ACTIVE LEARNING IN ACTION
During class last night, I used a collaborative team activity to illustrate the benefits of working with others. Often our students groan when we ask them to work in groups. We explored the benefits and their perceived drawbacks in a class discussion to start the lesson. I asked those who disliked group work to offer their arguments first. I then asked the students who liked working in groups, which was most of the millennial-aged class, to respond to the criticisms. We then used the "What's In the Box" activity that we have added to the upcoming 2014 version of the Active Learning Manual. This activity requires that you fill a box with 20-25 items. They can be anything but I usually try to lean towards items familiar to educational settings. Before the class session, I divided the students into four groups of 5-6 members. Once we began class, I had each group come and take a look in the box for about one minute. They are not allowed to bring anything with them or take pictures with their cellphones. They were then to return to their places and make a list of what they saw in the box. I encouraged them to keep their list private and not share. Once everyone had a shot to look at the box and create their lists, I asked how many items they had on their lists. Most students had between 9-12 items. One student indicated she had close to 20. There were 23 items in the box. I then instructed the teams to compile one list from their individual lists. I again warned them not to talk too loudly as other teams may hear them. We then identified each item, taking them out of the box, while one student made a master list on the whiteboard. Here is what I noticed while they were doing this learning activity. Different students used different techniques to try to remember the items. Where they were standing around the box did impact their list and they did not move around the box even though I gave them that option. This created a teachable moment about perspective. Once they began to compile their group list, the dynamics of team building quickly emerged. I had built the teams using various factors like gender, race, and assessment results. I noticed them using various techniques to help each other remember more items. They definitely were building their communication, leadership, and negotiation skills. I also observed them trying to make connection between the items and then discussing what some other logical items might be in the box. This helped them with critical thinking skills. I have been stressing the joy of learning in the class sessions each week. I can honestly say that the students enjoyed the learning activity. I will be assessing their abilities and learning related to this lesson shortly and I will share the results of that with you as well. By the way, the winning compilation list had almost all of the items. Most of the teams listed between 16-19 items indicating the effectiveness of group work.

COMMUNICATING USING THE RIGHT TOOL
Rob Kelly has an interesting article about selecting the appropriate communication tools for your online course. I think that many of the suggestions can be applied to hybrid and face-to-face classes as well. He writes, "When designing an online course it’s important to carefully consider which tools align with the course’s learning objectives and the types of communication that will occur. There are three types of communication that can occur in an online course—one to one, one to many, and many to many. Learning outcomes should be the overriding consideration when selecting and using communication tools," Reese says. "It doesn’t matter how flashy the tool is or how excited you are to use it if it’s not the right tool for the job. It’s important to design with your learning outcomes in mind, figure out what you want your end result to be, and then choose the tool that will help you get there versus picking the tool that you really want to use and then trying to model your course or learning outcomes around that.”

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT EVENT ON WEDNESDAY
The second part of the "high potential" students webinar occurs on Wednesday, February 19 from noon until 1:30pm. We will meet in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Bldg./Mid City Campus). It is not important if you missed the first session on this topic held earlier this week. The second session will focus on under-prepared and first-generation students and their unique problems. The webinar will be live which means we can actively participate by asking questions and responding to the various polls and requests for what is working at BRCC. You can register now. We will be tweeting throughout the event, so remember to create a Twitter account and follow the Teaching+Learning Center's Twitter.