Wednesday, January 23, 2013

BIG CHANGES FOR ONLINE LEARNING AT BRCC
Those involved in online or eLearning at BRCC know that there is change on the horizon. With a renewed commitment to establishing an eLearning program of excellence, we have recently hired Susan Moak Nealy to manage the eLearning Program at BRCC. Nealy was most recently interim department chair of business at BRCC, holds a MBA from Louisiana Tech University, and has been a faculty member here since 2006. In that time, she has taught a number of classes using the online delivery method and has received certification from the Quality Matters program. BRCC has recently migrated to Blackboard 9.1 and is implementing several new policies designed to enhance our student's learning experience in the online environment. Nealy joins the Office of Teaching and Learning, directed by Dr. Todd Pourciau, and has some exciting innovations planned for all involved in the eLearning program.


THE PLEASURE OF MOTIVATION
Research has shown that students remember things that matter to them. It is why education scientists encourage teachers to use examples and design learning experiences with real world applications. Discovering what interests your students is an important part of the initial engagement process and should begin on the first day of your course each semester or term. In 2009, Min Jeong Kang’s research team published a brain imaging study that confirmed the importance of a well known but often under-utilized condition for enhancing learning: curiosity. In Kang’s study, the participants guessed the answers to a set of trivia questions, were then shown the correct answers, and were tested one to two weeks later to see which answers they remembered best. These answers turned out to be the ones about which they had already known something, but had guessed wrong, so that they had been very curious to learn the right responses.It was precisely at the moment that the participants guessed incorrectly that their brain images showed the most activity in their caudate nucleu, a structure that plays a central role in the motivation to obtain rewards and the pleasure that comes along with them. Kang’s study showed that this structure also seems to be behind the intellectual pleasure we get from adding a new item to our store of knowledge.

BUT I AM A VISUAL LEARNER
While the learning objectives are the same for eLearning and traditional classes, we know that the delivery method can cause some students to encounter new problems. As the delivery method naturally favors students who self-identify as visual learners, there are a number of things that faculty should do to make the experience effective for all types of learners. A research article entitled Knowledge Construction in Online Learning by Shalni Gulati notes that learners should be reminded that they should explore various learning pathways. Faculty need to construct their learning experiences so that they are flexible and accessible, taking into account the learners personal learning interests and goals, the time they have for learning, their different learning preferences, and the learners’ personal and professional responsibilities outside the course. Gulati adds that faculty need to recognize the importance of personal control, emotions and emotional connection for participation in online discussions. Any online discussion strategies need to ensure the discussion tasks are relevant to learners with different professional needs. A pre-course induction may be necessary where learners can develop technical skills and practice online communication to openly discuss and challenge each other.


USING THE STUFF FROM LAST SEMESTER
James M. Lang has written a fascinating piece about his frustration with students who seem to use and dispose of the knowledge he is helping them to learn. He noticed this when he participated in a program that allows him to have the same set of students for two classes that follow each other in the academic sequence. He says, "For two years I taught in a special program in which the same cohort of students took two consecutive courses with me: freshman composition in the fall and introduction to literature in the spring. In the composition courses, I worked hard to help students move beyond the standard strategies they had learned in high school for writing introductory paragraphs: Start with a broad statement about life and narrow down to a specific topic." In their book, How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, Susan Ambrose and her co-authors label the cognitive activity of applying learned material from one course to another and beyond as "far transfer." They note that it might be the most fundamental expectation faculty have for students. "Far transfer is, arguably," they point out, "the central goal of education: We want our students to be able to apply what they learn beyond the classroom."

Monday, January 7, 2013

SHINY AND NEW
The promise of a new semester is always exciting. Our old ideas are new again. We will have a new roster of motivated students. All of our teaching will be met with enthusiasm. All of our carefully thought out learning outcomes will be achieved. Of course reality can be anything but the scenario just described but the possibilities keep us motivated. It is, after all, the reason you became a teacher. Your great desire to share the excitement of discovery and inquiry along with a sense that the world's problems are just one student away from being solved. The person that finds a cure for cancer could be in your class. The person that determines how to pull our economy back from the fiscal cliff might be sitting in the back row this semester. The person that writes the next great novel could be enrolled in your elearning course for the spring. Even more likely, the nurse that helps during your hospital stay or the vet tech that saves your cat or the police officer that provides the first line of defense between you and a criminal is very likely to be here at BRCC ready to start the path to their new career. It is an exciting time for all of us and I hope that I can be a resource for you this semester. As you continue to plan for your upcoming semester, feel free to contact me with any requests for help that you may have. I am ready to assist you so that each and every course you teach will have maximum impact. You are the key to improved student learning at BRCC and I am ready to help.

WHAT IS THIS TEST FOR AGAIN?
A new study by Liu, Bridgeman and Adler reveals that motivation plays a big part in the performance of students on standardized tests used to measure general student learning. Many colleges are using tests of learning outcomes, such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment to prove to their stake holders and accreditors that higher education matters. They note that the CLA, and popular alternatives from ACT and the Educational Testing Service, tests the critical thinking of small groups of entering and graduating students. In theory, comparing the scores of new and graduating students yields evidence either that students are or are not learning. Many call the difference between the entering and graduating students' performance the "value added" by a college degree. The researchers note that when students were told that the test (which typically are not graded and therefore hold little value to the students) were being used by potential employers, the scores improved.

GETTING STUDENT FEEDBACK YOU CAN USE
Gary Cooper has written an excellent blog post about the merits of student ratings. He suggests that you survey your students throughout the semester so that you can circumvent any big problems that may crop up during the term. I have suggested, in faculty development seminars, the use of the Stop-Start-Keep Doing student survey to improve student learning. He gives a number of other suggestions that could be put to use in your course.

THE ALT-AC TRACK
One of the highly attended sessions at the recent Modern Language Association's annual meeting had to do with life as an adjunct professor. Brian Croxall, a steadily employed digital-humanities strategist and lecturer in English at Emory University, extolled the virtues of life as an adjunct. Others on the panel added emphasized the need to be flexible and to acquire potentially useful talents along the way. Learning administrative skills, for instance, comes in handy whether you work in faculty development or as a digital-humanities project manager or any number of other jobs in and around academe.