CAN I DO THIS?

David Gooblar writes, “No matter how much students value your course, or how supportive your classroom environment, they won’t be motivated to do the work if they don’t think they can succeed at it. And of course the solution is not about making things easy for them. As a new academic year gets underway, I’ve been thinking a lot about student motivation. Specifically I’ve been rereading a 2010 book How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, which offers a compelling chapter on the three main pillars that underlie student motivation. Continue reading here.

 

WHAT GOOD LEARNING LOOKS LIKE

This blog post by Anya Kamenetz for NPR has some pretty useful information. So print it out; get out your highlighter and take off the cap. Ready? Now throw it away, because highlighters don't really help people learn. We all want for our kids to have optimal learning experiences and, for ourselves, to stay competitive with lifelong learning. But how well do you think you understand what good learning looks like? Ulrich Boser says, probably not very well. His new research on learning shows that the public is largely ignorant of, well, research on learning. Boser runs the science of learning initiative at the left-leaning thinktank the Center for American Progress. He has a new book out, also about the science of learning, titled Learn Better.

STUDENT RETENTION STRATEGIES THAT WE CAN USE
Dr. Patrick O'Keefee's research focuses on student retention issues. His article A Sense of Belonging: Improving Student Retention provides a number of strategies that are easily implementable. He notes, "With student attrition rates reaching between 30 and 50 per cent in the United States,the inability of higher education institutions to retain their students is a significant issue. This paper cites key risk factors which place students at risk of non-completion, which include mental health issues, disability, socioeconomic status and ethnicity. Furthermore, first year students and higher degree by research students are susceptible to attrition. The capacity of a student to develop a sense of belonging within the higher education institution is recognized by this paper as a being a critical factor determining student retention. The creation of a caring, supportive and welcoming environment within the university is critical in creating a sense of belonging. This can be achieved by the development of positive student/faculty relationships, the presence of a well resourced counseling center and the encouragement of diversity and difference."

ADAPTIVE LEARNING MAY BE FOR YOU
As the adoption of adaptive learning strategies has spread, the uses have become more common to address issues like under-prepared students and developmental education. The Online Learning Consortium, of which we are a member, has some good information about how continuous adaptive learning can help solve college readiness problems. As the research emerges about adaptive learning, some interesting strategies have surfaced. Dr. Tseng and colleagues suggest an innovative adaptive learning approach that is based upon two main sources of personalization information, that is, learning behavior and personal learning style. Campus Technology interviewed several administrators and faculty members who have worked on adaptive projects about their experience. If you are interested in trying this strategy in your classes, please know that I am here to help.

FREE TEXTBOOKS FOR STUDENTS
Students have indicated that the high cost of textbooks in some subjects prevent them from purchasing this important resource. Did you know that in some instances there are free textbooks available online? The books are part of the Open Educational Resources or OER. In fact, some faculty members are creating their own textbooks to use in their classes. You can browse for available resources at the OER Commons website. Additional help is available from the BRCC Library faculty, with Peter Klubek leading the initiative.

TWO AND DONE FOR A NEW LIFE
Tomorrow will be the last Friday BRCC will be open until August 8. June 2 marks the beginning of the summer semester, four-day work weeks and we are off and running with 4-week, 8-week, and full semester offerings in addition to our eLearning courses. We have been meeting so many of our new students at the various orientation sessions being offered. They are excited and so are we. This is truly a partnership and that point must be made clear from the start. College is not high school and so the students have a terrific opportunity to write a new story for their lives. If you think about it, someone can come in and in only a short 24 months have a totally different life. Our students become welders, artists, nurses, first responders of all types, sonographers, veterinary technicians, entertainment technologists, musicians, and folks who work in all sorts of businesses, both big and small. It is these students that will form the sustainable families of the future and that is why what you do is so important. Please feel free to contact me or any of the staff in the Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support if you need assistance. We are here for you.

DOES YOUR CLASS NEED A WARNING
Angus Johnston has written an interesting column about trigger warnings in the classroom. He writes, "A classroom environment is different for a few reasons. First, it’s a shared space — for the 75 minutes of the class session and the 15 weeks of the semester, we’re pretty much all stuck with one another, and that fact imposes interpersonal obligations on us that don’t exist between writer and reader. Second, it’s an interactive space — it’s a conversation, not a monologue, and I have a responsibility to encourage that conversation as best I can. Finally, it’s an unpredictable space — a lot of my students have never previously encountered some of the material we cover in my classes, or haven’t encountered it in the way it’s taught at the college level, and don’t have any clear sense of what to expect.

MEETING STUDENT'S UNIQUE NEEDS
Adaptive learning is a uniquely innovative, albeit expensive, way to address the problems of costs, retention, and student success, especially in remedial education where this technology promises to be most useful. So says Brian Fleming in a terrific piece on the topic. He continues, "Personalization in teaching and learning happens best when content delivery, assessment, and mastery are “adapted” to meet students’ unique needs and abilities. Educators, of course, have been doing this for centuries. What is new about this practice today, however, is simply the use of technology, which comes in the form of heavily automated digital learning platforms driven by predictive modeling, learning analytics, and the latest research in brain science, cognition, and pedagogy. This technology can be used in any discipline, though it is most common in math and science courses and primarily as a tool to enhance student success in online and remedial education, where the need for personalization has historically been most urgent." The future is here but are we ready?