CELEBRATING STUDENT SUCCESS

The coveted Keep Calm and Be Engaged green shirt has been awarded once again to a faculty member who is relentless in her pursuit of student success. Dr. Mary Miller, who teaches science classes, was recently surprised with her recognition when we popped in on one of her classes. One of her outstanding students, Robin Chautin, said, "From day one of microbiology, Dr. Miller greeted our class with an enthusiastic, positive attitude. She is very clear when she teaches and breaks down the material in a manner that is easily understood. Her examples in class are of such a wide variety and she will go to great lengths to make sure that everyone is clear on the topic. The thing I like the most about Dr. Miller's class is that our labs are very organized and the objective is always clear. Dr. Miller is extremely knowledgeable in microbiology and her passion for it is contagious! This is by far the most fun learning experience I have ever had!" While we were there, it was also an opportunity to "celebrate learning." She had recently given a test and a number of her students scored a B or better. So we combined the two celebrations and took the picture shown on the left (front row left to right, Crystal Armand, Elizabeth Ford, Erica Zumo, and Amanda Yan; back row, Dr. Miller, Alyssa Perry, Ashley Dyer, Robin Chautin, Brenda Odom, Victoria Danagogo, and Patrick Stewart) to share with you. If you would like to share your student success story, please let me know and we will arrange to visit your class as well.

FALL BREAK OPPORTUNITY

There are still a few spots available for the faculty professional development workshop on Thursday, October 17. Testing 101: Assessing Student Learning will be held in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Building/Mid City Campus) at 3:00 PM. Upon completion of the session, participants will be able to evaluate current assessment instruments and determine their effectiveness towards indicating student learning; build a better testing and assessment instrument using a test blueprint; determine if their learning experiences and their testing is aligned; and, identify the advantages of different types of testing. You can register for your spot now.

ZOMBIES INVADE BRCC
Week six of the Common Reader Faculty Learning Community focused on what Ken Bain defines as a natural critical learning environment. It is what emerged in his research study as the perfect setting for student learning to occur. His research results suggest that this learning environment allows students to "confront important problems in ways that force them to rethink assumptions and examine their mental models of reality." The discussion between your colleagues produced an "aha" moment. Bain says, "In order to maximize the engagement factor, you need to focus on what students care about, know, or think they know, the things that excite them." It needs to be combined with your disciplinary knowledge but if we are to capture and keep their attention, it needs to be "important" to them in some way. The aha moment occurred when we began to discuss what is currently important to them and one topic emerged: zombies. As we began to talk about ways to uncover what is important to them, like using personal response systems or using a Doodle poll, we came to the conclusion that popular culture could help. Because advertising firms have endless pots of money to spend on uncovering our likes and tendencies, that is the obvious place to turn for this answer. So returning to the zombies theme we were quickly able to reference that there are a number of TV shows (The Walking Dead) and movies (World War Z and Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies) and in fact a couple of commercials running incessantly right now about this topic (Toyota and Sprint). So your challenge is, how do you integrate the topic of zombies into your learning experiences for your classes? The FLC members also encourage us to pay close attention to the media in order to help stay current with what topics are trending with our students.