The story about Dr. Carl Wieman in Inside Higher Ed is terrific. It begins, "As a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Carl Wieman could probably get away with being a mediocre teacher. Yet he’s devoted much of his career to improving the ways colleges and universities teach science, in his own classrooms and in one of the grandest experiments of his life: the multicampus Science Education Initiative. Wieman’s new book chronicles the latter effort and makes a strong, evidence-based case for pursuing broad changes in science instruction: out with lectures and in with active learning. It’s also an easily digested how-to guide for interested parties, including deans, department chairs and other faculty members. The project has major implications for administrators, too." I am looking forward to reading the book. As a proponent of active learning I am glad to see additional evidence-based results that prove its worth. You can read the entire article here. If you are interested in active learning, there is an abundance of information on this blog.

What skills did you possess as an undergraduate that made you successful? Who taught you about the methods you used to navigate college? Were you lucky enough to have a mentor? A recent discussion about our undergraduate experience made me take a new look at the current research about student mentoring. As expected, having a mentor increases a students chance to persist and graduate under the right circumstances. In Buffy Smith's Mentoring At-risk Students through the Hidden Curriculum of Higher Education, she notes three actions that mentors should do in order to help students including: (1) telling students what they should do (advising), (2) advocacy, defined as motivating and connecting students with individuals on campus, and (3) showing and empowering students how to acquire the highest degree of capital from the mentoring relationship (academic apprenticeship). Many institutions include mentoring as part of their first-generation programs. Joya Misra and Jennifer Lundquist provide a really nice overview of mentoring in their article for Inside Higher Ed. The article focuses on what faculty can do in the form of mentoring to help students succeed. One of the points they make is about the relationship itself as they note, "Individual faculty mentors also should recognize the backgrounds, resources and needs of their students, rather than assuming that students are all the same and have all of the resources they need. Students benefit from faculty mentors who see them as whole people. By recognizing who a student is beyond their role as a student, faculty members can develop trusting relationships with them."

A recent conversation with a colleague about problem-based learning (PBL) prompted me to take a look at the latest research on the topic. What I found is there is a lot of material and the research studies are very often giving what looks like conflicting results. A closer look however led me to understand that very often the context has a lot to do with whether PBL is beneficial to learners or not. If you are just jumping into PBL, John R. Savery has a nice overview with definitions that are helpful. One of the areas I am always interested in looking at is how to help learners develop their critical thinking abilities. It is one of the many topics we teach in the College Success Skills course and I often share with students that people who can solve problems will always find a job. Agnes Tiwari, Patrick Lai, Mike So, and Kwan Yuen tackle this issue in their study and found that PBL did aid in the development of critical thinking skills versus students who only received traditional lectures. Serkan Sendağa and H. Ferhan Odabas also found that using PBL in an online environment increases learners critical thinking skills. Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver found that using PBL methods can also improve learners collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation. Now you should be really intrigued and want to learn more about how you can implement PBL into your courses. Look for a follow-up post soon that will share some tips on how you can do just that. By the way, if you are already using PBL, be sure and post your comments so that we can all learn from your experiences.

Before adult learners will learn something, they often need to know why they need to learn it. That sounds really easy right? Just like you and me, understanding the relevance to our lives will cause us to focus more deeply on something. So translating that to our classroom makes great sense. Just develop and deliver learning experiences that have direct applicability and relevance to our student's lives. The other important concept to remember as we develop our curriculum is that adult learners are autonomous and self-directed. Now this may be where some of our student persistence issues begin to occur. If most of your students are first-timers and recent high school graduates, they are very much set in something we like to call the 80/20 model. Eighty percent of everything that happened to them in high school was delivered by their teachers. Books are free. The bell rings to change classes. The bus picks you up and takes you home. You get a study guide for all tests. So it is understandable that many of our students are expecting the same thing from us. But college is not high school in so many ways. So getting our students to not resist the college experience begins with that simple statement. Turn 80/20 on its ear and tell your students that it is time for them to begin to write their own future. Asking them questions like "what do you want to do with your life or what type of job are you hoping to find once you earn your academic credential" (degree/certificate/etc.) can begin to help them understand that college is the beginning of their adult life. Then have them create goals for themselves. Suggest they do this for each class, for the semester as a whole, and for the next 5 years of their lives. You should also remind them to revise them as the semester progresses. It is a subtle thing but it helps them to begin to understand that becoming a self-guided learner is the optimal goal. After all, once they complete college, they will still need to continue to build their knowledge base on their own. Holding this type of conversation during the first class session will certainly help our students to begin the semester moving in the right direction and should also improve our student persistence rates.

Our summer session starts on June 5 and as veterans will tell you, it moves quickly. Students accustomed to the (somewhat) more leisurely pace of fall and spring, usually underestimate the time they now have to stay current and fully prepare for assessments. This is an area where you as an instructor can really help. Spend some time in the first class session allowing your students to create a semester calendar. Remind them to mark off all of the dates when the big projects, tests, and presentations are due. Their calendar should also include the other events that require a lot of their time like jobs, possibly travel time, etc. In this way, they can begin to see the times when they are free to read, study, consolidate notes, or meet with a study group. Getting off to a quick start is paramount in semesters that have limited sessions. Please remind your students that there will be a sign-up table to join Study Groups for the summer in the Magnolia Building during the June 5-8 week from 9 am until 3 pm each day. If you need more information, please contact Academic Support Specialist Barbara Linder ( linderb@mybrcc.edu or 216.8228). Study groups can really provide that needed support during abbreviated semesters. Good luck on the upcoming semester.