Does Active Learning Work?

Dr. Donna M. Qualters uncovers some interesting information in her research study Do Students Want to be Active? Four important themes emerged from the analysis: the students had an overall positive attitude toward active learning; active learning was perceived to enhance their ability and efficiency in studying; active learning was perceived to improve the learning environment; and, active learning promoted their thinking about their learning and thus helped them to better understand their individual learning style. She also uncovered a few negatives that could easily be converted using the right interventions. She concludes by writing, "The most important need to be addressed is the inability of some students to deal with change. Many of these students come to higher education with expectations of very passive classroom experiences and those expectations must be uncovered, probed and altered. For some students it may go as far as the necessity to reframe what learning is: learning is not about covering material or gathering facts, learning is about integrating and using information in a meaningful way."

YOUR CANVAS IS READY
The migration to our new LMS Canvas continues as members of the implementation team from BRCC (Susan Nealy, Todd Pourciau, Ron Solomon, and Lenora White) participate in the LCTCS System process. BRCC will be using Canvas for all eLearning, hybrid and face-to-face classes beginning in the Summer 2015 semester. Most of the faculty have completed the Project Canvas training, either with the Teaching+Learning Center or utilizing the online certification process. If you have questions or need additional help, please contact eLearning Program Manager Susan Nealy of LMS Administrator Lenora White.

BRAINS LOVE ACTIVE LEARNING
Brain scan research reveals that kinestethic learning (learning by doing) has been shown to be very effective for students in science classes. The research results were published online April 24 in Psychological Science. The study included experiments in the laboratory involving student behavior and brain imaging and one randomized trial in a college physics classroom. The hands-on studies used a system of two bicycle wheels that spun independently on a single axle, which allowed students to understand the concept of angular momentum—at work when a moving bicycle appears more stable than a stationary one. To experience angular momentum, students held the wheels by the axle and were instructed to tilt the axle from horizontal to vertical, while attempting to keep a laser pointer on a target line on the wall. When the axle tilted, the students experienced torque—the resistive force that causes objects to rotate. Read more here.

SUGGESTIONS AS THE SEMESTER ENDS
Looking towards the completion of another semester at BRCC, it is a good time to share some end-of-semester suggestions. There are a number of suggestions from posts in the past. As Maier and Panitz note, ending a course with only a final exam often leaves students with a feeling of dread or inadequacy, rather than with a sense of accomplishment. A better goal for teachers is to help our students leave the course with a solid idea of what they have learned and how they can carry that new knowledge and skill base into future experiences. Here are a few ideas of how you can end your semester in a meaningful way.

THINKING ABOUT VARK WHEN PLANNING YOUR TEACHING
Realizing that you have visual, aural, read-write and kinesthetic learners in each of your classes helps you to plan more effective learning experiences. Understanding that students self-identify themselves as usually fitting into two of these types and sometimes three or all four creates new opportunities for us. I have come to realize more and more that I tend to be a visual and kinesthetic learner. I like to see the situation in person and put myself in it before I begin to develop a solution or plan. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy reading (especially for pleasure) but love when someone can put things into motion for me to watch. Which brings me to a website I want to recommend to you. If you are looking to show your students how things work, take a look at the Animagraffs website. It's never to late to learn how to properly moonwalk!

SEND THE GRINCH PACKING
Dr. Maryellen Weimer never fails to come up with a great post just when you need it most. Her latest comments concern the end of the semester. She notes, "For most of us, it’s that time of the semester when we are least likely to think positively about students. We’re tired, they’re tired, and there are still the proverbial miles to go. Some students have finally figured out they’re in trouble in the course, but none of their difficulties derive from anything they’ve done (or haven’t done), or so they think. Others remain lost in a thick fog that obscures even very fundamental course content. Passivity is the default mode for what feels like an increasingly large group. If there’s any lull in the action, they settle back, quickly finding their way to places of mental relaxation." Read more to find out how she turns this into a positive opportunity.

COMMUNITY COLLEGES ARE THE NEW SUPERHEROES
Emanuella Grinberg, Jamie Gumbrecht, and Thom Patterson, who write for CNN.com, have a terrific story about community colleges. They write, "[Community colleges] provide technical programs for emerging careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics that are comparable to -- if not better than -- some of their four-year counterparts, at a fraction of the cost. Often, they're the launchpad to baccalaureate programs for people without the time, money or academic skills to jump into a four-year program straight out of high school. And as part of the American Association of Community Colleges' 21st Century Initiative, they're updating their missions and nimbly shifting to serve the economy of the future. Here are some of the ways they're facing problems that weigh down all of higher education -- and succeeding." Click here to find out how they think community colleges are fixing higher education.

EMPLOYERS WANT STUDENTS WITH REAL WORLD EDUCATION
An article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education reports that students worried about landing a job after graduation might be attracted to a narrow education that focuses on building their knowledge in one area. But that isn't enough to help them pursue successful careers, according to the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The AACU survey shows employers' support for the idea that students should be broadly educated and should apply their learning to the real world during college. More than half of employers indicated that recent college graduates should have "both field-specific knowledge and skills and a broad range of skills and knowledge."

GRANT WRITING WORKSHOP
Ann Zanders will present the second grant writing workshop on Thursday, April 11 at 3:00 PM in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Building). The faculty development opportunity will focus on BRCC's internal grant process, approval of projects, and proposal writing. It is not required to have attended the previous workshop last Thursday in order to participate this week. You can reserve your spot by sending an email to Ann Zanders at zandersa@mybrcc.edu. The event is sponsored by the Grant Resource Center and the Teaching+Learning Center.

ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM FOCUSES ON STUDENT SUCCESS STRATEGIES
BRCC will host its 5th annual development education symposium on Thursday, April 11 from 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM in the Board Room located in the Louisiana Building. Dr. John N. Gardner, President of the Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, is the keynote speaker for the faculty development symposium focused on providing the tools to promote student success, retention, the first year experience, and best practices. The event is sponsored by BRCC STARS Gate Title III and the Teaching+Learning Center. Registration is continuing and open to everyone

UNDERSTANDING YOUR STUDENTS
Understanding what stage of cognitive development your students currently reside at is a key component to determining how you will approach teaching that class. William G. Perry's classic study Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years (LB3609 .P4 1998) gives us the four stages of cognitive development your students will typically experience. These include dualism, relativism, multiplicity, and commitment. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule modified Perry's categories based on gender in their book Women's Ways of Knowing (HQ1206 .W88 1997). They write about connected knowers versus separate knowers. Teaching at a community college, we know that economic issues also influence many of our students’ abilities to focus on their academic progress. This is often compounded by academic preparation, mental models, and learning styles. The key to providing an environment that promotes deeper learning is by being engaged with your students. Understanding their "story" and how they have come to be enrolled in your class will help you to provide the support they need to succeed.

WORKSHOP COUNTDOWN NOW AT 2 DAYS
Where will you be at 3:00 PM on Thursday, February 28? Hopefully you will be joining most of your fellow faculty members for Dr. Barbara Millis' workshop "A Learning-Centered Approach to Teaching that Fosters Retention." Registration is still open and although more than 80 people have registered the Bonne Sante Wellness Center gym provides us with room for the rest of you. Participation in the two hour workshop will provide you with two faculty development service points but more important is the knowledge you will gain. This workshop promises to expand your teaching toolkit and provide you with the confidence to explore new teaching techniques. This event is part of the Teaching+Learning Center's distinguished speaker’s series.

HOW DO YOU LEARN?
Empathy is a good quality to have if you want to be an effective and influential teacher. Our passion for helping others learn may become dimmed by the many challenges we face in our classrooms (whether in buildings or virtually). That is where the learning styles perspective can play a part. While the debate continues over the need for more empirical research, the fact remains that students do tend to learn better when the experience ignites their brain. That ignition is often caused by triggers that help them connect to previous learning and stored knowledge. Lynne Celli Sarasin tells us in Learning Style Perspectives: Impact in the Classroom (LB1060.S27) that "before instructors try to understand and accommodate their students learning styles, they need to understand their own learning style. Because we naturally tend to teach in ways that are consistent with how we learn or may even emulate a favorite teacher, we do have specific techniques that allow us to process information." Sarasin offers a number of short exercises to help you identify your preferences.

TEACHING AS SCHOLARSHIP
Ken Bain, in his book What the Best College Teachers Do (LB2331.B34), says that "teaching must be judged using a learning perspective. Institutions must rate the quality of teaching, both so they can help people improve and ultimately so they can keep the best teachers." He reminds us that "an evaluation is an informed attempt to answer important questions that require difficult decisions and can't be reduced to a formula." He states that the "quality of learning objectives" are important and the teachers "contribution to student learning" is what matters. He urges us to think about teaching "as a serious intellectual act, a kind of scholarship, a creation, complete with evidence" that the teacher is "fostering achievement and learning."

FOOD FOR LEARNING
Edward Nuhfer, Director of Faculty Development at California State University at Channel Islands, tells us that tryptophan is an important brain amino acid that is converted into useful brain chemicals such as melatonin. A deficiency of tryptophan reduces the chemicals that aid with restful sound sleep. As age reduces the body's ability to produce melatonin, tryptophan's role becomes increasingly important. Fowl is a source of tryptophan, so a chicken or turkey sandwich for lunch may cause drowsiness in afternoon classes. Because tryptophan is a nutrient that aids in sound sleep, sources of it are best taken at day's end. Tryptophan taken in before classes or before quiet study can cause problems for many of us and that is useful information you can share with your students. In addition, he notes that many students who are watching their budget tend to gravitate towards less expensive choices like breads or processed cereal. He says, "Such breakfasts, largely devoid of important nutrients tyrosine & choline, won't provide the boost for thinking and learning that good protein sources, such as eggs and meat provide. Creatine found in meats is known to benefit working memory and intelligence."

BIG CHANGES FOR ONLINE LEARNING AT BRCC
Those involved in online or eLearning at BRCC know that there is change on the horizon. With a renewed commitment to establishing an eLearning program of excellence, we have recently hired Susan Moak Nealy to manage the eLearning Program at BRCC. Nealy was most recently interim department chair of business at BRCC, holds a MBA from Louisiana Tech University, and has been a faculty member here since 2006. In that time, she has taught a number of classes using the online delivery method and has received certification from the Quality Matters program. BRCC has recently migrated to Blackboard 9.1 and is implementing several new policies designed to enhance our student's learning experience in the online environment. Nealy joins the Office of Teaching and Learning, directed by Dr. Todd Pourciau, and has some exciting innovations planned for all involved in the eLearning program.

THE PLEASURE OF MOTIVATION

Research has shown that students remember things that matter to them. It is why education scientists encourage teachers to use examples and design learning experiences with real world applications. Discovering what interests your students is an important part of the initial engagement process and should begin on the first day of your course each semester or term. In 2009, Min Jeong Kang’s research team published a brain imaging study that confirmed the importance of a well known but often under-utilized condition for enhancing learning: curiosity. In Kang’s study, the participants guessed the answers to a set of trivia questions, were then shown the correct answers, and were tested one to two weeks later to see which answers they remembered best. These answers turned out to be the ones about which they had already known something, but had guessed wrong, so that they had been very curious to learn the right responses.It was precisely at the moment that the participants guessed incorrectly that their brain images showed the most activity in their caudate nucleu, a structure that plays a central role in the motivation to obtain rewards and the pleasure that comes along with them. Kang’s study showed that this structure also seems to be behind the intellectual pleasure we get from adding a new item to our store of knowledge.

BUT I AM A VISUAL LEARNER
While the learning objectives are the same for eLearning and traditional classes, we know that the delivery method can cause some students to encounter new problems. As the delivery method naturally favors students who self-identify as visual learners, there are a number of things that faculty should do to make the experience effective for all types of learners. A research article entitled Knowledge Construction in Online Learning by Shalni Gulati notes that learners should be reminded that they should explore various learning pathways. Faculty need to construct their learning experiences so that they are flexible and accessible, taking into account the learners personal learning interests and goals, the time they have for learning, their different learning preferences, and the learners’ personal and professional responsibilities outside the course. Gulati adds that faculty need to recognize the importance of personal control, emotions and emotional connection for participation in online discussions. Any online discussion strategies need to ensure the discussion tasks are relevant to learners with different professional needs. A pre-course induction may be necessary where learners can develop technical skills and practice online communication to openly discuss and challenge each other.

USING THE STUFF FROM LAST SEMESTER
James M. Lang has written a fascinating piece about his frustration with students who seem to use and dispose of the knowledge he is helping them to learn. He noticed this when he participated in a program that allows him to have the same set of students for two classes that follow each other in the academic sequence. He says, "For two years I taught in a special program in which the same cohort of students took two consecutive courses with me: freshman composition in the fall and introduction to literature in the spring. In the composition courses, I worked hard to help students move beyond the standard strategies they had learned in high school for writing introductory paragraphs: Start with a broad statement about life and narrow down to a specific topic." In their book, How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, Susan Ambrose and her co-authors label the cognitive activity of applying learned material from one course to another and beyond as "far transfer." They note that it might be the most fundamental expectation faculty have for students. "Far transfer is, arguably," they point out, "the central goal of education: We want our students to be able to apply what they learn beyond the classroom."

LEARNING REFRAMED
Dr. Donna M. Qualters uncovers some interesting information in her research study Do Students Want to be Active? Four important themes emerged from the analysis: the students had an overall positive attitude toward active learning; active learning was perceived to enhance their ability and efficiency in studying; active learning was perceived to improve the learning environment; and, active learning promoted their thinking about their learning and thus helped them to better understand their individual learning style. She also uncovered a few negatives that could easily be converted using the right interventions. She concludes by writing, "The most important need to be addressed is the inability of some students to deal with change. Many of these students come to higher education with expectations of very passive classroom experiences and those expectations must be uncovered, probed and altered. For some students it may go as far as the necessity to reframe what learning is: learning is not about covering material or gathering facts, learning is about integrating and using information in a meaningful way."

USING FACEBOOK IN CLASS

Research shows that there is a correlation between social presence and student success. When students feel connected to a community of inquiry they are more enthusiastic, motivated, and they perform better. If that engagement, communication, and awareness happens continuously and in real-time, as it does in a face-to-face classroom — all the better. Sidneyeve Matrix wrote a recent blog entry about bringing students together who are enrolled in a class that is being taught face-to-face and online concurrently so that the e-students would feel connected and not isolated online? Feeling out of the proverbial loop is one of the most oft-cited challenges for distance learners. Traditionally, a face-to-face classroom, “requires a disciplined commitment from the students to actually participate in the learning activities and reach out to others in the class,” observes Cory Stokes, director of the University of Utah's Technology Assisted Curriculum Center, in charge of testing for online courses. Matrix concludes, "In an online course, the onus is on the student to be self-disciplined enough to engage in self-study, often without the benefit of a class community to drive engagement and interest."

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION

Joshua Kim has written an interesting post about Pearson's OpenClass. He discusses how it fits in the LMS ecosystem and how it compares to Blackboard and Moodle among others. Now that BRCC has decided to move forward with Blackboard 9.1, it is beneficial to take a look at the other add-ons out there. Stay tuned for more information about our eLearning and course delivery efforts.

FILLING IN THE GAPS

Here is an active learning method, pulled from the BRCC Active Learning Manual, that has proven to help students learn from each other and test themselves. Offer note completion time in your class. Towards the end of a class that you have provided a heavy dose of information, ask students to exchange notes and fill in any gaps they identify. This technique helps them generate complete notes as they review the course material. It also helps them to identify what they know and what they need to study. In addition, it allows less-skilled note takers to learn from those who are adept at taking notes. You could also have them share their note-taking tips with the class.