DOES YOUR MAJOR MATTER
Since we are about to open registration for the Spring 2017 semester, I thought you might like related to that topic. June Y. Chu has an interesting take on student majors. "As an adviser to college-age students, it could be easy for me to say major in what you love and be done. Research shows that employers often recruit for transferable skills, and there is no direct correlation between one’s major and career. In fact, Forbes magazine has presented research findings indicating that only 27 percent of college graduates are working in a job that relates to their major. Google the phrase “Does your major matter?” and you will find that most articles out there succinctly state, “Nope, doesn’t matter.” Yet, sometimes, it does. To be better advisers, we need to consider the cultural baggage a student brings to a conversation when discussing their major."

NO LAUGHING MATTER
If you were not able to attend the classroom management faculty development session yesterday, we missed you. The good news is there are more sessions planned, so I encourage you to take a look at the events calendar. One of the topics we discussed was the use of humor in the classroom. Mary Bart offers her take on this teaching technique in a new post. She writes, "I am still pretty regularly criticized for my use of humor—I have been known to use too much. The long-standing objection is that education is serious business. It’s no laughing matter. Our goal is education; not entertainment. Writing about the history of humor in the classroom, Debra Korobkin notes that before the 20^th century, “collectively, teachers perceived instructing with a sense of humor as unprofessional, uncontrolled, and undignified.” (p. 154) Use humor and don’t expect to be taken as a serious professional. Some of that thinking still lingers today." Continue reading here.

DECODING THE BRAIN
Scientists can now map what happens neurologically when new information influences a person to change his or her mind, a finding that offers more insight into the mechanics of learning according to a recent research paper. "At a fundamental level, it is difficult to measure what someone knows," said co-author and psychology associate professor Alison Preston. "In our new paper, we employ brain decoding techniques that allow us deeper insight into the knowledge people have available to make decisions. We were able to measure when a person's knowledge changes to reflect new goals or opinions." The process, researchers said, involves two components of the brain working together to update and "bias" conceptual knowledge with new information to form new ideas. Continue reading here.

LEARNING TROUGH LAUGHTER
Boredom may be the largest pedagogical obstacle to teaching (Smith, 2007), and many believe it is up to teachers to spark students’ interest in classes. One way to ignite students’ enthusiasm is by using humor. In the classroom, humor can create a cheerful learning climate, enhance social bonding through increased student-instructor interaction, add variety to lectures, decrease test anxiety, and provide enjoyment and laughter. In addition to the social benefits, humor is cognitively and pedagogically important. For instance, instructional humor has been touted as an excellent way for students to learn
vocabulary, increase critical thinking, practice semantics, and remember more information. Because humor often plays with meaning, it helps individuals change their current mental perspective by visualizing problems in an alternate way, as well as engaging their critical thinking. In a study by Jana Hackathorn, Amy M. Garczynski, Katheryn Blankmeyer, Rachel D. Tennial, and Erin D. Solomon, results indicated that using humor to teach material significantly increased students’ overall performance on exams, particularly on knowledge and comprehension level quiz items, but not application level items. Moreover, learning a construct through the use of humor was most effective for comprehension level quiz items. Continue reading this article here.

EARLY COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOLS
Have you heard about the move afoot to turn high schools into college? Usually called early college high schools, they are growing in numbers due mainly to their success rates. Nationwide, 90 percent of early college students graduate from high school, 10 percentage points above the national average, and 30 percent of students get either an associate’s degree or a certificate, according to Jobs for the Future, the Boston-based nonprofit that runs the national Early College Designs program. Now, there are 280 early college schools nationwide – nearly 50 of which are in Texas. So far, the model has proven largely successful in graduating students from high school and introducing them to college courses. Most function like magnet schools, though, with students choosing to attend or even needing to apply. Continue reading this story here.

MENTORING OUR NEXT GROUP OF ENGAGED SCHOLARS
The BRCC Mentoring Program hosted the second meeting of the semester for the group of 14 Mentor/Mentee pairs yesterday. Our new faculty are reporting that having a mentor has improved their acclimation to teaching at BRCC and has greatly reduced their stress level. Topics during yesterday's session included student motivation, critical self-reflection, classroom management, and student retention. Participants also shared stories of what they have learned through their teaching experiences and how this continues to change and shape how they respond to their students. New faculty for fall 2015 include: Jennifer Bernard (Nursing), Matthew Buras (Mathematics), Danielle Burns (Art), Alexandra Cavazos (English), Tim Dykes (Construction Management), Zach Gasior (English), Darren Jones (Philosophy), Felecia McGhee (Surgical Technology), Lisa Namikas (History),  Gregory Otto (Aviation), Priya Pathak (Chemistry), Pam Potter (Nursing), Jose Taj (Spanish), and Shena Williams (Nursing).