas including active learning interventions in their excellent book Promoting Active Learning: Strategies for the College Classroom (LB 1027.23 .M49) which will be placed on the T+LC bookshelves adjacent to the Center's space in the Magnolia Building.

BEING THE BEST
Ken Bain (What the Best College Teachers Do) says that the best educators think of teaching as anything they might do to help and encourage students to learn. He says it is best to start with four fundamental questions as you begin to decide how to prepare to teach. First, what should your students be able to do intellectually, physically, or emotionally as a result of their learning? Second, how can you best help and encourage them to develop these abilities and the habits of the heart and mind to use them? Third, how can your students and you best understand the nature, quality, and progress of their learning? Fourth, how can you evaluate your efforts to foster that learning? He urges you to remember that everything you do should stem from your strong concern for and understanding of the development of your students.

WE ARE COMMUNITY
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran a great story on how community colleges are using real-time data to respond to the needs of their local communities. It is what we do best as institutions of higher learning by fostering open lines of communication between our partners and us.