PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY
Are you using the discussion board function on your Blackboard site? Do you receive angry emails for your students related to technology use in your courses? Have you ever wondered how you can increase your engagement by utilizing online resources? An answer of yes to any of these questions suggests that you should plan on attending the Transforming the Challenging Online Students into a Master Student webinar. It is being held in the Teaching+Learning Center on Thursday, February 6 from noon until 1:00 PM. Shawn Orr will deliver an informative webinar utilizing her more than 18 years of experience as a professor, department chair, adviser and dean. Orr also received the 2010 Post-Secondary Teacher of the Year for the Ohio Business and Technology Teacher Association and the 2011 North Central Educators Association Educator of the Year. She hold a Master's degree with a curriculum development specialty. Come and learn from her experience and the ideas and input from your faculty colleagues. You can register now for the faculty professional development webinar sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center.

USING TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE LEARNING
We tweeted earlier about an article by Rob Kelly that explains how to create a learner-friendly online presence for your classes. Kelly points to Cynthia Schmitt, senior director of continuing education at Florida Institute of Technology, as a good example. According to the article, Schmitt tries to make the online learning experience comfortable and efficient for students. I'll share one of her tips here. "One way to increase the students’ comfort in the online classroom is to conduct synchronous sessions." Each unit in Schmitt’s course includes one-hour synchronous sessions. "Students select the time for these sessions at the beginning of the course and meet with the instructor in groups of 10 to 12 using Adobe Connect, which enables them to see the instructor on camera and hear her or his voice. (Adobe Connect has the capability to allow students to use video and voice as well, but students in remote areas typically do not use these features because of bandwidth limitations and instead communicate via text chat.) Remember that Susan Nealy, eLearning Program Manager is ready and willing to help you enhance your online presence.

TEACH FOR THE BRAIN
Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek have put out a great little book entitled The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain. I have actually started using some of the information from the book to improve my teaching and my students learning in my CSSK classes. In the chapter on memory, Doyle and Zakrajsek point out that "when learning something new, it helps to be interested in it, see a value to it, pay a lot of attention to it, and practice it a lot. The human brain is wired to more easily learn things that are important, and for the most part, what's important is also interesting." They recommend distributed practice to take advantage of this scientific breakthrough. By repeating important information numerous times over the course of your semester, your students are more likely to make the links to memory stronger which will allow them to retrieve it more easily. Repeated exposure to the new knowledge is also enhanced by making your students use it often. If you want to read more from this terrific book, the BRCC Library does own a copy (LB1134 .D68 2013).

PLANNING FOR COLLEGE CLOSURES
The weather is wreaking havoc with our academic calendar this spring semester. We will not be holding classes on Tuesday, January 28 due to icy (and possibly snowy) conditions which also caused us to cancel classes on Friday, January 24. Losing one class time may not be too disruptive but two days lost may be causing you some stress. We suggest you look over the missed lessons and decide what is the most important information that students will need for future learning. When you do get back to class, focus on that and perhaps post videos or fact sheets about the other material you had planned to teach during those class meetings. In addition, you can certainly use your Blackboard page to assign readings, hold virtual office hours or give an online quiz. You could even have an online discussion with your students using Blackboard. This assumes that all of your students will have access to the web and that our electricity will withstand the freezing temperatures. We recommend that, at minimum, you remind students of important upcoming dates and deadlines now by posting this information on your Blackboard page and sending an email blast to your classes. This will allow you to continue to move forward with student learning despite the weather interruptions. By the way, the last day to add or drop classes has been extended to January 31 because of the weather disruptions.

CELEBRATE ENGAGEMENT DAY

We celebrated engagement at BRCC today and captured some pictures from classrooms and support Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support staff also wore their t-shirts to celebrate engagement at BRCC. Research shows that using engagement techniques early and often is one of the best ways to improve your class participation and retention rates. As Dr. Mary Clement Keep Calm and Be Engaged t-shirts on today. All of the members of the pointed out on BRCC Faculty Development Day, engagement also improves your student ratings. Faculty Focus provides us with a nice overview of engagement practices and I want to mention two here. First, recognize that teaching and teachers are central to engagement. Much research places teachers at the heart of engagement. For example, one study found that “if the teacher is perceived to be approachable, well prepared, and sensitive to student needs, students are committed to work harder, get more out of the session, and are more willing to express their opinion.” We continue to promote active learning as the preferred delivery method for your teaching. The engagement research provides another opportunity to create self-directed learners. There is no agreement in the research literature as to what motivates learners to engage, but the

offices around the Mid City Campus. You may have seen some of our faculty engagement experts with their

dominant view is that students engage when they act as their own learning agents working to achieve goals meaningful to them. This means that what students believe about themselves as learners is very important. They must believe they can learn, including that they can overcome and learn from failure. Giving students some control over learning processes helps develop this confidence and commitment to learning. Remember to Keep Calm and Be Engaged and sign up as a follower of the Teaching+Learning Center's twitter site @brcctlc to receive the latest news.

BACK TO CHANGING LIVES

Welcome back to all of you. The Spring 2014 semester officially began yesterday and the Mid City Campus was certainly buzzing with activity.  The parking lots were full and the Library began to fill once again with patrons. I hope that all of your classes got off to a great start. I wanted to mention that I am teaching a College Success Skills class this semester and met with them for the first time last night at 5:30 PM. I am trying to implement as many of the teaching methods from the Active Learning Manual as I can. I have used many of them in the past but this class is unique for me as it is the first time I have taught a room full of all first time students. I promise to share the good, bad and everything in-between as we journey through the semester. I must say how pleased I was with last night's session. My students are attentive, respectful and ready to learn. Since the class focuses on learning how to learn, it is a great place to expand their conceptions about what it takes to be successful in college. Keep Calm and Be Engaged!

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT DAY RECAP

The recent visit by Dr. Mary Clement of Berry College was a resounding success. Not only were the comments and evaluations overwhelmingly positive, but the feedback has continued. As I run into many of you at the start of Spring 2014, I am hearing about changes that many of you have made based on what you heard at the faculty development workshops on Friday. Dr. Clement sent the nicest thank you note and complimented BRCC on many levels. She found the faculty to be warm, welcoming, and energetic. I agree wholeheartedly. We have placed two (autographed) copies of her book First Time in the College Classroom: A guide for teaching assistants, instructors, and new professors at all colleges and universities in the Library's collections. By the way, I had mentioned that the Teaching+Learning Center now has a Twitter account (@brcctlc) and we were able to tweet all day Friday during the workshops. You might want to check out the comments as many of them could be easily integrated into your classroom routines.

CAN YOU SPOT A GOOD LEARNER

The Faculty Focus newsletter had a great article by Dr. Maryellen Weimer about the characteristics that good learners possess. She notes that, "this could be a list for our students or anybody who aspires to learn well." Here is the short list.

1.     Good learners are curious

2.     Good learners pursue understanding diligently

3.     Good learners recognize that a lot of learning isn't fun

4.     Failure frightens good learners, but they know it's beneficial

5.     Good learners make knowledge their own

6.     Good learners never run out of questions

7.     Good learners share what they've learned

You can see the expand version here. Let me know what you think of the list and if there should be another item or two.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT KICKOFF
Mark your calendars for the BRCC Teaching+Learning Center's faculty professional development opening event of the Spring 2014 semester. Dr. Mary Clement, professor of education and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Berry College, will facilitate three sessions on Friday, January 17 in the Louisiana Building Board Room. Dr. Clement holds a doctorate in education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is a specialist in curriculum and instruction and secondary teacher education. The theme for the day is Keys for a Successful Spring 2014. Sessions include Who are These Students and How Do I Engage Them on the First Day and Beyond? (8:30AM), Teaching with a Four-Step Lesson Plan (10:00 AM), and Using Student Feedback Throughout the Semester (11:30 AM). Registration begins at 8:00 AM in the adjoining lobby.

DO YOU TWEET
The Teaching+Learning Center has added a Twitter account in addition to this blog and the main website to insure that we are providing information to you in multiple ways. You can find the Twitter feed at @brcctlc. If you have a Twitter account, I encourage you to become a follower. In that way, you will get updates as soon as they are posted. You can simply view it without becoming a follower as well.

FIRST DAY OF THE SEMESTER
Vice Chancellor Monique Cross gave a great presentation this morning on the topic of retention. One of the many things she stressed was letting the first day of class set the tone for what is to come. Students build their future expectations on our actions. Dr. Mary Clement, in her book First Time in the College Classroom, says "Give them a mini-lesson or mini-lecture" on the first day of class. "Let's face it," she continues "students are in college to learn, and learning should happen on the first day. Plan to give a short mini-lesson about the first reading, or to present 10 fun facts about the subject matter. Teach in a style that gets the students to see who you are and how you teach."