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."

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT DAY 2014
Plan to join us on Friday, January 17 for Faculty Development Day at BRCC. We will joined by Dr. Mary Clement who serves as Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and Professor of Teacher Education at Berry College. Dr. Clement teaches graduate courses in curriculum theory, instructional management, and supervision and undergraduate courses in foreign language methods. She earned her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as the director of the Beginning Teacher Program at Eastern Illinois University for six years. Dr. Clement is the author of ten books including First Time in the College Classroom: A Guide for Teaching Assistants, Instructors, and New Professors at All Colleges and Universities which covers critically important aspects of organizing and teaching curriculum. She will be presenting on three topics while in Baton Rouge including: how to engage your students on day one; creating learning experiences in four easy steps; and, how to use student feedback to improve your teaching and their learning. This event is being sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center.

BERKELEY JOINS TESTING CENTER
We are very excited to announce that Brandi Berkeley is joining the Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support. She will join the staff of the Testing Center on December 17 filling the vacancy created when Tressa Thomas Landry moved to Lake Charles. Brandi will serve as a Testing Center Specialist providing support to our student testers on the Mid City and Acadian campuses. She was most recently employed in the same capacity at Delgado Community College. Watch this space for new operating hours for the Testing Center for the spring 2014 semester.

CAREER FUNDING PROPOSED FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Inside Higher Ed posted an interesting story about federal funding that could have a big impact on community colleges across the nation. Opportunity Nation, a nonprofit group that produces a national index on economic opportunity, has joined two U.S. senators in a push to encourage closer ties between employers and colleges, particularly two-year institutions. The group has endorsed a bill from Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, and Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. That legislation seeks a better return on investment for the $15 billion the federal government spends on 46 different job training programs each year, Portman said recently. “We’d like to consolidate some of those programs,” he said, arguing that there is overlap in almost all federal job training efforts. Those funding streams include several that are important to community colleges, including the Workforce Investment Act and the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. The proposed legislation probably wouldn’t cut funding for higher education, however. That’s because the two senators give two-year colleges and other career-focused institutions “priority access” to dollars for job training in the legislation, which is dubbed the Careers Through Responsive, Efficient and Effective Retraining (CAREER) Act. “We’d like to include community colleges more,” Portman said.

THE COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS

Building community among our faculty is very important for us to function as a disconnected group of disciplines that must come together cohesively to address systemic problems such as student retention and success. Part of our jobs as faculty has always been to focus on the needs of our students. Whether it is showing your students how to annotate, suggesting better study skills, or advising them about time management, when we take the time to teach students how to navigate college, we are also helping our colleagues. If a student learns a valuable college success skill in one class, we all benefit. So as the landscape continues to shift and the opportunity to attend college is an option for more students, we know that the number of underprepared student will continue to grow. Here are a few suggestions that you can use to create a stronger foundation for students who are faced with multiple impediments. Suggest during your advising sessions that taking the College Success Skills course provides a solid orientation for surviving and prospering in college. When you notice students are struggling, whether by formative or summative assessment or simply through observation in your classes, suggest that they make a trip to the Academic Learning Center. Make sure you send them with a referral sheet. Once they have made their visit, have them return the referral sheet to you so that you can see what intervention was offered and what the ALC professional staff suggests as the next step. The entire process can be viewed on the ALC website. The most important thing in this situation is to talk with your students who are struggling. A high level of engagement, often marked by the student-faculty relationship, is key to improving student success.

THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES

LCTCS President Joe May recently had a guest editorial published by The Advocate. In trumpeting the merits of the community college experience, Dr. May uses one of our own BRCC student’s story to make his point. He says, “Students who often choose to enroll in community colleges value their low cost, easy access, small class size, and high quality instruction that aligns with the needs of the local economy. Many of these students, such as Laketa Smith at Baton Rouge Community College, acknowledge that many of their previous education and career choices were not in their long-term best interest. Laketa, like a great number of students, needed developmental education in reading to help her prepare for college-level courses. As the result of her developmental education courses, she is successfully enrolled in honors courses at BRCC. At the same time, she not only saved herself money she saved the state of Louisiana as well.”

END OF SEMESTER SUGGESTIONS

As you begin to create your final exams, I would encourage you to use the comprehensive approach. What we know about the brain and learning is that it requires prompts and redundancy in order to create deeper learning. Repeating questions from your past quizzes and tests is a good idea, especially if a high number of students did not demonstrate mastery on the previous assessment. You should also be looking to see if the students are using the feedback you have provided them by assessing their ability to integrate changes and new knowledge. Test anxiety is a very real impediment for many of your students. Positive messaging and confidence building are two key components to allowing your students to give you their best effort. Encourage them to build study guides individually and then allow them some class time to share their efforts with other students in the class. The sum is always greater than the parts when it comes to knowledge. Finally, you may want to have each of your students bring in a self-addressed stamped envelope. That way you can send them feedback on their final exam. You could also email this information or create a general feedback document that you could post to your Blackboard site. This allows us to continue to scaffold the knowledge they learned this semester and connect it to new knowledge in the semesters to come.

THE HONOR CIRCLE EXPANDS

Join us in congratulating Dr. Sandra Guzman as the most recent recipient of the Keep Calm and Be Engaged shirt of honor. Watching Dr. Guzman in her classroom is an inspiring experience. Her love of both teaching and her discipline is readily obvious. She is a big proponent of active learning and making sure that her assessment instruments are aligned with her teaching. Dr. Guzman is also a disciple of Bloom’s Taxonomy and champions its worth to her colleagues. As a biologist, she is concerned about the environment and shares her passion with her students in this area as well. Her students tell us she is tough but caring. They also say that she is able to take a difficult topic and relate it to their lives in ways that help them learn and make connections to previous knowledge. So we welcome Dr. Guzman to the Keep Calm and Be Engaged honor circle where she joins previous recipients Paul Guidry, Wes Harris, Dr. Mary Miller, and Amy Pinero.

REMEMBERING OUR PAST IMPROVES OUR FUTURE

Today marks the 50^th anniversary of one of the most terrible days in our history as a nation. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding through the downtown area of Dallas, Texas. Some say it changed America forever. It certainly provides a teachable moment for you in your courses. Kennedy was the youngest person elected to be President of the U.S. His education agenda was part of his New Frontier program. He was also active on the Civil Rights front which had broad impact for education as well. One example includes his intervention when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American students from attending. Wallace moved aside only after being confronted by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama National Guard, which had just been federalized by order of the President. That evening Kennedy gave his famous civil rights address on national television and radio, launching his initiative for civil rights legislation—to provide equal access to public schools and other facilities, and greater protection of voting rights.

WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS SHARE BEST PRACTICES

The faculty development workshop, Teaching and Learning Interventions for Student Success, held yesterday is still generating conversation. The comments started during the workshop, increased at the end of the session, and have continued to come via email. As a community of scholars, we are learning to depend on each other to solve our problems and it is encouraging. Facilitated by Dr. Todd Pourciau and Jeanne Stacy, every participant was actively engaged throughout the workshop and idea generation was at an all-time high. Tommy Domangue, psychology, said he will begin to model his thought processes “out loud” to help his students learn about learning. Paul Guidry, criminal justice (and a Keep Calm and Be Engaged professor) plans to use the stuff happens cards to reduce student excuses and the parking lot active learning strategy to prevent his classes from being hijacked. Raven Dora, computer science, plans to use the roundtable review to help her students scaffold information from previous classes, create study guides, and center her students to begin class. April Witting, practical nursing, wants to implement the question and answer match intervention to allow her student to learn from each other and build classroom community. Lee Buckner, economics, plans to use the Stop-Start-Keep Doing intervention to increase his awareness of his students needs and more closely gauge the “temperature” of his courses. All of these intervention and more can be found in the Active Learning Manual, which is currently being updated. Look for an electronic copy in your email in early December.

COURSE REDESIGN OPPORTUNITY

The upcoming holiday break during December and January is a great time to take on a course re-design project. Building meaningful learning experiences that are student-centered can greatly enhance student success. Dr. Gary Smith, University of New Mexico, has a terrific article in the National Teaching and Learning Forum about how he went from a lecture-based presenter to an active learning teacher. His story includes the level of critical self-reflection he was willing to do in order to improve student achievement and his student ratings. In fact, his article was the pre-reading assignment for the most recent faculty development workshop sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center. 

FOCUS ON COMMUNITY COLLEGES

While attending the Association for the Study of Higher Education conference last week, I heard so many presentations about the community college experience. What was surprising (and a little alarming) is that none of the expert presenters worked at community colleges themselves.  That tells me that the missing link in the international conversation about community colleges is us. I also learned that recent research shows that students prefer teachers who are organized and clear. That sounds simple yet how often are we challenged by multiple deadlines, responsibilities, and life in general? The Chronicle of Higher Education actually published an article about the conference presentations in today’s online issue.  One of the presentations highlighted by the article is by Dr. Chad Loes, a professor of criminal justice at Mount Mercy University, who studied how students' perceptions of organized teaching correlated with gains in critical-thinking skills measured at the beginning and end of their first year. After controlling for students' background characteristics, Dr. Loes and the other author, Dr. Mark H. Salisbury of Augustana College, in Illinois, found that well-organized teaching had only a small effect on the critical-thinking skills of students in general. But the perception of such teaching had a pronounced effect on students in minority groups, whose gains in critical-thinking skills were nearly five times as large as those of white students.

SAVE NOVEMBER 21 NOW
Teaching and Learning Interventions to Improve Student Success is a faculty development workshop built in response to your requests. Todd Pourciau and Jeanne Stacy are closing the loop on teaching and learning in this interactive workshop set for November 21 at 3:00 PM. Some of the topics to be covered include how to get everyone seated, attentive and ready to start class, how to gauge the temperature of your class and determine your impact on student learning, solving the student excuse dilemma, and calming test anxiety. We will also be sharing the newly revised Active Learning Guide. Participants will have the opportunity to bring their issues before the group and receive immediate feedback. This is a not to be missed opportunity that you have been asking for, so mark your calendar now.

UPCOMING WEBINAR WILL BE LIVE
There are still seats available for the faculty development live webinar, Promoting the Development, Achievement, and Persistence of Students from Diverse Backgrounds, to be held on Thursday, November 14. The participants from BRCC will be able to ask questions and fully participate in the live webinar which begins at 12:00 PM and will be held in the T+LC (311 Magnolia Building). Come and hear from a national expert as well as peers from colleges and universities across the U.S. Topics include how to use culturally appropriate interventions, shifting students to a task-involved approach, and how to use intrusive advising techniques for student success. This webinar series event is being co-sponsored by the Title III Program and the Teaching+Learning Center. Register now.

HYBRID FLC FILLS NEED
The Building a Hybrid Course Faculty Learning Community (FLC) met on Wednesday to explore the best ways to use discussion in a class meeting face-to-face and virtually. The members thought it was most important to insure that student discussion be insightful rather than superficial and that developing a democratic classroom environment where the students feel safe will produce the best class meetings. As the session moved to the use of feedback to assess learning and monitor teaching, the formation of retrieval mechanisms and development of correct mental models took center stage. The FLC agreed, as one of their outcomes, to create a pre-test that students could take to help them make decisions about taking classes delivered in an online environment.

NEWEST MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE

The latest recipient of a Keep Calm and Be Engaged shirt is Assistant Professor Wes Harris, who teaches English and also directs the Honor College at BRCC. Wes has demonstrated his commitment to student success by redesigning his courses to include topics that are student-relevant, using active learning in his classes, and being a leader in the recent Common Reader Faculty Learning Community. Wes said of his experience on the FLC, "Our conversations and study have re-invigorated my pedagogy and reminded me that driving the classroom necessarily involves traffic jams, the occasional fender bender, and sometimes even wrecks, and that each of these moments can be learnable and teachable. What a pleasure it has been to get to know each of you better, hear your experiences, and learn." He is pictured below (in his green shirt) with students from two of his classes. These students have currently earned an A mid-term grade and are well on their way to achieving academic excellence in the classroom. We offer congratulations to them as we celebrate learning and to Wes Harris for his commitment to student success.

John Langston, Jana Roosa, & Deana Hodges

Elizabeth Foster, Adrian Arabie, & Elizabeth Doerfler

HELP IS ON THE WAY

The Title III Program and Teaching+Learning Center are co-sponsoring a faculty development webinar on Thursday, November 14. Promoting the Development, Achievement and Persistence of Students from Diverse Backgrounds webinar will occur from noon until 1:30 PM in the T+LC (311 Magnolia Bldg.).  This intensive workshop will share effective theory-based programmatic and individual interventions that have resulted in campus environments of support that increase persistence for students of color. In addition to being provided with a wide range of information regarding demographic, educational attainments and other issues related to multicultural/students of color, participants will be provided with strategies that will allow them to improve student success. Upon completion, participants will be able to assist students employing the 0-100% Teaching and Advising Method as a means for promoting greater student responsibility for learning. Registration is now open.

RESEARCH WE CAN USE NOW
A new report on first-generation students could provide us with some valuable information as we continue to implement interventions to improve student retention at BRCC. The report notes that about a quarter of high-school graduates who took the ACT in 2013 met all four of its college-readiness benchmarks, in English, reading, mathematics, and science. But students whose parents did not go to college fared quite a bit worse: Only 9 percent of them met all four benchmarks. We know that many of our students are the first in their family to attempt to earn a college degree. One of the highlights from the report says, “Recent research demonstrates that academically prepared students, as measured by the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, have greater chances for success in their future educational endeavors. However, academic readiness is just one of several factors that contribute to educational success. The academic behaviors of students and the interest levels in their specific major or career are other key factors. Together, these elements define a clear picture of student readiness for post-secondary education. To encourage progress, the educational system needs to monitor and sustain all key factors of success.”

TESTING IS A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
Dr. Maryellen Weimer offers us an interesting reminder about testing in a post on The Teaching Professor blog. Her thoughts are consistent with what we discussed in our testing workshop on October 17 but bear repeating. She writes, “We give exams to assess mastery of material—are students learning the course content? With so much emphasis on scores and grades, it’s easy to forget that the process of preparing for, taking, and getting feedback about an exam can also be a learning experience. The learning that results from these processes can be tacit, or teachers can design activities associated with exam events that can result in better content learning and heightened student awareness of the learning skills associated with demonstrating knowledge.” Read more…

PAYING ATTENTION TO THE INTROVERTS IN YOUR CLASS

Nicki Monahan, Faculty Facilitator in the Staff and Organizational Development Department at George Brown College, Toronto, Canada, has written an interesting article about introverts in the classroom. She writes, “Who are they and how do we ensure they thrive in active learning classrooms? If you have ever come to the midterm point of the semester and graded a stellar paper of a student whose name you don’t recognize and who has never raised her hand in class, you may have just identified an introvert in your classroom. In many learning situations, introverts may need to stretch beyond their comfort zones, and they should be encouraged to do so, as should extroverts. Our goal is not to turn introverts into extroverts, or vice-versa, but to maximize learning for all students and to help them develop the skills often identified by potential employers — teamwork, problem solving, and interpersonal communication. When designing learning activities for your classroom, consider the key elements of balance and choice in order to create a comfortable learning environment which also encourages all students to stretch and take risks.” Read more…

FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY DECONSTRUCTS ASSESSMENT

The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community recently completed a learning experience about the type of assessment we use to determine if our students are learning. The discussion centered on performance-based versus learning-based approaches. Traditionalists who use performance-based methods tend to base their evaluation and assessment on their student’s ability to comply with the dictates of the course. The requirements may very well be tied to learning considerations but those are often forgotten as the requirements and worry about covering the material begin to take over. Learning-centered approaches tend to emphasize assessment and evaluative tools that focus on helping students understand their progress in learning and help us evaluate our teaching. It assumes that learning is a developmental process that entails helping students to undergo intellectual and personal changes as they develop new understandings and reasoning abilities. Grading is more about communicating with our students rather than a way to rank them. This exercise in critical self-reflection proved to be beneficial to the FLC members but it does not need to be limited to group situations. You can study and reflect on your approaches to determine if you are using the right assessment tools to determine your effectiveness as a teacher. Contact the Teaching+Learning Center if you would like some resources to help you with this self-evaluation.

GETTING YOU READY FOR THE SEMESTER'S END

The Blackboard Series continues with an upcoming professional development session that could help you be more efficient when completing the end-of-semester tasks we are required to handle. Susan Nealy and Lenora White will deliver an interactive workshop on how to use the Blackboard Gradebook feature to help you with end-of-semester reporting responsibilities on Tuesday, November 5. Upon completion of this session, you will be able to: enter all grades into Blackboard including the manual entry of a final grade; organize grades separate from attendance (if taken in Blackboard); “drop" grades while still maintaining the grade in Blackboard (based on faculty syllabus); download the Gradebook into an Excel spreadsheet for submission to your Academic Division. This workshop is part of the Teaching+Learning Center's ongoing faculty professional development programming. The session from 3:00-4:00 PM is for beginner users of Blackboard while the 4:00-5:00 PM session is better suited for advanced users. Registration is now open.