ENDING WITH A BANG
Here we are at the end of another semester in the week of final exams. For some of us, it is our very first semester teaching. For others it is something we feel we have always done. So what do we do at the end of the semester that will help us to improve our teaching and in turn increase our student's learning in the next semester. As Dr. Margaret Walsh pointed out in her terrific article from the past, "The ending of a course deserves greater attention than it typically receives. While we have thoroughly ritualized the start of a new semester often somewhere between weeks 11 and 14, what seemed like reasonable plans are regretfully sidelined and we launch into catch-up overdrive." She offers this suggestion among a number of other useful tips: On the last day of class, hand out a list of suggested readings from your own bookshelf, along with a brief commentary on why you’re recommending them. Dr. Maryellen Weimer also shares some of her wisdom about the end of the semester. She urges "everyone to write about the courses that have just ended. What do you think you will remember about them in five years? Are there students you will remember? Others you hope to forget? What were the best and worst moments in those courses? How did your relationship with each class begin, evolve and end? What was new, different and exciting about the content? Did you teach well? Did students learn well? If you could change one thing about your teaching and their learning next semester, what would it be?"

COURSE REDESIGN ON TAP
The breaks between our semesters are a perfect time for course redesign. I have already pulled my journal entries made throughout the semester (usually right after class had ended) that deal with this issue. I am using those notes to redesign my class in the hopes that the new approaches and learning experiences will create a more fertile learning environment for my students. I recently read an interesting article related to this topic. It focused more on gateway courses that have been shown to give students the most problems. The article suggests that peer instruction may be just the active learning method that turns the light on for our students in those gateway courses. The research has shown that peer instruction is a great teaching method to use in larger classes. The article is very well done and includes videos and lists the research on this topic. If you are beginning to work on your course redesign, you should take a look at the article. The information on how to get started with peer instruction is very useful. Also, feel free to reach out to me throughout the semester break if you are looking for advice or help in finding resources.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ONLINE
Dr. Michelle Miller, a professor of psychological sciences and co-director of the first-year learning program at Northern Arizona University, has a new book out about how to best use the online environment to improve learning. Her book Minds Online: Teaching Effectively With Technology, published this fall by Harvard University Press is highly recommended by many educationalists including James Lang. He says, "If you teach with technology in any form, at any level, I recommend you put this book at the top of your tottering pile of required reading on higher education. It’s an outstanding book that provides a road map for truly effective online teaching." He goes on to say that what distinguishes her book from much of the research available on teaching with technology, and pushes it beyond arguments about improving access, is her emphasis on the ways in which online teaching tools can actually improve learning for all students—not just those who have no access to traditional face-to-face classrooms. Online courses—or an online component of a traditional class—offer a way to "give students repeated, challenging practice with the concepts we want them to know and the skills we want them to master," Miller said. "When I started out as a teacher, we cognitive psychologists already knew that things like frequent quizzing were incredibly beneficial to learning. I was excited to apply these findings, but when I got into a real classroom environment I found that it was overwhelmingly difficult and time consuming to actually do so. In many traditional courses you also can’t do things like offer repeated quiz attempts with different questions, or adapt the quiz to the topics that individual students are having the most trouble with."

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.

CREATING HIGH-QUALITY ONLINE COURSES
As many of you know, the eLearning program at BRCC was relaunched about two years ago. The new program guidelines called for quality and consistency based on a number of national benchmarks. Since the fastest growing part of most colleges is their online course offerings, we wanted to make sure that BRCC stood out by offering our students the best academic experience delivered in an electronic format. By moving to a approval system that certifies our courses and our instructors, we have been able to quickly build an eLearning presence approaching 80 classes. Many of you have participated in the eLearning institutes (the next opportunity will be offered in spring 2015) and have been certified to teach. We have undergirded that process with numerous professional development workshops offered through the Teaching+Learning Center. So we read with a lot of interest the recent column written by Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti who offers us four factors in high-quality online classes as noted by Joseph McClary. He writes, "Distance learning is here to stay. Educational institutions should have a vision for what type of distance learning programs they will implement and the standards they will hold to. Institutions will master distance learning, or in some cases, distance learning trends and demands will master the school.” We are happy to say that you will find that all of the elements mentioned in this article are present in our eLearning program but we are not standing still and will continue to improve our processes.


IMPROVING RETENTION IN ONLINE COURSES
Drs. Claire Wladis, Katherine Wladis, and Alyse C. Hachey have written a great research paper that allows us to understand why many of our students are doing so poorly in online classes versus their counterparts in the face-to-face offerings. While the authors acknowledge that there is much research about the disparity, their new focus allows us to determine some of the possible causes. Looking at student's reasons for enrolling in online classes produced some surprising results. They found that the student's reason for taking the course, either as an elective or required, had a lot to do with their performance and effort. They write, "This research suggests that online course retention rates can be improved by providing extra support targeted specifically to lower level courses which are typically taken as electives or to satisfy distributional requirements. Such support could include self-assessment and orientation tools which could be used to help students assess their perceptions and preparedness for the course. At the course level, E-advisors could provide an early mechanism for academic counseling, additional technical support staff could assist students with technical difficulties specific to the online environment, and peer tutors could assist students with the course content." You can read more by logging onto the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Faculty Development Community where you will find the paper (Advising for Online Course Retention) in the Online Resource Library in the Advising folder.

UNDERSTANDING MOTIVATION CAN PRODUCE STUDENT SUCCESS
Motivation is a powerful learning tool. If we as teachers, seek to meet the needs of our students, then discovering their motivation is paramount. Cengage Learning recently conducted a survey looking for the motivation that drives non-traditional or adult students back to college. They were able to gather 2,600 responses from students who are 25 years or older. While there are many of the responses you would expect like retraining for a new job or finishing what they started in their teen years, some of the responses are surprising. Take a look at the top ten reasons and see if these resonate with your adult students the next time you are meeting with them about their schedule or another academic matter.

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING WORKSHOP ON THURSDAY
Have you ever used the active method of collaborative learning in your classes? Did you know that research tells us that collaborative learning is a proven method to help deepen learning for your students? It can also help to make the new knowledge stick. If you are interested in discovering the benefits of collaborative learning, please plan to attend the professional development workshop on Thursday, November 20 at 1:00 pm. in 311 Magnolia Building. The presentation will provide an introduction to the active learning method along with the benefits and some real-life examples of how you can implement into your courses immediately. You can register here but if you find yourself free at 1:00 pm tomorrow, please join us in the Teaching+Learning Center.

MYTH: RIGOR MEANS DOING MORE
A number of you have asked about the broad category of academic rigor and how to insure that your learning experiences have it. Terri Heick has written a short blog post that I think can help. She notes, "Rigor matters because it imposes cognitive load on students, forcing them to confront misconceptions, reconsider positions, separate the implicit from the explicit, and other critical thinking practices that distinguish shaky familiarity from true understanding." Heick also provides a quick rigor checklist and debunks five myths about the subject.

LIBRARY, GOOGLE OR BOTH
Earlier this week, I shared the Tech Tuesday Tip of the week. The topic concerned how to determine the difference between an inquiry and a search. Of course we all know how relevant this becomes when our students are relying on online resources more and more. In this article, Terri Heick notes, "The contrast between inquiry and search then, is a matter of pace, volume, and scale. Digital search is always-on and simple and frighteningly fast. The speed at which “results” are issued–and their sheer quantity–obscure the macro perspective real inquiry requires. Pouring over irrelevant book after irrelevant book isn’t perfect either. It can be a huge waste of time, and encourage students to latch on to the first bit of data that seems evenly remotely pertinent." I received a very interesting response from one of your colleagues about the article who was looking to find a few more practical tips. So I am throwing it out to you. Anyone want to share how they incorporate this distinction in their teaching?

NOON REFLECTION BRINGS IDEAS
The Mid Day Musings held earlier today delivered some powerful messages about student persistence and our efforts at retention. Bettinger's article about student supports spurred discussions about community college's missions, the Louisiana Grad Act, proactive advising, and financial aid. Amy Cable, Director of Financial Aid, made a surprise visit to dispel some myths and provide us with some great information that we can use to help our students make the best decision about their academic progress. Moon's article about high-impact educational practices provided the background for a conversation about the benefits of supplemental instruction (SI) programs. Dr. Jo Dale Ales, Dean of the STEM Division, shared her experience with SI by using examples of the current program they are using for gateway courses (calculus, physics, and engineering). Drake's article on academic advising encouraged a discussion about first-class experiences, namely spending most of the time talking about study skills, test preparation, and what is required to complete the class (other than just coming to class). Several ideas were generated that could be turned into pilots at BRCC that may increase our retention rates.

LEARNING WITH GAMES
One of the latest teaching methods trending now is the use of games in class. According to an article by Katie Lepi, gamification of just about anything has been tried by teachers around the globe. She also provides a list of ten colleges who are leading the way in this trend. For instance, the University of Texas at Brownsville has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for the efforts of one of its professors to use video games to teach physics. Associate professor Soumya Mohanty created and taught the school’s inaugural “Elementary Physics Through Video Games” course in the 2010-2011 school year. He said the increased level of reality in modern games has made them valuable teaching tools for physical principles. He used three Playstation 3 consoles and two plasma screens for the course.

OFFICE HOURS AND GREAT TEACHERS
But what deeply moved me, largely because I had foolishly believed that it couldn’t possibly be true, was this important truth: Professor Northcut wants to be at Richland and she is there on purpose. She is convinced that community colleges serve a vital purpose in aiding the best and brightest students who lack the resources to attend four-year schools right out of high school, or perhaps got sidetracked along the way. By her description, Richland exists explicitly to help those students find their way to universities and brighter futures. She is not at Richland because she never found a better job, or to collect a few extra paychecks before retirement. And she certainly does not see her students as the caricatures they often become in our higher-education debates -- representatives of broken systems; too unprepared to make it at a “real college.” Are you intrigued enough to read more? If you do, I promise this op-ed piece will make you feel good about what you do at BRCC. 

AVOID STUDENT EXCUSES WITH POLICY
Dr. John Orlando offers some great advice on how to handle student excuses in a recent article he wrote for Faculty Focus. He writes, as new teachers very quickly learn, students will come up with all kinds of excuses for missing assignments and other work. Students will never say, “I missed the exam because I was out late last night—it was one dollar taps at the Silver Horse, you know how it goes.” As a result, teachers must have a policy for handling these situations, which invariably involves a decision on trust. The problem is that grandparents do die—it happens—but they don’t die as often as we are told and their deaths don’t always coincide with major deadlines in the syllabus. So how do we know when a grandparent really dies, or a roommate actually does get deathly ill in the middle of the night, and when we are being handed a line? Read more here.

STUDENT PERSISTENCE HELPED BY COHORTS
As we continue our campus-wide discussion about improving our student persistence and completion rates, the idea of learning communities keep coming to the front. Looking at the research in that area can be very instructional and can point us to some interventions that have worked elsewhere. Learning communities may be established in many areas of study to effectively address the learning needs for a wide variety of students while providing both faculty and students with an academic structure that promotes collaboration. Learning communities also help to develop a strong sense of student identity as they traditionally have smaller enrollment numbers. Grouping students into cohorts should not only be done for students who initially declare majors, but also for students transferring in from other colleges. It may be useful for BRCC to look at the Tiger Bridge student's data moving forward as somewhat of a pilot of this concept. If you want to read more about this approach, go here.

FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY STUDIES BEST TEACHERS
The Best Teachers Faculty Learning Community has settled into their group study using Ken Bain's book What the Best College Teachers Do. Faculty learning communities, as defined by Dr. Milton Cox who runs a summer institute to train facilitators, is a group of trans-disciplinary faculty of 8-12 members engaging in an active, collaborative, semester-long program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning and with frequent meetings and activities that provide learning, development, transdisciplinarity, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and community building. The Teaching+Learning Center has sponsored three previous FLC including a Best Teachers group during the fall 2013 semester. The current Best Teachers FLC members include Dr. Jo Dale Ales (STEM), Dr. Gabriel Aluko (Science), Dr. Amy Atchley (Speech), Mollye DeLoach (Speech), Gery Frie (Construction Management), Vinetta Frie (Liberal Arts), Lucas Gassen (English), Steven Keeton (English), and Dr. Todd Pourciau (DILAS). Look for information on new Faculty Learning Communities planned for the spring 2015 semster in the near future or contact Academic Support Specialist Barbara Linder (linderb@mybrcc.edu or 216.8228) for more information.

FORGET THE REPETITIVE DRILLING METHOD
Drs. Bob Bjork, Tim Lee, and Dick Schmidt partnered together to see if they could use their repetitive drill research results culled from the sports world to good use in their classrooms. Schmidt explains that repetitive drilling on the same task is called “block practice.” You do the same thing, over and over, in one block of activity. He argues that a better way to learn is to practice several new things in succession, a technique called “variable practice” or “interleaving.” So a golfer would interleave her exercises at the range by aiming at different targets each time, by mixing up the kinds of shots she takes or switching the clubs she uses. Researchers say that the problem with “drill and kill” and other kinds of blocked study isn’t just that they’re boring. They also stunt student learning. “There are always two steps to solving a problem: identify the solving strategy, and then execute it,” Dr. Doug Rohrer said. “In blocked study, [students] know that this is a unit on, say, the Pythagorean theorem, so they don’t need to choose a strategy. All they have to do is execute, over and over.” When instructors give homework sets made up of only one kind of problem, they deny their students the chance to practice choosing a solving strategy. Later, when students are faced with a mix of types of problems on an exam, they’re unprepared. Read more here. You can listen to a vlog post about some of the big ideas coming out of brain science here.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR PBL
That is the question being asked by Suzie Boss in her blog post about Project-based learning. She writes, we don't have a crystal ball, but there's ample evidence to suggest that we're at a PBL inflection point. Increasing numbers of schools and entire districts are adopting project-based learning for at least part of their students' learning experience. Some districts that have had success with PBL at the high school level are starting to introduce this instructional strategy earlier, creating a pipeline that starts in the elementary years. These systemic shifts are happening in public schools, charters, and independent schools. We expect the phrase "deeper learning" will continue to gain traction to describe the multifaceted outcomes of project-based learning. Deeper learning gets at the increased academic rigor called for in the Common Core State Standards, but it doesn't stop there. It's also about preparing young people to be good citizens, developing their sense of agency. What's more, deeper learning involves the habits of mind, dispositions, and skills like collaboration that are reinforced through PBL.

FLIPPING CREATES NEW TEACHING OPPORTUNITIES
Flipped learning is more than just an efficient way to teach. It is also an opportunity to take students to deeper levels of comprehension and engagement. One of the most important benefits of flipped learning is that it takes the instructor away from the front of the room. No longer is class focused on information dissemination, but instead, time can be spent helping students with difficult concepts and extending the learning to deeper levels. Perhaps the greatest benefit of flipped learning is that it gives instructors more time to interact with students one-to-one and in small groups. Instructors are using the time that was once used for direct instruction in a variety of ways to deepen student learning. Jon Bergmann offers three tips on how you can use the extra time you create in classrooms by using a flipped active learning method to enhance deeper learning.

STUDENT RETENTION TAKES A VILLAGE
In the research article Promoting Persistence and Success of Underrepresented Students: Lessons for Teaching and Learning by Kinzie, Gonyea, Shoup, and Kuh, the authors note that new students tend to benefit from early interventions and sustained attention during the first year in terms of their academic performance. They go on to say that it is wise to send clear messages to students through precollege mentoring programs and sustained interactions with faculty and staff through out the first year about the value of engagement and what students who succeed do on this particular campus. All educators need to coach students in the development of expected study habits. Experiences early in the first year set in place patterns of behavior that will endure over students' years in college. Many of you have spoken to me about the problem of not having students come to your office for advice. This article suggests that we build in advising and teaching study skills as part of our class time. Offering general advising tips at the beginning and end of each class can have a profound impact on student persistence and retention. You can find the complete article here or in New Directions for Teaching and Learning (#115) fall 2008 which includes other articles about student retention.

HOW DOES YOUR TEACHING TOOLKIT LOOK
Professional development opportunities for October include today's Blackboard Series and next Thursday's Active Learning and Engagement workshop. Yesterday's Mid-Day Musings gathering was filled with lively discussion on the topic of civility. Using several recent articles about the topic, which is trending nationally, helped to set the tone for our local discussion. Turning our own experiences into teachable opportunities was one of the outcomes that the participants seemed to rally around. Many of the participants discussed how they use the topic of civility in their classes in hopes of helping their students become critical thinkers and active participants in the community. One of the best active learning methods is the use of debate to expose your students to complex issues. There are still a few spots for today's Blackboard session and registration is ongoing for the workshop on October 30. All of these events are sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center.

ADDING PATHWAYS FOR COMPLETION
Have you heard about the Ability to Benefit rule? It allowed students who lacked either a high school diploma or its equivalent (usually a GED) to get into college if they could demonstrate the ability to benefit through a test score. But the rule was repealed by the U.S. Congress. Now, there is a move to bring it back. Matt Read's blog which appears on the Inside Higher Ed website provides more details about this additional pathway.

USING BLACKBOARD TOOLS TO LIGHTEN YOUR TEACHING LOAD
For many of us, using Blackboard for the basics (posting grades, attendance, syllabus) is about all we do. But there are so many other ways to exploit the great tools on Blackboard to make our teaching less stressful. The Blackboard Professional Development Series continues with a workshop on October 23. We will gather at 1:00 pm in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Building/Mid City Campus) to learn from eLearning Program Manager Susan Nealy about the wonders of Blackboard. Reserve your spot now before you leave for your fall holidays. Then bring your questions to the workshop next Thursday and get ready to be amazed.

INSPIRATION FOR A MATH COLLEAGUE
Sometimes we need some inspiration to keep our energy levels high for our students. This story by Jessica Lahey in the Atlantic does just that for me. She has written about Dr. Steven Strogatz, Professor of Mathematics at Cornell, and his quest to right the wrongs of bad math teachers in your past. She asked him why a veteran professor of higher math choose to spend a semester in the company of undergraduates, many of whom would rather visit the dentist than spend two hours a week exploring mathematical concepts. The short answer is that Strogatz has discovered a certain thrill in rectifying the crimes and misdemeanors of math education. Strogatz asks his students, more than half of them seniors, to provide a “mathematical biography.” Their stories reveal unpleasant experiences with math along the way. Rather than question the quality of the teaching they received, they blamed math itself—or worse, their own intelligence or lack of innate talent. Strogatz loves the challenge, “There's something remarkable about working with a group of students who think they hate math or find it boring, and then turning them around, even just a little bit.”

ACTIVE METHOD THAT IMPROVES LEARNING
An article by Drs. J. Nestojko, D. Bui, N. Kornell, and E. Bjork that recently appeared in the journal Memory and Cognition, declares that students learn things better when they think they are going to have to teach the material. The research paper reports that fifty-six undergrads were split into two groups. One group were told that they had 10 minutes to study a 1500-word passage about fictional depictions of The Charge of The Light Brigade, and that they would be tested on it afterwards. The other group were similarly given 10 minutes to study the text, but they were told that afterwards they would have to teach the content to another student. Neither group was allowed to take notes. In fact, 25 minutes after the study period was over, both groups were tested on the passage. Specifically they had to recall as much information as possible from the article, and then they faced specific questions about the content. The students who thought they were going to teach the material recalled more facts from the text, and they did so more quickly. They showed a specific advantage for the main points in the text, and their recall was also better organized, tending to reflect the structure of the original text. This active learning method could be adapted to almost any course at BRCC. Let me know if you try it.

ACADEMIC ADVISING FRONT AND CENTER
Academic advising discussions are probably still occurring after the past two days of professional development opportunities. Tuesday we heard from the professional development workshop panel that included Dr. Mary Boudreaux, Wendy Devall, Vinetta Frie, Brandy Gros, Lisa Hibner, and Jeanne Stacy. Each panelist brought a different aspect of expertise to the academic advising discussion held in the Teaching+Learning Center. The participants included academic advising staff, senior and new faculty who were more than willing to engage in serious discussions about the need for better advising as a deterrent for low retention rates. One of the main takeaways was agreement that a cohesive, consistent approach to academic advising would improve our persistence and graduation rates. The conversation continued on Wednesday at the Mid-Day Musings in the faculty and staff dining room of the Bienvenue Building. A different group gathered to discuss the merits of engaging students in conversation about their future. Many of the participants found the pre-session short video interview with Dr. Daniel Chambliss, who wrote How Colleges Work, to be very useful. The main takeaway from Wednesday's session was the importance of being engaged and making connections with our students regardless of your position. Research indicates that often a connection with anyone at the college, not just instructors or counselors, leads to student success and greater persistence rates. The advising handbook is close to being completed and will be distributed shortly. We also plan to post a list of some of the questions and answers from Tuesday's session on the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Faculty Development Community discussion board.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING IMPROVES CRITICAL THINKING ABILITY
Dr. James A. Griesemer has written an interesting article about the use of active, cooperative learning and how it can enhance student success. He writes, "Incorporating active, cooperative quality learning exercises in a course requires instructors to modify their teaching strategy in a number of important ways but the most critical is their roles as educator, mentor, and facilitator. Research confirms the effectiveness of active, cooperative learning. Compared to students taught with conventional methods, cooperatively taught students tend to exhibit better grades as well as better analytical, creative, and critical thinking skills among other traits. Both instructors and students reported numerous benefits of incorporating active, cooperative learning quality exercises into an undergraduate operations/supply chain management course." Read more.

IMPACTING THE PERSISTENCE RATE
As the nation becomes increasingly focused on improving college completion rates, policy makers, practitioners, and scholars are calling for renewed efforts to help students succeed (e.g., Lumina Foundation, 2009). Central to these plans is the promotion of postsecondary access and opportunity, as well as the improvement of persistence and completion rates. College student persistence, in particular, is a necessary condition for social mobility, bridging access and attainment. We are well aware of a renewed focus on persistence and completion at BRCC and we have implemented interventions intended to improve our rates in both categories. Drs. Gregory C. Wolniak, Matthew J. Mayhew, and Mark E. Engberg have written a paper based on their research in this area and published in the Journal of Higher Education. They note, "Several key areas inform our understanding of students’ likelihood of persisting after the first year of college. These areas consist of student demographics and socioeconomic status, precollege academics, college choice and financial aid, institutional characteristics, the role of academic and social integration, and college grades. Persisting students reported higher levels of academic and social integration during their first year of college in areas related to exposure to quality teaching, frequency of faculty contact, peer interactions, and cocurricular involvement, while also demonstrating greater average scores on three of the five measures of assessed student learning (leadership, need for cognition, and content mastery). Alternatively, compared to nonpersisting students, a smaller share of persisters obtained financial aid in the form of federal grants."

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IDEAS THAT WORK
Drs. Ned Zepke and Linda Leach offer us some great engagement approaches in their article Improving Student Engagement: Ten Proposals for Action that appeared in Active Learning in Higher Education. The authors propose definitions broad enough to include more specific descriptions. For example: engagement is “students’ cognitive investment in, active participation in, and emotional commitment to their learning.” Or, engagement is “students’ involvement with activities and conditions likely to generate high-quality learning.” Two of their top ten ideas include the following. Enable students to work autonomously, enjoy learning relationships with others, and feel they are competent to achieve their own objectives — “When institutions provide opportunities for students to learn both autonomously and with others, and to develop their sense of competence, students are more likely to be motivated, to engage and succeed.” Maryellen Weimer says that the focus here is on cultivating intrinsic motivation, which fosters the self-determination that leads to engagement. Zepke and Leach also suggest that we 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.” You can take a look at the full article here.

ACADEMIC ADVISING ON TAP
Many of you have asked that we offer a faculty professional development workshop on academic advising and here it is. Join us for Focus on Academic Advising: Bring on the Questions on Tuesday, October 7 at 1:00 pm. The workshop will include a panel of discussants led by CSSK Assistant Professor Vinetta Frie and Career Center Director Lisa Hibner and will be held in room 311 Magnolia Building (Mid City Campus). This workshop is sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center. Registration is now open.

CLARITY OF EXPECTATIONS IMPROVES RETENTION
As the How Learning Works Faculty Learning Community enters its sixth week, they wanted to share a retention tip related to what types of practice and feedback enhance student learning. FLC members include Jo Dale Ales, Gabriel Aluko, Pearce Cinman, Gery Frie, Vinetta Frie, Wes Harris, Steven Keeten, Jennifer Linscott, Divina Miranda, Todd Pourciau, and Kate Schexnayder. Research has shown that learning and performance are best fostered when students engage in practice that focuses on a specific goal or criterion for performance, targets an appropriate level of challenge relative to students' current performance, and is of sufficient quantity and frequency to meet the performance criteria. The book's authors (including Susan Amrose, et. al.) suggest that we be very specific about our goals in our course material. They note without specific goals for the course as a whole or for individual assignments, students often rely on their assumptions to decide how they should spend their time. This makes it all the more important to articulate your goals clearly (in your course syllabus and with each specific assignment), so students know what your expectations are and can use them to guide their practice. Students are more likely to use the goals to guide their practice when the goals are stated in terms of what students should be able to do at the end of an assignment or the course. The next Faculty Learning Community will use Ken Bain's book What the Best College Teachers Do and begins on October 24. If you would like to participate, please contact Academic Support Specialist Barbara Linder at linderb@mybrcc.edu or 216.8228.

BRCC AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE
The Mid-Day Musings gathering today was wonderful, filled with terrific insight and words of wisdom. As we began to grapple with the idea of race relations and social movements, an idea emerged about BRCC being the agent of change in our community. Because of the racial and economic diversity at our college, we have a unique opportunity to effect change. The participants discussed and suggested methods that could be used in the classroom to start the process. One of the main ideas was that each of us as faculty should do something that asks our students to confront their racial and cultural biases. We should cause them to think about the baggage they arrive with and how that effects their lives and their community. Another idea that found support concerned the mission of BRCC. Many of the participants have embraced the idea that we are here to build a viable middle-class. There was also discussion about the concept of what middle-class means in this time. The participants spent a considerable amount of time on the issue that class has become just as important as race in many of our social experiences. At the end of the gathering, many of the participants felt that this topic should be revisited. Mid-Day Musings is one of the many faculty development programs sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center. The next Mid-Day Musings will take place on Wednesday, October 8 at noon. Look for the topic in your email on October 6 and feel free to send your ideas for topics to pourciaut@mybrcc.edu. In case you missed it, here are some of the articles we used to frame our discussion (Diversity Matters, Pronoun Preference, College Presidents, Colorblind Notion)

TEACHING WRITING IN YOUR CLASS
Join us tomorrow for Writing Center Specialist Natalie Smith's faculty development workshop on writing across the curriculum. Based on your requests, she will present her approaches that lead to student success. She will also share information about the student success resources offered by the Writing Center and the Academic Learning Center. There is still time to register for the workshop that begins at 1:00 p.m. in 311 Magnolia. This faculty development workshop is sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center. For more information, contact Natalie Smith at smithn@mybrcc.edu or Academic Support Specialist Barbara Linder at linderb@mybrcc.edu.

USING TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE STUDENT SUCCESS
If you enjoyed the Tech Tuesday Tip you received in your email yesterday, you will want to register for the faculty development workshop set for Tuesday, September 30. eLearning Program Manager Susan Nealy will be joined by Innovative Learning and Academic Support Dean Todd Pourciau and a representative from Blackboard to share what is coming in the next version. We will also be discussing more active learning interventions like the tip from yesterday. This professional development workshop is sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center and will be held in the Louisiana Building's Boardroom. Registration is open now.

HOW TO ASSESS STUDENT PARTICIPATION
Have you ever struggled with determining what student participation looks like and how to assign a grade for it? Carolyn Ives, Curriculum Planning and Development Coordinator at the Centre for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence at MacEwan University, has written an informative article that may clarify things for you. She writes, "So, then, how can instructors facilitate student engagement and helpful participation? There are a few strategies that can help such as the creation of a supportive classroom environment that is skillfully facilitated and discussion-based, the creation of clear expectations around student preparation and student roles in the classroom, and creating student buy-in. All of these strategies are helpful, but the most useful method I have found to evaluate student participation is the inclusion of formative assessment techniques in my classes. Formative assessment may take a variety of forms (such as practice quizzes, one-minute papers, clearest/muddiest point exercises, various kinds of group work in the class, etc.), but it provides students with opportunities to practice skills or test knowledge in a “safe” way.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ON SEPTEMBER 25
The next faculty development workshop sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center occurs on Thursday, September 15 at 1:00 pm. Natalie Smith, writing center specialist, will present an interactive session focused on how you can help your students improve their writing even if you don't happen to teach an English course. She is also interested in hearing from you about other issues that may occur in your classes related to student success and writing impediments. There is still time to register. This event will be held in the T+LC (room 311 Magnolia Building).

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT FOR LOUISIANA
Louisiana hasn’t made much progress in the past seven years in a national assessment of educational achievement, according to an article in the Shreveport Times. In its “Leaders and Laggards” report, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranks Louisiana as the second-worst laggard, at the bottom of all 50 states but ahead of the District of Columbia. Louisiana has grades of F in 5 of 11 categories. The most damning are Fs in academic achievement and academic achievement for low-income and minority students in its 2014 report. The state received a D for its efforts to improve overall academic achievement in 2007 and a B for its efforts to improve academic achievement for low-income and minority students. The academic scores are based on the National Assessment of Education Progress, a standardized exam administered across the nation on which Louisiana students traditionally perform poorly. The study used 2011 results.

FACULTY GATHER FOR CIVIL DISCOURSE
The first Mid-Day Musings attracted a nice group and the conversation was rich and filled with great ideas. The question of the day was "What Should We Be Telling Our Students At Orientation?" The focus was on having consistency between what the students hear in the orientation sessions and what they are hearing, seeing and experiencing in their classes. Part of the conversation was about how we present ourselves as an institution. "It is important that we share the benefits of attending a community college as opposed to entering a 4-year school right out of high school. We need to compliment our students on making a good choice. Share the data that shows them that students who start here do very well when they transfer," said one participant. Most of the participants agreed that orientation would be very impactful if it was presented by our students. "Having student testimonials would be powerful. Having a student talk about the top ten insider tips of how to succeed at BRCC would be great as well," said another participant. We also spent some time talking about how we can attract more students who have spent some time working or raising a family and now want to return to college. "What they care about is very different from what a typical 18 year old cares about. Catering to this group of students could prove beneficial as I have found them to be very motivated and focused and their presence can help some of the younger students in the class," said another participant. We will gather again on September 24 at noon in the Bienvenue faculty dining room. Please plan to join us then and watch your email for the next topic.

DAILY EXPERT STRATEGY FOR LARGE CLASSES
Dr. Angi Thompson has written an interesting article on how you can encourage student participation in large classes. She writes, "If you’re interested in approaches that encourage students to participate in class and develop their public-speaking skills, as well as techniques that help you learn student names, then my “daily experts” strategy may be of use to you. What are daily experts? I list five or six students’ names on a PowerPoint slide at the beginning of my classes (which are typically 65-150 students). These individuals, assuming they are in class that day, then become my daily experts—the first ones I ask questions to or opinions of before opening discussion to the whole class. The approach provides for one-on-one dialogue in the midst of a larger class creating an environment that encourages interaction." She goes on to explain the benefits of using this active learning method for the students, faculty and the rest of the class.

THE ARTS OF LIBERTY
Did you know that liberal arts is the single most popular major at community colleges in the United States? Take a look at Dr. Matt Reeds blog post about this fascinating fact. He notes, "I mention this because it’s almost entirely absent from national discussions of higher education. In the popular press, 'liberal arts' are assumed to be the exclusive province of the affluent, particularly at older small colleges that are full of people who use words like 'problematize.' (I attended one myself, so I know whereof I write.)  When higher ed policy types talk about liberal arts, they usually have in mind literature majors at places like Sarah Lawrence. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but it’s only a part of the picture." It is also the largest major at BRCC but some of that is because of things that Reed writes about in his blog. With the recent completion of "Concentration Week" it will be interesting to see if things have changed for us.

LARGER CLASSES CREATE OPPORTUNITIES
Many of us have more students in our classes this semester. That provides us with a great opportunity to try some different active learning methods that we might not have been able to use with smaller groups. One method, team-based learning (TBL), is a natural for larger classes because it breaks students down into small groups for learning. The key components for TBL include permanent teams, readiness assurance, application activities, and peer evaluation. The University of Texas faculty development center has a great video explaining the concepts although you need to remember that a large class for them is a lot bigger than us and usually starts at 150 students. TBL teachers report high levels of student attendance, preparation, participation and critical thinking. TBL students report being more motivated and enjoying class more, even when the subject is not in their major. Please visit the online resource library posted in the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Faculty Development community for more resources about active learning and managing large classes. You can also make suggestions to help your colleagues on the community discussion board. As always, let us know how the Teaching+Learning Center can help.

WHAT DO YOU THINK
Based on suggestions from you, we are offering a new faculty development opportunity. It is called Mid-Day Musings and will meet on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month at noon. We plan to gather in the faculty dining room of the Bienvenue Building, which allows you to grab lunch and bring it with you. The Monday before the gathering, we will send an email announcing the topic for the week. Again, we are looking to you for ideas so if you have something that you think will generate an inspiring discussion, please send it to pourciaut@mybrcc.edu. Registration is now open. We hope to see you this coming Wednesday for the first Mid-Day Musings gathering.

INTEGRATING WRITING INTO YOUR COURSE
The next faculty development workshop will be held on September 25 and the topic is Writing Across the Curriculum. Writing Specialist Natalie Smith, who directs the Academic Learning Center's student support services for writing, will deliver a powerful, informative workshop building on her teaser presentation at the Faculty Development Kickoff last month. She will cover a number of topics including how you can integrate writing into your classes and the different types of writing used in our courses. Since she is also an adjunct faculty member who teaches English, she will offer valuable insights about the BRCC student profile. Be one of the first to register for this workshop and look for more details as the date approaches.

KNOWING WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW
If it is the beginning of the fall semester, then it is time for Beloit College to issue its annual "Mind Set" list to "remind professors and administrators that their experiences are very different from those of the students who are starting off in higher ed (at least those who are coming straight from high school)." One item on the list that really stood out for me is "During their initial weeks of kindergarten, they were upset by endlessly repeated images of planes blasting into the World Trade Center." That sounds like a great teachable moment. I am certainly going to try to create a learning experience around this event. If nothing else, I think it is a great conversation starter to enhance my engagement with them. Another that caught my eye is "Women have always been dribbling, and occasionally dunking, in the WNBA." As the father of three daughters, I have to admit this made me feel somewhat better about our society. Now let's take a look at the salary inequity between our WNBA and NBA stars. As I enter my thirty-third year in higher education, I have seen a lot of change as well. Remember when there wasn't even an IT person, much less an IT department? Do you remember how protective you were of the font balls for the IBM typewriters and how we could never seem to part with the last one just in case? I also remember sitting in the LSU Assembly Center (now known as the Pete Maravich Assembly Center or PMAC) trying to convince students to take one of my computer punch cards for biochemistry. Most of them didn't even know what biochemistry was and they did not see it as an elective option. No problem; they came around when everything else was full. While nostalgia is fun, I am glad that we have seen such great inventions as the personal computer, cell phone, and Wi-Fi. It has certainly made our lives easier as faculty and made it simpler for our students to get the information they need. What do you think?

GAMES HELP STUDENTS LEARN
Do you use games to teach in your courses or have you ever wanted to learn how? James Lang has written an interesting article about just that for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Lang tells us about Reacting to the Past, a teaching methodology pioneered by Mark Carnes at Barnard College in the 1990’s, and now spreading rapidly across higher education RTTP assigns students roles in historical-simulation games in order to encourage intensive reading of complex texts, help students develop core intellectual skills (writing, speaking, thinking), and motivate them to take a deep approach to their learning. Although these games were initially developed for history courses, they now span the disciplines, in fields as varied as political science and chemistry. Faculty members and students play simulation games at institutions of every type, from community colleges to research universities. To learn more visit the RTTP website for information about existing games and those in development.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT ON TAP
Thank you to all of the faculty who participated in the Faculty Development Kickoff on August 21. I have tried to tailor that event to your specifications and always appreciate feedback on how we can better meet your needs. At your suggestion, we moved the event up a day from last year to give you more time to implement changes in your courses. I hope that you were able to add a few new tools to your teaching toolkit and I appreciate the enthusiasm and participation that many of you displayed that day. The Mentoring Program Kickoff will occur on Thursday, August 28 at 1:00 pm in the Teaching+Learning Center (T+LC). All mentors and mentees should have received an invitation for this meeting. On Friday at noon, we begin the first of two faculty learning communities planned for this semester. The How Learning Works FLC still has room for one or two more participants. Contact Academic Support Specialist Barbara Linder (linderb@mybrcc.edu or at 216.8228) to sign up. In addition, the first faculty development workshop of the semester takes place on Tuesday, September 2 at 1:00 pm in the T+LC (311 Magnolia). The topic is Designing Assessment That Measures Learning and will focus on testing, assessment, alignment, and more. Join the conversation by registering now.

UNDERSTANDING LEARNER-CENTERED APPROACHES
Catharine F. Bishop, Michael I. Caston, and Cheryl A. King have a recently published article that is helpful in understanding the term learner-centered and how to create an environment conducive to learning. They wrote, "Learner-Centered Teaching (LCT)has been an effective approach for enhancing the learning experience for students in higher education. A LCT approach means subjecting multiple teaching actions (method, assignment, or assessment) to the test of a single question: Given the context of my students, course and classroom, will this teaching action optimize my students’ opportunity to learn?. To be specific, the classroom for a learner-centered environment is quite different from traditional classrooms. Students are required to take on new learning roles and responsibilities beyond taking notes, listening to teachers teach, and passing exams. It is an environment that allows students to take some real control over their educational experience and encourages them to make important choices about what and how they will learn." They go on to list a number of interventions and approaches that can move a classroom from a coverage-model to learner-centered. The article appears in the latest version of the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Access is free but you do have to register.

USE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TO CHECK FOR REAL-TIME LEARNING
We all know that formative assessment tools are important to our ability to determine if learning is occurring during a lesson. We usually use it to determine if we are ready to move to a more advanced or new topic. Here are a few examples of formative assessment tools you can use in your classes everyday. Having your students write a brief summary of the learning experience (or reading if you gave them an assignment before class) is always a great way to measure learning but you can also get creative and ask them to write a poem using a set number of key terms or have them create it from the information they highlighted in the reading. This tells you immediately if they learned how to differentiate between what is important from all of the other material. They can also do this using a class journal, which is a great way for them to measure their growth throughout the semester. You can also ask them to write a quiz based on the new material, have them select one of the short-answer type questions and reply to it. This gives you some idea of what their expectations are related to assessment and the short answers will give you a good indication if learning occurred. You can ask them to create a public service announcement using the new information which requires them to not only understand the new material but to be able to apply it and explain it to others. They can also write a letter to someone explaining the new information or write to the author of the textbook outlining what they learned and what is still confusing. You could have them prepare to be a guest on a television show where they will be the expert on the new material. Ask them to prepare notes or pair them up and have one ask questions while the other answers them (having them alternate lets everyone play both parts). Finally, see if they can answer the question of what they learned by putting it into a Twitter format. Remind them that they are limited to 140 characters. This requires them to be focused and concise. If you have some favorite formative assessment tools, please share them with me and I will be sure to post them here.

STUDENT PREFERENCES FOR READING ASSIGNMENTS
Many of us struggle with having our students complete the assigned reading. Lola Aagaard, Timothy W. Conner II, and Ronald L. Skidmore provide us with a number of suggestions to make this task more likely to be completed in their new research article College Textbook Reading Assignments and Class Time Activity. They note, "Strategies reported to most likely prompt reading the textbook included in-class quizzes over text material, assigning graded study-guides to complete while reading; testing over material found in the textbook but not covered in class; and assigning shorter reading assignments. Preferences for use of class time varied by experience in college, but the majority of students preferred group discussion and application of material to real life rather than just lecture over the textbook content." The article can be found in the latest version of the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

SUCCESS AND SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
Mark Phillips has written a really interesting article for Eutopia about myths associated with education. His inspiration was a book by Drs. David Berliner and Gene Glass titled 50 Myths & Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools: The Real Crisis in Education. The book focuses on the U.S. public education system, but many of the myths apply equally to our own college students. Phillips put the myth that teachers are the most important influence on a child’s education as his number one. He writes, "Of course teachers are extremely important. Good teachers make a significant difference in achievement. But research indicates that less than 30 percent of a student's academic success is attributable to schools and teachers. The most significant variable is socioeconomic status, followed by the neighborhood, the psychological quality of the home environment, and the support of physical health provided." I understand his argument to mean that teachers are very important but part of a larger system that can include many impediments that a student and teacher must overcome for teaching and learning to occur. I am familiar with Dr. Berliner's work and have seen him present a number of sessions at the annual American Educational Research Association. I am anxious to read the entire book. Let me know what you think of the list and the book.

COMMUNITY COLLEGES PROVIDE A WAY UP
The Wall Street Journal ran an article this weekend that proclaims that economic mobility is alive and well for Americans who pursue technical or practical training. That is a fact that we are well aware of at BRCC and hopefully we are continuing to make sure that our course content is relevant in preparing a workforce-ready graduate. Tamar Jacoby writes, "Americans have a host of postsecondary options other than a four-year degree—associate degrees, occupational certificates, industry certifications, apprenticeships. Many economists are bullish about the prospects of what they call "middle-skilled" workers. In coming years, according to some, at least a third and perhaps closer to half of all U.S. jobs will require more than high school but less than four years of college—and most will involve some sort of technical or practical training." The future is indeed bright for BRCC and our sister schools of LCTCS.

ARE YOU A GOOD TEACHER
How would you describe good teaching? Ben Johnson recently joined an online discussion about that topic. He remarked, "My experience is that good teachers care about students. Good teachers know the content and know how to explain it. Good teachers expect and demand high levels of performance of students. Good teachers are great performers and storytellers that rivet their students' attention. Great teachers engineer learning experiences that maneuver the students into the driver's seat and then the teachers get out of the way. Students learn best by personally experiencing learning that is physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. John Dewey had it right in 1935 when he espoused his theories on experiential learning. Today we call this constructivism" Many of the things he had to say echo what you will find in the pages of Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do, a book that we used as a common reader in the fall 2013 semester (and plan to use again this fall). So do you think the comments above describe you? Although I aspire to be what Johnson and Bain have described and challenge myself through critical self-reflection, I know it is a journey that we are all called as teachers to make.

SEND AN EMAIL, CHANGE A LIFE
The numerous students we are seeing at the orientation sessions this summer tells me we are going to have a very busy fall semester. We have been stressing to all of the incoming students that the key to success is preparation. While you have some time, why not sift through your class lists from the spring semester and identify some students who could benefit from the College Success Skills class we offer. An email from you could be just the inspiration they need to take better control of their academic career. As we continue to focus on student success strategies that work, I encourage you to try some intrusive advising.

MULTIFACETED MISSION IS HARD TO MEASURE
Dr. Peter Riley Bahr has developed a new way to classify community colleges based on their use by students. As it is important for us to understand patterns like this to fully understand and prepare to meet the Grad Act benchmarks, I encourage you to read the full article that appeared in the Research in Higher Education journal (June 2013).  Bahr writes, "The implementation of performance accountability systems for community colleges is complicated by the multifaceted mission of these institutions. This mission often is divided into the three categories of workforce development, upward transfer to four-year institutions, and community education. In addition, it is not uncommon for a fourth category to be mentioned, though the specifics vary. Some argue that the fourth category is remediation, while others suggest that it is general education.”

ACTIVE LEARNING IMPROVES STUDENT SUCCESS
Active learning is most commonly defined as several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning on learners. To enhance learning, teaching must encourage students to do more than just listen: they must read, write, discuss, and be engaged in solving problems. We are currently working on updating the Active Learning Manual but the current version is still available and we will forward a copy to you if you send us an email request (pourciaut@mybrcc.edu). A recent article in Faculty Focus extolled the virtues of the one-minute paper, an active learning standard. Problem-based learning is another good active learning technique that can be used by any discipline. The aforementioned article notes, "Case studies are a form of problem-based learning that encourage the student to think critically and apply “book knowledge” to everyday practice and problems that will occur in the workplace. A literature review reveals very little research on using case studies in fields other than health, law, and business. However, case studies could certainly be written for any field of study." You can also use video in your courses to promote active learning. Whether you are just getting started in the active learning realm or have moved far to the right of the continuum mid-point, there is always room for improvement. I have found that as I use some of the suggested active learning methods, new ideas begin to emerge. Sometimes the students themselves suggest new ideas.

MASTERY GOALS PROMOTE MOTIVATION
Mariale Hardiman and Glenn Whitman have written a really interesting piece about assessment and the learning brain. The article starts out by noting, "Research on the connection between motivation and learning has focused on two types of mindsets that students develop, based on the kind of experiences (including assessments) we present them with in school. Students tend to develop either performance-related goals or mastery goals (Ames & Archer). Performance-related goals are those linked to more traditional types of assessments. Students become motivated by the grades they achieve, their rankings compared to other students, and extrinsic rewards such as honor rolls or school awards. In contrast, students who develop mastery goals are motivated by the actual learning experiences. Their rewards arise from the challenges of acquiring and applying new knowledge and skills. While students may possess a combination of both types of goals, those motivated primarily by performance goals tend to lose motivation and confidence when faced with difficult academic challenges or when set back by failures. In contrast, students who are motivated by mastery goals are more likely to persevere in the face of such challenges. Difficult tasks or setbacks do not diminish their motivation or self-esteem (Pintrich; Grant & Dweck). Students with mastery goals mindsets are more likely to choose more difficult but rewarding ways to demonstrate learning."

I CAN SEE THAT
Do you see pictures in your head as you are reading? Dr. Mark Sadoski has a solid article outlining the research he did on mental imagery. He notes, "The mental imagery that we experience while reading, either spontaneously or induced by instruction, is now known to have powerful effects on comprehension, memory, and appreciation for text. This may seem self-evident today, but it was not long ago that purely language-based theories of cognition and memory prevailed. If imagery was recognized at all, it was held to be incidental and of little importance." The article goes on to provide some relevant research that, while not comprehensive, is extremely thorough and the implications include a suggestion that we might want to use imagery in our assessment of learning.

EXPAND YOUR TECHNOLOGY TOOLKIT
The summer break (for some of us) is always a good time to upgrade your technology resources. Are you looking for an easy way to create a game or short video? You should check out ClassTools. Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Do you enjoy the Ted Talks as much as I do? Visit this website to discover how you can use the material in the presentations to help your students learn. Looking for videos that you can use in your face-to-face classes or perhaps to post on your Blackboard site as part of a flipped lesson? Take a look at what PBS has to offer.

FINDING GOLD IN JERSEY
I am very excited to be one of the select few that will be heading to New Jersey to participate in Ken Bain's last Best Teachers Summer Institute later this week. Judging by the pre-conference homework (Dr. Bain's version of flipping), this promises to be an exceptional learning event. I wanted to share just a small sliver of what we are working on before coming together as a group. Dr. Bain has asked us to do some critical self-reflection (one of my favorite topics) and to specifically look at how we construct our syllabi. He asks, "how can a colleague develop a sense of you as a scholar by examining the various features of your course?" I hope that you do what I did when I saw that question and that is, quickly pull up one of your syllabi and begin to deconstruct it to determine the answer to this brilliant question. If our syllabi are truly the guiding documents for our partnerships with our students, shouldn't they reflect our teaching philosophy, our passion for the subject matter, and what we think is most important for student learning? In the same way, the assessment instruments we indicate on our syllabi are also telling an interesting story. I hope to bring back much more of this type of faculty development from the conference and am sure that our programming for the 2014-15 academic year will be shaped by what happens this week.

CRITICAL THINKING IN AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT
Drs. S. Michael Putman, Karen Ford, and Susan Tancock have written an interesting article about enhancing critical thinking abilities using discussion boards in online classes. They write, "The asynchronous online discussion (AOD) is a communicative tool that has been observed to promote “a level of reflective interaction often lacking in a face-to-face, teacher-centered classroom.” Inherent within successful AODs is the use of meaningful discourse to facilitate critical engagement with the content that is the focus of the experience. Numerous studies have shown that effective AODS produce an increased level of cognitive thinking and knowledge construction within participants. Potential for these outcomes were maximized when learning objectives were linked to real-life experiences within moderately complex tasks. Participants in the AODs were more effectively able to understand the applicability of the content within the greater context of learning. Knowledge development increased as participants shared information regarding their beliefs and experiences. Critically engaging with and reflecting on content prior to sharing was theorized to account for differences." They encourage the use of "facilitative Prompts" to fully realize the effects of online discussion.

BOREDOM BLOCKERS
Boredom is one of the most common complaints among university students, with studies suggesting its link to poor grades, drop out, and behavioral problems according to an article by Drs. Steven J. Kass, Stephen J. Vodanovich, and Jasmine Y. Khosrav. They note that "Boredom proneness was found to be significantly and negatively related to course grade and measures of satisfaction." They conclude that "students need and desire the opportunity to use the variety of skills learned in class. Putting these skills into practice allows students to see the connection between what they learned and the context within which it is applied , thus increasing satisfaction and internal motivation which they may demonstrate through greater class attendance and engagement. Students may also benefit by allowing them to make their own decisions and develop individualized approaches (i.e., autonomy) to completing coursework. Consistent with many different theories on training and learning, students must be provided with in formative feedback to help direct efforts toward accomplishing their goals." Certainly another reason to look at experiential learning and the use of problem-based situations in our courses.

TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF
We are already in the second week of class for the summer term and the campus is alive with teaching and learning. We are also seeing a good number of students who will begin their academic careers in the fall and their excitement level is very contagious. For those teaching during the summer (and the rest of us on break), I want to encourage you to journal throughout the semester. Critical self-reflection is crucial to any attempt to improve your teaching and add to your toolkit. The academic support staff is hard at work in the Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support and we stand ready to assist you with your teaching and learning needs. If you are looking for some summer reading, I want to recommend Ken Bain's classic What The Best College Teachers Do. Remember to keep calm and be engaged.

THE EFFECT OF FAIRNESS
There was an interesting research study published in the April 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience about how the brain responds to fairness. Using MRI scanners, Dr. Ryuta Akoi's team found that when people are offered the sames choices, they report being happier and their bran scans showed increased activity in the area called ventromedial prefrontal cortex. So how would you apply these findings in your classroom? I immediately thought of the awkward situation when students ask for extra credit work. It was validating to see that the explanation I always use related to the fairness of extra credit work is a good choice. By explaining to your students that your strategy to treat everyone fairly and equally will actually work to your advantage and leaves the student feeling satisfied.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR TEACHING STYLE
Reading a recent column by Dr. Neil Haave about teaching philosophies and how they are usually developed made me think about learning styles. Although there is not a consensus on the matter of learning styles, most educationalists agree that students do use different methods to learn. Dr. Haave pointed out that many of us also teach using the method that we find most useful to our own learning. So it begs the question, do you know your own learning style preference? Have you ever taken one of the many online tests to determine your bias? I encourage you to take that step, especially if you are asking your students to determine how they learn best (and you should be). Learning about learning (or metacognition) should be a learning outcome for everyone's class. Let me know what you discover about yourself.

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?

COLLEGE SUCCESS SKILLS THAT WORK
With no classes scheduled for the next two weeks, things should be slowing down at BRCC, right? Not so, because this is traditionally a time for graduating high school seniors to start their college orientation process. We have held a number of sessions already with more to come. I was asked to participate and give the orientation crowds a ten minute version of how to succeed in college. Impossible you say? Not really, I say and here is part of what I tell them. College and high school are different. The clearest way to send this message is to talk about the 80/20 and 20/80 rule. In high school 80 percent of the information students learned came from the teacher. That means that 80 percent of what a student may need to pass a test is being provided in carefully crafted learning experiences that do not require any active learning to occur. In college, that role is (or should be) reversed. Students must realize that their professor will provide about 20 percent of what they need to be successful in the course. The rest of the information needs to come from other reliable sources like textbooks, journal articles, personal research, and most importantly, application of the basic knowledge. This process, usually described as critical thinking, is what sets the college experience apart from high school. So how do we get our student to shift from the 80/20 to the active learning model? First by having them understand the difference by talking about it and having them think about it. Next, talk about the college experience, your expectations, and the effort that is required to be successful (or strongly encourage them to take the College Success Skills class that we offer). Finally, talk about how the college experience and the approach they learn to apply here will benefit them for the the rest of their lives. The "real world" requires them to think critically, write well, and work with others. These are all of the skills they learn in college. At the end of my presentation at orientation, I challenge the incoming students to begin to write their own story. I ask them, "Who do they want to be and how will they get there?" I close by reminding them that making the decision to come to college infinitely increases the chance that their future will be bright.

EXPECTATIONS VERSUS ABILITIES
In a classic survey of campus faculty, Browne and Osborne noted a large discrepancy between faculty expectations for incoming students and incoming students’ perceptions of their own abilities. In particular, faculty expect college students to: critically think, manage their time, monitor their own stress levels, solve problems, clearly articulate what they do and do not know, and prioritize tasks so more important tasks are afforded more time. In this same poll, however, first year students cited the following areas of weakness in their own preparation for college: poor time management skills, ineffective methods for coping with stress, frustration with communication abilities, and poorly developed critical thinking skills. It may not surprise you that this survey was released in 1998. So here we are sixteen years later and not much has changed. The good news, according to Browne and Orborne's research, is that the process of critical thinking can be taught and modeled well enough in one semester to initiate some long-term change. Even with a model for critical thinking in hand, however, student success is not guaranteed. Students need ongoing and frequent practice with applying the critical thinking model, and they need practice with applying the model in diverse ways. Discipline-specific applications on the process of critical thinking may be less effective in the long run than requiring students to implement critical thinking in ways that are relevant to their daily lives. As you begin to plan your learning experiences for next semester, remember to look for ways to help students develop their critical thinking skills. Take another look at the survey list above at the beginning of your next semester. If your class is filled with first-time students, who were most recently in high school, they may not have all the skills your expect. That means you have to change your approach but in the end it will create less frustration for you. Remember to keep calm and be engaged.

GO BACK IN TIME
Before you leave for the summer (if you have decided not to teach during the summer term), you might want to request a copy of the updated Active Learning Manual. It is filled with active learning strategies that can be used in any type of class. There are even some suggestions specific for those teaching in the online environment. You might also want to take another look at this post on active learning. Can you spot a good learner? Revisit this post and match the list with the students in your class who had success. Is the article validated by what you observed? If you are looking at a course redesign project over the summer, take a look at this information to help you stay focused.