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."