SQ3R Is Not a New Star Wars Character

It is about that time in the semester when we begin to notice a pattern developing. We have assigned reading for our students and reminded them that it should be done before the class so that they can come with prepared questions. Yet they don't seem to have grasped the concept and so we fall back into presenting the entire reading material during class rather than using our active learning teaching interventions that promote deeper learning. We have shared some teaching interventions that work in this blog before. Dr. Dimple J. Martin offers us another process that she uses that may work for you as well. Dr. Martin writes, "First, let’s acknowledge this universal epidemic. College students despise reading textbooks and e-books that cover content with academic information. Fortunately, I discovered a cure for the reading plague that only requires five teaspoons of ingestion: 1) survey 2) question 3) read 4) retrieve and 5) review. In my class, I have found the SQ3R Method to be a step-by-step approach to learning and studying from textbooks. Although it took my students time and practice to master this method, it has been valuable in regards to preparing students for more content-driven class discussions, increased retention and understanding of information, strategic study skills, and test preparation." You can read the entire article here.

Yes, I Agree and...

We all know the drill. We have decided to use the discussion board feature on Canvas to engage with our students and have them increase their peer-to-peer interaction. We determine the topic and issue an assignment with directions asking students to begin the topics. Once that is done, they are also asked to comment on the topics started by their fellow students. We sit back and wait and nothing happens. Well, to be fair, some students post and then other students give one to five word responses that do not move the conversation forward at all. So what went wrong? Dr. Beth René Roepnack has written a concise article on how we can improve online discussion by simply changing a couple of things. Her article appears on Faculty Focus and she offers the following suggestions. " I adjusted the structure of my online discussions from students starting threads (you know the drill, post-and-reply-to-two) to the instructor starting them, which creates a more organic discussion structure similar to classroom conversations. This simple modification, along with asking open-ended questions from the deep end of Bloom’s Taxonomy, creates discussions that support student learning and engagement with the material and each other." You can read the entire article here. If you use her suggestions, let me know if you experienced the same results that she did.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Increases Student Engagement

It has been great to hear from some of you about how you integrated things you heard from our convocation speaker Dr. Jennifer Waldeck into your classes. Her presentation was filled with so many things but one of the important topics she covered was how to be culturally responsive with your students. That ties in nicely with today's Faculty Focus article. Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) has been defined as a philosophy of education that centers students’ cultural backgrounds as essential to their learning by Gloria Ladson-Billings in 1995. Dr. Gwen Bass and Michael Lawrence-Riddell propose integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) with CRT to create "a powerful tool for preparing [students] for today’s professional environment, which increasingly acknowledges diversity as integral to success." They go on to note, "While educators need not be experts on every culture, they should make efforts to ensure that their students’ experience their own learning styles and their own cultures in the teaching and learning process." One of the ways they suggest we can do this is by giving students the opportunity to understand their own identities and to feel that they are honored in the class through identity mapping. They conclude by writing, "Simply providing choice for students in terms of the input of information, or their own output, is a step toward a culturally responsive classroom, as is inherent in the guiding principles of UDL—providing multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement."

An Inventory Helps to Promote Higher Order Thinking

One of the issues I hear from many of you is the problem we encounter when students do not do the assigned reading prior to class. It certainly creates multiple teaching and learning problems and can really stifle the entire class. One of the suggestions I have made to help alleviate this problem is to have an "As You Come Into Class" question(s) on the board. In that way, as they are getting settled and I am checking attendance, they can be thinking more deeply about some of the things I plan to discuss in class. It helps to alleviate those "top of mind" responses that are usually anecdotal and totally off-topic. I also want to suggest something that Karen Harris uses in her classes. Her learning outcome is focused on having students use higher order critical thinking. She describes her teaching experience as a thinking inventory. Harris says, "Although a thinking inventory is made up of questions, it’s more than a questionnaire. When we say we’re “taking inventory”—whether we’re in a warehouse or a relationship—we mean we’re taking stock of where things stand at a given moment in time, with the understanding that those things are fluid and provisional. With a thinking inventory, we’re taking stock of students’ thinking, experiences, and sense-making at the beginning of the course. A well-designed thinking inventory formalizes the essential questions of any course and serves as a touchpoint for both teacher and students throughout that course." You can read the details of her inventory here. Students are engaged by learning that can be tied to real life. Assuring them that being able to think critically and offer the best solution in the workplace will always benefit them is the go to answer for how this relates to real-world situations.

Academic Success Strategies For All Students

The ability to help students improve their academic performance is enhanced by their participation in study groups. This fact is revealed by research like Kalaian, Kasim, and Nims report that appeared in the Journal of Technology Education (Spring 2018). The meta-analytic results showed that cooperative learning, collaborative learning, problem-based learning, and peer-led team learning pedagogies were effective. The Academic Learning Center (ALC) has been providing assistance to students looking to create and manage study groups for several years now. They have a suite of resources about how to create a study group that works for all participants including organization and leadership instructions. As the classroom (onsite or virtually) is one of the best conduits for forming these types of academic success groups, I encourage you to reach out to Ms. Nina Joshi at the ALC. Working in unison, our faculty and ALC can help our students be more successful and we owe it to our students to make them aware of this academic support resource.

First Day Of Spring Semester Is Great Time to Revisit Goals

When setting personal goals for yourself, we teach in the College Success Skills 1023 course to use the SMART method. It is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Each year at BRCC, we are asked to set personal goals and January is always a good time to review the selections we made since it is basically the mid-point of the academic year. So I encourage you to take a look at what you indicated you were going to focus on to help you improve your teaching and your student's learning. I also want to remind you to check out the Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement's blog from time to time for new ideas you might want to implement in your classes. In addition, take a look at the upcoming events for faculty development opportunities. We also tweet daily and try to focus on issues that are relative to BRCC and our student population. Here is to a great spring 2020 semester. As always, I am here to help you in all things teaching and learning so do not hesitate to contact me (pourciaut@mybrcc.edu). I am located in 120 Magnolia Building on the Mid City Campus.

Aren't We All Math People?

Working in higher education for the last 36 years (how did that happen?) has given me a lot of opportunity to hear lots of opinions about developmental education (formerly remedial education, etc.). Nothing causes a life-long educator more pain than to see a student come to you underprepared. How can this happen when they have been duly approved to graduate from an accredited high school? But I am not here to argue that point, I would rather talk about this nonsense of math versus non-math people. We often say things like "Everyone should be able to read; how are you going to function in life without learning how to read." Shouldn't we be saying the same thing about math? How would you function without understanding math? That is why I was excited to read Sarah D. Sparks' piece on the matter. She writes, "My 2nd grader finishes his math enrichment, then gleefully creates blank versions for his dad and me to try: a subtraction-based, number-placement logic puzzle, intended to be challenging. My husband withdraws for 10 minutes or so, returns and hands over the completed puzzle. I stare at my blank triangle. Mom, aren’t you done yet? my son asks. Are you struggling? A dull pressure starts to thud behind my eyes. I’m thinking, I say, a little too sharply." Did reading that make you feel a little uncomfortable? It certainly made me remember when I sat in Ms. Sparks place with my children. I encourage you to read the brief, concise article and join us who say we are all math people.

Student Success Starts With Communication

If you were able to make the faculty development session yesterday delivered by Dr. Jennifer Waldeck, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. This event occurred because of the support of VCASA Laura Younger, who provided the funding. Speaking of VC Younger, she mentioned that not only did several people stop her on the way out to indicate their pleasure at the quality of the speaker but several of you called her as well. What a great way to kick off the 2020 spring semester. One of the resources referenced by Dr. Waldeck during her talk was an article that appeared in Inside Higher Ed written by Jane E. Dmochowsk. I had posted the link on the Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement's events calendar but the link was broken and has been repaired. Looking back on the tweets that I sent during yesterday's event, I wanted to share three that stood out in my mind. The first is "inclusion and celebrating diversity builds credibility and promotes engagement." The second is "the fear of communication is very real for some of our students" (this goes to class participation and meeting with you privately). The third is "student to student interaction is critical to their learning experience." I hope you have a terrific semester. If you are looking for ways to get started on the first day of class, here are some things you can try.

Intrusive In A Good Way

Intrusive advising is a term that has been making the rounds in higher education for a while now. It seems to appear whenever someone asks how the college where they are working can improve the student retention and completion numbers. While most of us can probably come up with a description of what we think intrusive advising is, it is always good to look to current research to help determine what is really working in the important areas of retention and completion. A research study by Paul Donaldson, Lyle McKinney, Mimi Lee, and Diana Pino does just that. They report that a key factor in successful intrusive advising is making it mandatory for students. They note that the motivation to seek help is often lower in students who may most need it. They also noted that students indicated other positive aspects of the intrusive model included degree planning activities, which included reviewing required courses, developing a plan for future course registration, completing an electronic course planner tool, learning transfer requirements, and participating in major and career exploration. You can read the entire research article here.