Dr. Barbara Millis will facilitate an interactive workshop entitled A Learning Centered Approach to Teaching that Fosters Retention on February 28 from 3:00 until 5:00 PM in the Bonne' Sante Wellness Center's gym. Participants will come to know the theory and philosophy behind cooperative learning, including its belief in the value and educability of all students and the need to provide cooperative environments that balance challenge and support. As important, however, they will learn how to use cooperative structures to foster academic achievement, student retention, and liking for the subject matter. Additionally, the presenter will emphasize efficient facilitation of group processes. The session itself will model a cooperative classroom with combinations of direct instruction, interactive group work tied to the session objectives, and whole-class discussion with questions. Participants will experience at least three cooperative structures and two report-out methods, applicable to virtually all disciplines, that they can apply in their own classrooms. This seminar is part of the Teaching+Learning Center’s faculty development series. Faculty will receive participation credit for the Faculty Development Program. Registration is now open. She has a number of articles on the concept of cooperative learning including discipline specific for accounting and occupational therapy.
CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS START THE CONVERSATION
One of the most useful methods that instructors have found to update and enhance their teaching to improve student learning is the use of an objective classroom observation. If done properly, the observation is a collaborative assessment that should continue as an ongoing conversation between the observer and the instructor. When the observation is conducted for the purpose of student learning improvement, judgments are formative and the instructor is actively involved in the assessment of teaching quality and needed improvement. The observation method has been validated through extensive use and the research data are fairly consistent on the effectiveness of the exercise. If you are looking to have a classroom observation for the Spring 2013, now is the time to contact me either by email (pourciaut@mybrcc.edu) or telephone (8534).
E-CONFERENCE REGISTRATION OPEN
Educators are searching for tools that can help them assess and evaluate
their students' achievement of defined learning outcomes in fields as
diverse as engineering, business, health professions, math, science and
technology (to name a few). These assessments and evaluations are part
of a national trend toward transparency and accountability regarding the
value added in education. The RosEvaluation Conference 2013 will bring
together those who are developing assessment and evaluation tools to
share information and their expertise. The conference will emphasize
concrete, effective, and efficient solutions to assessment and
evaluation challenges. Registration is now open for the conference that takes place on April 1-2 and is offered completely online this year so you can participate from your office at BRCC. The 2013 conference topics include: assessing work-based learning-projects with industry, student competitions, design projects; designing and implementing course assessments;developing sustainable processes for program and institutional accreditation; and, using electronic assessment tools.
Are you having problems staying organized? Teaching five or more classes in a semester requires a sophisticated level of organization but the use of technology can help you accomplish your goals. Fellow blogger Heather Whitney recommends Todoist to help manage your tasks. She notes, "There are a lot of options available for online task management. Todoist is another option. If it doesn’t sound completely new, it is because it is not. Todoist was originally started in January 2007, but in the summer of 2012 it underwent a relaunch after being rebuilt in HTML5. The result is a very well-built task system that doesn’t suffer from the lag of some others. I have been trying out the website and several associated mobile apps for about three months now. Todoist has all your usual online task management options, such as the ability to apply some kind of categorization label (tags, in this case) to tasks. But there are some additional features that I think make the system worth the time to check into trying it out," she says.
