SHIFTING THE TEACHING PARADIGM March is coming in like a bear with the powerful professional development workshop Shifting the Teaching Paradigm to be facilitated by Dr. Jim Johnston on Friday, March 7 in the Dumas Room. This workshop is being co-sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center and Cengage Learning TeamUp Faculty programs. The half day workshop begins with registration at 12:00 noon, followed by the first session at 12:25 and concludes with a question and answer dialogue that ends at 3:30 PM. In between, you can sign up to attend such dynamic sessions as What You See is What You Get: the Power of First Impressions (the most powerful three minutes of your class), Motivation Matters: Control the ANT Population and Improve Retention/Academic Success, and Reaching Higher Levels of Thinking and Application of Knowledge through Group Learning Activities. Dr. Johnston is Director of TRIO Student Support Services at Harding University in Arkansas.There will be breaks and snacks provided throughout the half day. Participants can register for individual sessions or opt to attend the entire workshop. If you are committed to improving student success at BRCC, you do not want to miss this workshop.

ANNUAL GIVING PITCH By now I am sure you have heard that BRCC has kicked off the internal portion of our Annual Giving campaign. I want to urge you to participate in this worthy endeavor aimed at helping to change lives. If you would like to direct your donation to an area that will directly benefit the teaching faculty at BRCC, I encourage you to indicate that your contribution be placed in the Teaching+Learning Center's Foundation account. This fund is targeted towards faculty development by providing travel funding to those of us who have proposals accepted for presentation at professional organizations focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning. One of the best ways to enhance your teaching toolkit it to try new active learning methods and use your classroom as a living laboratory. Your findings as an active researcher are important to the study of the scholarship of teaching and learning in the various disciplines. In addition, interacting with colleagues from around the world allows you to bring that expertise back to our campus. Please give to the Annual Giving campaign and if you are inclined, I strongly encourage you to direct your funds to the Teaching+Learning Center.

WHAT DOES AN ONLINE STUDENT LOOK LIKE Matt Reed raises an interesting question in his article What's An Online Student? He admits that he is "not entirely sure what an online student is" because of the multiple ways that students can engage with learning at college. He writes, "The sheer heterogeneity of ways that students engage with online learning is making it harder to generalize. We have far students who mix and match than we have students who go entirely online. That makes it hard to answer a question like 'how many online students do you have?' It also makes it difficult to know just how much to scale certain online student services; many of the students who mix and match transact certain kinds of business on the days they’re on campus. And some students who do most of their coursework on campus would greatly prefer to address the bureaucratic stuff online."