MEASURING THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING
One of the burning questions for us as teachers will always be "Are my students learning?" One of the ways we determine that is by assessing what we have taught. Good assessment provides the answers to the questions "Am I teaching?" and "Are my students learning?" The faculty development workshop set for October 17 is designed to help you create assessment instruments that can provide the data to answer these questions. Testing 101: Assessing Student Learning, to be held in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Building/Mid City Campus) promises to be an active learning experience. We will delve into the rich and interesting topic of testing on many levels. So let's take some of the guess work out of testing and assessment together. If you would like to join your colleagues for this workshop, register now.
DON'T LET TEACHABLE MOMENTS SLIP BY
Have you ever had a bird fly into your classroom while you were teaching? What about planning to show a really compelling video and having the technology malfunction? Do you remember what class you were teaching the morning of September 11, 2001? All of these examples provide a teachable moment. Don't get me wrong. I am not comparing the three incidents in any way. What I am urging you to do is to not let a change in your plans cause you to miss the great opportunity. Nothing resonates with our students like real life. Dr. Judy Willis says, "Rather than viewing a spontaneous teachable moment as a distraction, planning for these moments in advance facilitates making the most of a moment to engage students who are already at a heightened state of attention and awareness." She suggests you have your students write a quickwrite about how the experience made them feel. Quickwrites require students to write for three to five minutes without stopping. If their inspiration stops and they don't know what to write, tell them to write the last word over and over again until inspiration hits them again. After the time limit is complete, have them read what they wrote silently and ask them to underline one or two phrases they consider most important. You can then have them share those highlights with the class. If you determine that this really sparked great interest, you can turn this into a larger assignment and have them write an essay, expanding what they started in class. Teachable moments provide us with a wonderful opportunity to use a sometime emotional moment to build class community and make lasting connections.
CAN YOU BLACKBOARD
The turnout was terrific for the two Blackboard workshop sessions on Thursday. It was extremely nice to see some of our new colleagues from the former CATC on the Mid City Campus. The feedback was great as well. Sandra Guzman, science, wrote, "My lab reports are going paperless!" Barbara Hasek, science, wrote, "The presentation was very helpful and I will start using the due date feature immediately." Jessie Hornbrook, liberal arts, wrote, "I am definitely using this now to grade my 50+ student writing assignments in all of my classes!" Angela Pursley, business and social sciences, wrote that she likes using the "student view of the grade center." Darnella Jackson, nursing and allied health, wrote that she appreciates "how easy it is to create a course in Blackboard." The next session of the Blackboard Series is just around the corner. Gradebook: It's Not Just for eLearning Classes will occur on Tuesday, October 8 with sessions for the two levels of learners. The 3:00 PM session is for beginners while the 4:00 PM session is for advanced users. You can register for this faculty professional development opportunity now.
ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH GRANDMA ON FACEBOOK
Barbara Fister's recent post on her blog raises some interesting questions about college writing instruction in the age of digital overload. She writes, "How do we prepare students for a world in which so much of their
writing will be digital and published in a fluid, communal, multivocal
space? How do we talk about the rhetorical issues of purpose, audience,
argument, evidence, and tone when we aren’t limiting ourselves to
certain academic forms of writing? As the Stanford Study of Writing has shown,
students may be better at rhetorical moves than we think precisely
because they have practiced them in digital spaces with real purposes
and real audiences. But given the complexity of modern forms of public
writing, what issues beyond the usual writing issues might be worth
considering? Should we be talking about the difficulty of
self-representation in a space with multiple audiences, including your
friends, your future employer, and your grandmother? Should we talk
about who owns our texts online and what platforms such as Goodreads and
Facebook can do with our contributions? Should we talk about balancing
free speech and civility with case studies of people behaving badly
online?"
Friday, September 20, 2013
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
There are two additional professional development opportunities open to all BRCC faculty. The first occurs on October 8 and continues our Blackboard Series. This interactive workshop will focus on the Gradebook function and there will be a session for beginners and for more advanced users. The two sessions will begin at 3:00 and 4:00 PM that day. On October 10 the Teaching+Learning Center will present a workshop about test preparation. It will focus on the areas of alignment, rigor, and reliability. You will also learn about using a blueprint to build the perfect test. This workshop will be held in 311 Magnolia and begin at 3:00 PM. Look for registration information in your email-box in the very near future but save the dates now.
THE PLIGHT OF OUR ADJUNCT COLLEAGUES
The recent discussion about the effectiveness of adjunct faculty at our nation's colleges, reminded me of a study focused on this area. Although it was published in 2011, it bears a second glance. As the number of adjunct faculty continues to grow on campuses across the U.S., there is growing concern that due to a lack of training and/or time, most adjunct faculty are not using effective teaching methods. Roger Baldwin and Matthew Wawrzynski, two faculty at Michigan State, conducted the research and stressed in an interview that they fault the conditions part-time instructors work under, and not the instructors themselves, for their failure to use effective teaching methods more often. The researchers found that, compared with full-time adjuncts or tenured or tenure-track faculty, part-time adjuncts "are less likely to use learning-centered strategies such as essay exams, term research papers, multiple drafts of written work, oral presentations, group projects, or student evaluations of each others' work," the paper says. Such learning-centered practices are generally regarded by practitioners as some of the most effective means of teaching students and are certainly what the Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support is suggesting all of our faculty use in their courses.
FREE YOUR MIND ONLINE
Audrey Heinesen has written a fascinating opinion piece about the need for more faculty who are willing to teach using the online course delivery method. She notes, "Online instructors can revel in a newfound ability to defy some of the most fundamental aspects of a typical classroom. The whiteboard is no longer erased at the end of the day. Your best moments reach beyond students in your physical presence. Your teaching can be set free in your online classroom. You’re free to structure content in new ways to reach your students. Try different types of content and multimodal teaching strategies that might not work in a traditional setting. Experiment with new course ideas that are harder to champion in more structured environments. Backward design, flipped classroom, video-based instruction? Instructors can return to a creative place by developing new ideas around curriculum and teaching." As we continue to expand our eLearning offerings, we are certainly looking to add to the number of faculty who are certified to teach using the online delivery method. Contact your dean or department chair if you are interested in receiving the training to teach for our eLearning department.
STOPPING BULIMIC LEARNING
One of the ideas recently discussed at the Common Reader Faculty Learning Community was the topic of comprehensive testing. The idea is to have each test that you give in your class not only build on the previous test but actually include material that should have been learned before. Craig Nelson, a biology instructor from Indiana, notes that comprehensive tests help us to avoid creating bulimic learners. He explains that this is the student who learns things for the test and then purges the information, thinking they will never have to use it again. Research shows however that continued interaction with content increases the chances that it will be remembered and can be applied subsequently. An article in the August/September 2013 issue of The Teaching Professor also supports this claim. Preparing for Comprehensive Finals contains a number of great suggestions that we can use to help our students prepare for their encounter with this type of assessment.
There are two additional professional development opportunities open to all BRCC faculty. The first occurs on October 8 and continues our Blackboard Series. This interactive workshop will focus on the Gradebook function and there will be a session for beginners and for more advanced users. The two sessions will begin at 3:00 and 4:00 PM that day. On October 10 the Teaching+Learning Center will present a workshop about test preparation. It will focus on the areas of alignment, rigor, and reliability. You will also learn about using a blueprint to build the perfect test. This workshop will be held in 311 Magnolia and begin at 3:00 PM. Look for registration information in your email-box in the very near future but save the dates now.
THE PLIGHT OF OUR ADJUNCT COLLEAGUES
The recent discussion about the effectiveness of adjunct faculty at our nation's colleges, reminded me of a study focused on this area. Although it was published in 2011, it bears a second glance. As the number of adjunct faculty continues to grow on campuses across the U.S., there is growing concern that due to a lack of training and/or time, most adjunct faculty are not using effective teaching methods. Roger Baldwin and Matthew Wawrzynski, two faculty at Michigan State, conducted the research and stressed in an interview that they fault the conditions part-time instructors work under, and not the instructors themselves, for their failure to use effective teaching methods more often. The researchers found that, compared with full-time adjuncts or tenured or tenure-track faculty, part-time adjuncts "are less likely to use learning-centered strategies such as essay exams, term research papers, multiple drafts of written work, oral presentations, group projects, or student evaluations of each others' work," the paper says. Such learning-centered practices are generally regarded by practitioners as some of the most effective means of teaching students and are certainly what the Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support is suggesting all of our faculty use in their courses.
FREE YOUR MIND ONLINE
Audrey Heinesen has written a fascinating opinion piece about the need for more faculty who are willing to teach using the online course delivery method. She notes, "Online instructors can revel in a newfound ability to defy some of the most fundamental aspects of a typical classroom. The whiteboard is no longer erased at the end of the day. Your best moments reach beyond students in your physical presence. Your teaching can be set free in your online classroom. You’re free to structure content in new ways to reach your students. Try different types of content and multimodal teaching strategies that might not work in a traditional setting. Experiment with new course ideas that are harder to champion in more structured environments. Backward design, flipped classroom, video-based instruction? Instructors can return to a creative place by developing new ideas around curriculum and teaching." As we continue to expand our eLearning offerings, we are certainly looking to add to the number of faculty who are certified to teach using the online delivery method. Contact your dean or department chair if you are interested in receiving the training to teach for our eLearning department.
STOPPING BULIMIC LEARNING
One of the ideas recently discussed at the Common Reader Faculty Learning Community was the topic of comprehensive testing. The idea is to have each test that you give in your class not only build on the previous test but actually include material that should have been learned before. Craig Nelson, a biology instructor from Indiana, notes that comprehensive tests help us to avoid creating bulimic learners. He explains that this is the student who learns things for the test and then purges the information, thinking they will never have to use it again. Research shows however that continued interaction with content increases the chances that it will be remembered and can be applied subsequently. An article in the August/September 2013 issue of The Teaching Professor also supports this claim. Preparing for Comprehensive Finals contains a number of great suggestions that we can use to help our students prepare for their encounter with this type of assessment.
Friday, September 13, 2013
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY
Would you like to turn your class into a paperless operation? Have you ever tried to sit down and grade student assignments only to find that you left them at the office? Or perhaps you are ready to return an assignment to students only to find that you left them at home. Utilizing the Assignments function in Blackboard may be a good solution for you. On Thursday, September 26 two training sessions on using the Blackboard Assignment function will be held. You can register now for one of two sessions to be taught by Susan Nealy and Lenora White. The first session is for those faculty who are new to Blackboard. The beginner level session will be held at 3:00 PM and is recommended for faculty who are just learning how to navigate Blackboard and may need a little extra time getting started. The session will be very deliberate through the process from setup to submission and grading. The advanced level session will begin at 4 PM. This is for faculty familiar with using Blackboard but who have not used Assignments before and will cover assignment setup, submission and grading. This workshop is part of the Teaching+Learning Center faculty professional development programming. Both sessions of the workshop will be held in 206 Cypress Building.
TESTING CENTER EXPANDS HOURS AND SERVICE
Would you like to turn your class into a paperless operation? Have you ever tried to sit down and grade student assignments only to find that you left them at the office? Or perhaps you are ready to return an assignment to students only to find that you left them at home. Utilizing the Assignments function in Blackboard may be a good solution for you. On Thursday, September 26 two training sessions on using the Blackboard Assignment function will be held. You can register now for one of two sessions to be taught by Susan Nealy and Lenora White. The first session is for those faculty who are new to Blackboard. The beginner level session will be held at 3:00 PM and is recommended for faculty who are just learning how to navigate Blackboard and may need a little extra time getting started. The session will be very deliberate through the process from setup to submission and grading. The advanced level session will begin at 4 PM. This is for faculty familiar with using Blackboard but who have not used Assignments before and will cover assignment setup, submission and grading. This workshop is part of the Teaching+Learning Center faculty professional development programming. Both sessions of the workshop will be held in 206 Cypress Building.
TESTING CENTER EXPANDS HOURS AND SERVICE
The Testing Center at the Mid City Campus has new hours of operation beginning on September 16. We will now be open on Monday and Tuesday from 8:00 AM until 8:00 PM, Wednesday and Thursday from 8:00 AM until 7:00 PM, Friday from 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM and Saturday from 9:00 AM until 12:00 PM. In addition, the new Testing Center scheduler has been activated. Students can now make appointments for any type of testing via the BRCC website. Students or faculty who have questions should contact one of the Testing Center specialists at testingcenter@mybrcc.edu. The Testing Center at the Acadian Campus offers testing on Tuesday and Thursday from 9:00 AM until 12:00 PM. Questions or scheduling for the Acadian Campus should be directed to yolandabatton@catc.edu.
HOW TO MAKE IDEAS STICK
Have you read the article by Chip Heath and Dan Heath entitled
"Teaching that Sticks"? It is based on their book Made to Stick: Why
Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (HM291.H43). The Heath brothers have identified the six
traits that they feel make an idea sticky and they include: simple, unexpected,
concrete, credible, emotional, and story. The Heath's say, "As a teacher,
you are on the front lines of stickiness. Every single day, you've got to wake
up in the morning and go make ideas stick. And let's face it, this is no easy
mission. Few students burst into the classroom, giddy with anticipation, ready
for the latest lesson on punctuation, polynomials, or pilgrims."
KEEP CALM AND BE ENGAGED
Another outstanding faculty member has been recognized and rewarded with a coveted green shirt. Paul Guidry, who teaches in the Criminal Justice program, is a big proponent of active learning methods and truly believes that engagement is the ultimate weapon in fighting attrition. His student, Raven Groom, says "Mr. Guidry doesn't just hand out papers and ask us to read
them. He actually teaches the material and uses real-life situations to make
sure we comprehend." Another of his students, Daniel Lynch, says "Mr. Guidry genuinely cares about the future of his student's lives and helps us prosper by leading us in the classroom." The Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support is proud to recognize Paul Guidry for his dedication to his students and his chosen craft.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY BEGINS WORK
The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community kicked off with an abundance of enthusiasm and participation on Wednesday. So much so, that there is currently a waiting list of folks who would like to join the FLC. The Teaching+Learning Center is currently exploring the idea of opening another section of the FLC to accommodate the need. Participants discussed the profession of teaching, explored the syllabus, and examined the learning outcomes at the first faculty professional development session. The FLC is developing a set of group objectives as well. FLC members include: Nisha Aroskar, Robbie Burleigh, Emily Graves, Wes Harris, Susan Nealy, Jennifer Perkins, Todd Pourciau, Angela Pursley, Kathleen Schexnayder, Jeanne Stacy, and Lin Warmsley.
GROUP WORK TEACHES VALUABLE LESSONS AND SKILLS
Group projects are a great active learning experience that has proven benefits for student learning. Randall Hansen's article Benefits and Problems with Student Teams: Suggestions for Improving Team Projects published in the Journal of Education for Business lists a number of great suggestions that you may want to employ. Hansen says that we should emphasize the importance and benefits of teamwork by pointing out the special skills acquired that are useful in any job the student may be seeking. Team-building exercises help to build cohesive groups and promote engagement. If you are looking to have your students learn how to work with others whom they may not know (similar to most work environments), you should form the groups. The workload expectations should be reasonable and you should provide some class time for meetings. The goals of the project should have clearly defined learning objectives and you should require interim reports and group process feedback. Always remind the students that they should keep a log or journal of their experience that indicates their contributions and peer assessment should be part of the evaluation process.
THE RANKING BUSINESS EXPANDS
Did you know that the U.S. Department of Education is set to launch a rating system for all colleges and universities by 2015? It will apparently reward colleges with a high rating if they graduate large numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and do not saddle such students with heavy debt without graduating them. Once in place, the program would give larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans to students attending higher-rated institutions. The focus on college completion sharpened this past year, as campus leaders pursued national goals for higher-education attainment, and more states tied a portion of colleges' appropriations to performance measures such as graduation rates. Louisiana of course has the GRAD ACT. The US News and World Report ranking focuses on the national level. Washington Monthly started publishing a national rankings system as well in 2005. The rankings, whose most recent edition was published last month, "give high marks to institutions that enroll low-income students, help them graduate, and don't charge them an arm and a leg to attend," the magazine said.
CAN A ROBOT DO YOUR JOB
As the debate about the role of technology in education builds, two California community-college professors have published their own commentary on the automation of teaching—in the form of an illustrated comic according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Adam Bessie and Arthur King, who teach English and studio and computer arts, respectively, at Diablo Valley College, have weighed in with a piece of graphic journalism titled “Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers.” The comic, published by the left-leaning Truth Out, has been circulating among faculty members on California community-college e-mail lists. It was inspired by the introduction of an automated reading machine to score English-placement assessments at Diablo Valley College, Mr. Bessie said in an e-mail. Previously, English-department faculty members had created and reviewed the assessments manually, a collective exercise that gave them the opportunity to discuss standards, he said. “We were told that the robo-reader could do the same job as us for cheaper, which seemed an absurd notion,” Mr. Bessie said. “I had, before this, never heard of a robo-reader and thought that I had the one job that couldn’t be automated: that written human communication was one area that technology could augment, but not replace.”
The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community kicked off with an abundance of enthusiasm and participation on Wednesday. So much so, that there is currently a waiting list of folks who would like to join the FLC. The Teaching+Learning Center is currently exploring the idea of opening another section of the FLC to accommodate the need. Participants discussed the profession of teaching, explored the syllabus, and examined the learning outcomes at the first faculty professional development session. The FLC is developing a set of group objectives as well. FLC members include: Nisha Aroskar, Robbie Burleigh, Emily Graves, Wes Harris, Susan Nealy, Jennifer Perkins, Todd Pourciau, Angela Pursley, Kathleen Schexnayder, Jeanne Stacy, and Lin Warmsley.
GROUP WORK TEACHES VALUABLE LESSONS AND SKILLS
Group projects are a great active learning experience that has proven benefits for student learning. Randall Hansen's article Benefits and Problems with Student Teams: Suggestions for Improving Team Projects published in the Journal of Education for Business lists a number of great suggestions that you may want to employ. Hansen says that we should emphasize the importance and benefits of teamwork by pointing out the special skills acquired that are useful in any job the student may be seeking. Team-building exercises help to build cohesive groups and promote engagement. If you are looking to have your students learn how to work with others whom they may not know (similar to most work environments), you should form the groups. The workload expectations should be reasonable and you should provide some class time for meetings. The goals of the project should have clearly defined learning objectives and you should require interim reports and group process feedback. Always remind the students that they should keep a log or journal of their experience that indicates their contributions and peer assessment should be part of the evaluation process.
THE RANKING BUSINESS EXPANDS
Did you know that the U.S. Department of Education is set to launch a rating system for all colleges and universities by 2015? It will apparently reward colleges with a high rating if they graduate large numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and do not saddle such students with heavy debt without graduating them. Once in place, the program would give larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans to students attending higher-rated institutions. The focus on college completion sharpened this past year, as campus leaders pursued national goals for higher-education attainment, and more states tied a portion of colleges' appropriations to performance measures such as graduation rates. Louisiana of course has the GRAD ACT. The US News and World Report ranking focuses on the national level. Washington Monthly started publishing a national rankings system as well in 2005. The rankings, whose most recent edition was published last month, "give high marks to institutions that enroll low-income students, help them graduate, and don't charge them an arm and a leg to attend," the magazine said.
CAN A ROBOT DO YOUR JOB
As the debate about the role of technology in education builds, two California community-college professors have published their own commentary on the automation of teaching—in the form of an illustrated comic according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Adam Bessie and Arthur King, who teach English and studio and computer arts, respectively, at Diablo Valley College, have weighed in with a piece of graphic journalism titled “Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers.” The comic, published by the left-leaning Truth Out, has been circulating among faculty members on California community-college e-mail lists. It was inspired by the introduction of an automated reading machine to score English-placement assessments at Diablo Valley College, Mr. Bessie said in an e-mail. Previously, English-department faculty members had created and reviewed the assessments manually, a collective exercise that gave them the opportunity to discuss standards, he said. “We were told that the robo-reader could do the same job as us for cheaper, which seemed an absurd notion,” Mr. Bessie said. “I had, before this, never heard of a robo-reader and thought that I had the one job that couldn’t be automated: that written human communication was one area that technology could augment, but not replace.”
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