WE WANT YOUR OPINION
Faculty Learning Communities have proven to be a great way to deliver professional development at BRCC but the residual effect is even more impactful as colleagues share ideas discovered during the FLC sessions with office-mates and others. We are now planning for the next round of FLCs for the fall 2016 semester. If you have not yet participated in the survey to determine the best time and days to meet, I encourage you do it now. Besides being a great way to explore new pedagogy, you will inevitably make a connection with a colleague from another division that will quickly turn into a new friendship. Building community is just a lucky byproduct of FLCs. Look for more information about FLCs next week.

NEED A BRAIN TUNEUP?
Dr. Lori Desautels writes, "When presented with new material, standards, and complicated topics, we need to be focused and calm as we approach our assignments. We can use brain breaks and focused-attention practices to positively impact our emotional states and learning. A brain break is a short period of time when we change up the dull routine of incoming information that arrives via predictable, tedious, well-worn roadways. A focused-attention practice is a brain exercise for quieting the thousands of thoughts that distract and frustrate us each day." Here are some strategies you can use in your classes now.

COME ONE, COME ALL
Rick Sheridan has a great article suggesting ways we can improve student attendance. He writes, "The general consensus among most faculty members is that regular class attendance helps students learn and retain the course content more effectively. According to Park & Kerr (1990), research demonstrates that the lack of attendance was statistically significant in explaining why a student received a poor grade." To see his suggestions, click here.

SUMMER OPPORTUNITY FOR FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
If you are looking to spend some time this summer enhancing your teaching toolkit, the Teaching+Learning Center will be hosting a Faculty Learning Community (FLC). The topic will include strategies to strengthen students' self-awareness and learning skills. We will meet five times at a date and time to be determined by the FLC membership and will use Dr. Linda Nilson's book Creating Self-Regulated Learners (which will be provided by the Teaching+Learning Center). If you are interested in participating or need additional information, please send an email to pourciaut@mybrcc.edu.

DISRUPTING OURSELVES: THE PROBLEM OF LEARNING IN HIGHER ED

Dr. Randy Bass has written a thought provoking post about the intersection of what we know about teaching and the application of that knowledge to enhance learning. A growing appreciation for the porous boundaries between the classroom and life experience, along with the power of social learning, authentic audiences, and integrative contexts, has created not only promising changes in learning but also disruptive moments in teaching. Our understanding of learning has expanded at a rate that has far outpaced our conceptions of teaching. This tension between an expansion of learning and the limits of our structures is intrinsic to the learning paradigm. Read the entire post here.

WHERE IS ONLINE EDUCATION HEADING

Yoram Neumann and Edith Neumann tell us what we have learned about online education over the past few decades. In its infancy, online learning was viewed as a more accessible alternative for students unable to commit to the traditional higher education path. But in recent years online education has been gaining more acceptance. The most recent U.S. Department of Education data from fall 2014 indicate that 5.8 million students took at least one online course, with 2.85 million of them studying exclusively online. After thousands of online launches and millions of students, it is important to assess the advancement made in online learning as we look to further enhance online learning for future students. Read more here.

CREATING SELF-REGULATED LEARNERS
While the first faculty learning community of the spring semester has started meeting, there is still time to sign up for the second FLC that will begin to meet on Tuesday, February 16 at 2 pm. The topic is how we, as instructors, can create self-regulated learners. Dr. Linda Nilson defines a self-regulated learner as a student who is an intentional, independent, self-directed learner who can acquire, retain, and retrieve new knowledge on their own. The FLC will meet for eight sessions over the semester and finish on April 17. If you are interested in joining this FLC, please contact Barbara Linder.

HOW TO LIVE WISELY
Speaking of independent students, one of the best ways to get your students to improve is to spend a little time asking them to think about their thinking. How do they think they learn best? What are the things they have learned about themselves since they started attending college? Richard Light wrote a great story about a process he has used that appears to be a survey of student's wants and needs but ingenuously creates an environment that promotes critical self-reflection. He offers a number of conversation starters and activities that you can use to help your students through this process.

MAKE A CLEAR PATH
Helping under-prepared adult students earn a degree in a STEM discipline can be difficult without the added stressors of work and family commitment. But that is just what the folks in Texas' Rio Grande Valley are doing with a new bachelor's program in biomedical sciences. Because of their urgent need for medical professionals in an area that includes two of the three poorest counties in Texas, the local institution knew they had to respond with something different. Take a look at Steven Mintz's story from Inside Higher Ed.

EVERYBODY IS GOING TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Did you know that the community colleges in the United States provide access to higher education for over 10 million students each year? Bailey, Jaggars, and Jenkins in their book Redesigning America's Community Colleges: A clearer path to student success say that because community colleges are designed to provide access to a wide variety of students with a wide variety of goals, community colleges give students many choices which may be one of the causes for low completion. But they don't just give us the gory details and horror stories, they also provide some paths for solutions. The Teaching and Learning 101 Faculty Learning Community is using this book along with material from other educational scientists during the summer session. Although FLCs are mainly professional development opportunities, the structure and focus often lead to new ideas, movements, or proposals that can lead to positive change for their institutions. If you are interested in learning more I encourage you to talk with one of the FLC members who include: Amy Atchley, Cristi Carson, Pearce Cinman, Cindy Decker, Christopher Guillory, Divina Miranda, Rhonda Picou, and Todd Pourciau. The FLC meets on Wednesdays at 1:00 pm in the Teaching+Learning Center.

MOVING FROM COVERAGE TO LEARNING
Dr. David Gooblar has written an interesting blog post about an issue that dogs many of us. The difference between covering all of the material versus helping students learn. I did say versus but it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, research shows that if we work to help our students become independent scholars who are interested in the subject at hand, the coverage can occur naturally. Goobler writes, "How do I balance my desire to integrate student-centered learning practices with my almost pathological need to have every last bit of the course planned out and thought through? Most of my pedagogy research has suggested that we as faculty should be looking for ways to give students a real sense of ownership in the classroom. One of our goals should be to create an atmosphere that leaves space for students take an active role in their own learning. How, then, do we design a course before even meeting our students? Isn’t there a danger in showing up to the first day of class with a syllabus that shows the whole course planned out? By doing so, aren't we clearly communicating to the students that the instructor is in charge, that if you know what’s good for you, you’ll follow these rules?"

FITNESS FOR THE BRAIN
Studies have consistently shown that when we exercise we are more aroused: there is increased blood flow to the brain, greater neurotransmitter secretion, and increased brain growth and plasticity over time. All of this improves our memory, attention spans, and executive functions like reasoning, problem solving, and planning. Our brains are alert and we experience a decrease in stress, which has proven to be a performance killer. So what am I telling you? Do I want you to have your students do a little physical activity in the classroom? Why not? That is what active learning is all about. Get your students to move around (group to group, pairing off, or going to the board) and see what happens.

NEW SEMESTER BRING NEW OPPORTUNITIES
The first week of class is always filled with possibilities. Motivating students to create the life that they wish for begins during the initial class sessions, whether it be face-to-face or online. The aim during this time is to create that engaged relationship that will pay dividends throughout the semester. Dr. Mary Clement, who visited BRCC in the past and shared her best practices, suggests that we find out what type of high school experience our students had before we explain our expectations. Sharing the major differences between high school and college is vital for our first-time students. She notes, "How do we change this mindset going from high school into college? The number one way is to put your policy in writing in the syllabus. If the paper is due Monday, and the student is not in class that day, will the paper be accepted after Monday? Will it be accepted after Monday at all? If the answer is yes, until when and with what penalty?” Further, because there’s so much variation across different high schools in terms of homework, attendance requirements and making up for missed work, and grading practices, Clement recommends creating an interest inventory to give students during the first week of class. If it is anonymous, students may feel more comfortable answering the questions. You can find more suggestions here.

USING PEER REVIEW IN YOUR CLASS

Are you looking to increase the amount of peer-review experiences in your courses but are afraid that some of your students may not be ready? Here is an interesting learning experience you can use that will provide good feedback to students, allow students to practice this skill, and alleviate some of the worry you may have. Dr. Trent Batson shares the following, "I used the following technique that worked well in my writing classes:  the writer and the peer reviewer both have a copy of the paper in print. They are both sitting at computers and communicating via chat or some other real-time tool. As the reviewer reads the paper, starting with the first paragraph, she types her immediate reactions and thoughts -- almost like a think-aloud protocol -- thereby providing a strong sense of what any reader might be wondering or reacting to as the reader goes through the paper. I found that using chat made the communication more neutral and helped the reviewing student "speak" (through typing) more freely and off-the-cuff.  The writer of the paper gets a strong lesson in reader-based writing and also gets good advice about where confusion arises or where good points are made. I didn't ask the reviewer to evaluate the paper, just provide that think-aloud response." Dr. Robert Danberg recommends the book Beat Not the Poor Desk by Marie Ponsot as a useful resource for this active learning technique.

FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY STARTS ON FEB. 6
As you look over the professional development opportunities listed on the spring 2015 calendar that we distributed at the kickoff event last Wednesday, please note that the first Faculty Learning Community (FLC) is set to begin on February 6 at noon. We still have a few slots open for the FLC which will be using the common reader Inspired College Teaching by Dr. Maryellen Weimer. The book has been praised by new teachers and those with lots of experience. Some of the topics to be covered include maintaining instructional vitality (the midcareer challenge), feedback for teachers that improves learning for students, and reflection for growth and change. If you would like to join the FLC, please send an email to pourciaut@mybrcc.edu.

LOOKING FOWARD TO 2015
Welcome to the year 2015. I hope that you had an enjoyable holiday break. I spent part of mine reading Dean Man Walking by Sr. Helen Prejean and am looking forward to her visit to the Black Box Theatre at noon on January 16. The bi-annual faculty development workshop that kicks off each semester will be held on Wednesday, January 14 beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Louisiana Building's boardroom. We will spend some time on purely pedagogical and assessment issues but you will also hear from the Academic Learning Center, as well as the eLearning and Innovative Learning programs. Looking forward to seeing you next Wednesday. I will be sharing the spring schedule of professional development opportunities with you on that day as well. Since they have proved to be so popular, we will again offer two faculty learning communities. One will use the classic What the Best College Teachers Do which we have used in three previous instances at BRCC. Check with your colleagues if you need to hear personal testimonials but I can tell you that the FLC format is a wonderful way to deeply explore teaching and learning and Dr. Ken Bain's book (which we will provide) is a great compass. In addition, I will offer a FLC using Inspired College Teaching: a Career-Long Resource for Professional Growth by Dr. Maryellen Weimer. This will be the first time I use this book but I also spent part of my break reading it and I have found it be very useful. You can sign up for either or both FLCs next Wednesday. Another new program that has proved popular is the Mid Day Musings held on the second and fourth Wednesdays at noon of each month. We meet in the faculty and staff lounge in the Bienvenue Building which makes it easy for you to grab lunch before joining the discussion. The topic for each session will be announced on the Monday preceding the gathering. If you have ideas for topics you would like to have discussed, feel free to send them to me (pourciaut@mybrcc.edu).

TEACHING WITHOUT WALLS
Even though distance ed, online or eLearning classes have been part of the educational landscape for quite a while, there are still some that have not fully embraced the delivery method. Michelle Pacansky-Brock has posted an interesting piece about what she describes as teaching without walls. She describes how faculty attitudes can be improved when it comes to online teaching. She writes, "Given the correlation between attitudes and behavior, we should be pondering the impact that skeptical faculty have on the future of high quality online learning.  Institutions should be making an effort to explore ways to improve faculty attitudes about online teaching and learning. To change a person's attitude, one must be engaged at both a cognitive and emotional level.  For example, if you wish to convince me that I need to exercise every day, you'll need to provide me with information, as well as engage me emotionally by making connections between this new behavior and the things that are important to me.  Just telling me to exercise because it is good for me will not be enough to sustain a change in my attitude." Read more here.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE FARM SYSTEM
I encourage yo to take a look at Dr. Matt Reid's community college-related column. He writes, "Western Governors’ University is sending applicants who aren’t quite academically ready to enroll to StraighterLine to get themselves up to speed before coming back to WGU. I won’t speak to that arrangement specifically, because I don’t know the details well enough. But the concept strikes me as making all kinds of sense. It’s setting up a farm system, like minor league baseball. In a farm system, players who aren’t yet ready for the big leagues aren’t just turned away; they’re sent to the minors to develop and prove themselves. The ones who succeed at the minor league level eventually make it to the bigs." Once you have read the column, give him some feedback int he comment section.

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.

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.

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

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

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

NEWEST MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE

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

John Langston, Jana Roosa, & Deana Hodges

Elizabeth Foster, Adrian Arabie, & Elizabeth Doerfler

PAYING ATTENTION TO THE INTROVERTS IN YOUR CLASS

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

FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY DECONSTRUCTS ASSESSMENT

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

GETTING YOU READY FOR THE SEMESTER'S END

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

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT ON CRITICAL THINKING

The conversation about the idea of teaching students to think critically has gone from a whisper to a roar. Many states have adopted learning outcomes that designate critical thinking as one of the required standards for their institutions of higher education. Many of the questions I am often asked focus on critical thinking. In fact, the Common Reader Faculty Learning Community spent some time discussing the concept as well. In response to the curiosity, The Teaching+Learning Center is offering the webinar Teaching for Critical Thinking on October 31 at 3:00 PM. Dr. Stephen Brookfield, University Distinguished Professor at the University of St. Thomas, will be making the presentation. At the end of this webinar, you will be able to: Design and implement an Assumptions Audit; Implement the Critical Incident Questionnaire-a tool to model critical thinking; Design and conduct a Scenario Analysis exercise; Design and conduct a “Chalk Talk” exercise; and, Incorporate two or more techniques for modeling critical thinking into your practice as a teacher. You can register now for this faculty professional development workshop.

RELEVANCE AND AUTONOMY ARE KEY TO STUDENT SUCCESS

Underachievement in college students is linked to lack of motivation (Balduf, 2009 and references therein). Two major factors that contribute to poor motivation are inability of students to see the relevance of classroom activities to their chosen careers (Glynn et al., 2009) and lack of a sense of autonomy (Reeve and Jang, 2006; Reeve, 2009). Dr. Katherine Robertson has written an article addressing both of these issues. She suggest that experiential learning be used and describes it as "a process through which students develop skills through direct experience. While most people think of experiential learning as something that happens outside the classroom, it is possible to give students real-life experiences in the classroom, too," says Dr. Robertson. She also suggests that to enhance student autonomy, have your students write their own rubrics and guidelines under your guidance. 

FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITIES ROLL ON 

The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community is wrapping up their faculty development project and will have some interesting outcomes based on the lively discussion in and out of the formal sessions. In addition, the Building a Hybrid Course Faculty Learning Community had their initial session yesterday. This FLC is looking to create a best-practices model or template that all faculty can use as they build their hybrid classes. The FLC membership includes: Becky Adcock, Joanie Chavis, Janet Daniel, Raven Dora, Jessie Hornbrook, Mary Miller, Susan Nealy, and Todd Pourciau. They are using the Jay Caulfield book How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course as the text for the FLC. Look for updates as they move through their sessions.

TESTING WORKSHOP PROVES BENEFICIAL

The faculty professional development session Testing 101: Assessing Student Learning held on October 17 received high marks from the faculty who spent part of their fall break participating. Dr. Amy Atchly, speech communication, was able to learn new ways to help her students overcome test anxiety. Paul Guidry, criminal justice, decided to “stop being concerned with coverage and to be more concerned with actual learning.” Belvin Givens, CSSK, is planning to use the post-test assessment methods explained in the seminar. Leroy Waguespack, STEM, was happy to receive his own Bloom’s Taxonomy flipbook to help him develop higher level-thinking questions for his tests.  Almost all of the participants said that they planned to use a test blueprint to design their assessment instruments. Watch this blog and your email-box for information on a repeat of this session.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
There are two additional professional development opportunities open to all BRCC faculty. The first occurs on October 8 and continues our Blackboard Series. This interactive workshop will focus on the Gradebook function and there will be a session for beginners and for more advanced users. The two sessions will begin at 3:00 and 4:00 PM that day. On October 10 the Teaching+Learning Center will present a workshop about test preparation. It will focus on the areas of alignment, rigor, and reliability. You will also learn about using a blueprint to build the perfect test. This workshop will be held in 311 Magnolia and begin at 3:00 PM. Look for registration information in your email-box in the very near future but save the dates now.

THE PLIGHT OF OUR ADJUNCT COLLEAGUES
The recent discussion about the effectiveness of adjunct faculty at our nation's colleges, reminded me of a study focused on this area. Although it was published in 2011, it bears a second glance. As the number of adjunct faculty continues to grow on campuses across the U.S., there is growing concern that due to a lack of training and/or time, most adjunct faculty are not using effective teaching methods. Roger Baldwin and Matthew Wawrzynski, two faculty at Michigan State, conducted the research and stressed in an interview that they fault the conditions part-time instructors work under, and not the instructors themselves, for their failure to use effective teaching methods more often. The researchers found that, compared with full-time adjuncts or tenured or tenure-track faculty, part-time adjuncts "are less likely to use learning-centered strategies such as essay exams, term research papers, multiple drafts of written work, oral presentations, group projects, or student evaluations of each others' work," the paper says. Such learning-centered practices are generally regarded by practitioners as some of the most effective means of teaching students and are certainly what the Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support is suggesting all of our faculty use in their courses.

FREE YOUR MIND ONLINE
Audrey Heinesen has written a fascinating opinion piece about the need for more faculty who are willing to teach using the online course delivery method. She notes, "Online instructors can revel in a newfound ability to defy some of the most fundamental aspects of a typical classroom. The whiteboard is no longer erased at the end of the day. Your best moments reach beyond students in your physical presence. Your teaching can be set free in your online classroom. You’re free to structure content in new ways to reach your students. Try different types of content and multimodal teaching strategies that might not work in a traditional setting. Experiment with new course ideas that are harder to champion in more structured environments. Backward design, flipped classroom, video-based instruction? Instructors can return to a creative place by developing new ideas around curriculum and teaching." As we continue to expand our eLearning offerings, we are certainly looking to add to the number of faculty who are certified to teach using the online delivery method. Contact your dean or department chair if you are interested in receiving the training to teach for our eLearning department.

STOPPING BULIMIC LEARNING
One of the ideas recently discussed at the Common Reader Faculty Learning Community was the topic of comprehensive testing. The idea is to have each test that you give in your class not only build on the previous test but actually include material that should have been learned before. Craig Nelson, a biology instructor from Indiana, notes that comprehensive tests help us to avoid creating bulimic learners. He explains that this is the student who learns things for the test and then purges the information, thinking they will never have to use it again. Research shows however that continued interaction with content increases the chances that it will be remembered and can be applied subsequently. An article in the August/September 2013 issue of The Teaching Professor also supports this claim. Preparing for Comprehensive Finals contains a number of great suggestions that we can use to help our students prepare for their encounter with this type of assessment.

FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY BEGINS WORK
The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community kicked off with an abundance of enthusiasm and participation on Wednesday. So much so, that there is currently a waiting list of folks who would like to join the FLC. The Teaching+Learning Center is currently exploring the idea of opening another section of the FLC to accommodate the need. Participants discussed the profession of teaching, explored the syllabus, and examined the learning outcomes at the first faculty professional development session. The FLC is developing a set of group objectives as well. FLC members include: Nisha Aroskar, Robbie Burleigh, Emily Graves, Wes Harris, Susan Nealy, Jennifer Perkins, Todd Pourciau, Angela Pursley, Kathleen Schexnayder, Jeanne Stacy, and Lin Warmsley.

GROUP WORK TEACHES VALUABLE LESSONS AND SKILLS
Group projects are a great active learning experience that has proven benefits for student learning. Randall Hansen's article Benefits and Problems with Student Teams: Suggestions for Improving Team Projects published in the Journal of Education for Business lists a number of great suggestions that you may want to employ. Hansen says that we should emphasize the importance and benefits of teamwork by pointing out the special skills acquired that are useful in any job the student may be seeking. Team-building exercises help to build cohesive groups and promote engagement. If you are looking to have your students learn how to work with others whom they may not know (similar to most work environments), you should form the groups. The workload expectations should be reasonable and you should provide some class time for meetings. The goals of the project should have clearly defined learning objectives and you should require interim reports and group process feedback. Always remind the students that they should keep a log or journal of their experience that indicates their contributions and peer assessment should be part of the evaluation process.


THE RANKING BUSINESS EXPANDS
Did you know that the U.S. Department of Education is set to launch a rating system for all colleges and universities by 2015? It will apparently reward colleges with a high rating if they graduate large numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and do not saddle such students with heavy debt without graduating them. Once in place, the program would give larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans to students attending higher-rated institutions. The focus on college completion sharpened this past year, as campus leaders pursued national goals for higher-education attainment, and more states tied a portion of colleges' appropriations to performance measures such as graduation rates. Louisiana of course has the GRAD ACT. The US News and World Report ranking focuses on the national level. Washington Monthly started publishing a national rankings system as well in 2005. The rankings, whose most recent edition was published last month, "give high marks to institutions that enroll low-income students, help them graduate, and don't charge them an arm and a leg to attend," the magazine said.

CAN A ROBOT DO YOUR JOB
As the debate about the role of technology in education builds, two California community-college professors have published their own commentary on the automation of teaching—in the form of an illustrated comic according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Adam Bessie and Arthur King, who teach English and studio and computer arts, respectively, at Diablo Valley College, have weighed in with a piece of graphic journalism titled “Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers.” The comic, published by the left-leaning Truth Out, has been circulating among faculty members on California community-college e-mail lists. It was inspired by the introduction of an automated reading machine to score English-placement assessments at Diablo Valley College, Mr. Bessie said in an e-mail. Previously, English-department faculty members had created and reviewed the assessments manually, a collective exercise that gave them the opportunity to discuss standards, he said. “We were told that the robo-reader could do the same job as us for cheaper, which seemed an absurd notion,” Mr. Bessie said. “I had, before this, never heard of a robo-reader and thought that I had the one job that couldn’t be automated: that written human communication was one area that technology could augment, but not replace.”

YOU ARE DRIVING THE BUS
Metacognitive thinking has come to be described as thinking about thinking by most of us. Matt Birkenhauer wants us to apply that to our teaching by making thinking visible. He suggests that we become "helicopter instructors" mimicking the best of what helicopter parents do, which is basically "pestering." I am not sure I would agree with him but the basics of his idea bear further discussion. Many of our students at BRCC are not only first-generation but may not have ever thought that they would be attending college. Some of them may have decided at the last moment to pursue a college degree. We know that without the proper preparation for anything, you typically set yourself up to fail. Realizing this, then the pestering or hovering that Birkenhauer recommends may have merit. We should certainly offer to mentor our students and that is a form of hovering. Asking questions to prompt deeper thinking and perhaps advanced planning can only be beneficial for our students. Here are just a few ways that you can begin to build an engaged relationship with your students that may pay off in the form of higher retention and graduation rates for BRCC. Remind them that this is not year thirteen of high school. College will require less time of them in the classroom but subsequently more time on things like homework, reading, and pre-class assignments. They will more likely experience being in larger classes in college. This can create problems for them but also opportunities to network extensively and usually larger classes allow them the opportunity to work in groups, a valuable life-skill that will be used in the workplace. The negative may mean less personal attention in some cases but they should be encouraged to make the effort to talk with you. College is typically less concerned about attendance although it is very important for our financial aid reporting that we capture this information. The idea here is to help them realize that they are “driving the bus.” That means they need to create a schedule and attempt to stick to it to help them manage their time wisely. Finally, you should remind them that they may have come from a culture that valued standardized tests but college requires them to think critically using empirical and quantitative methods. They will be asked to communicate their thoughts in various ways and they will be evaluated. Don’t forget to remind them that the rewards on the other side are substantial both economically and otherwise.

WHAT MAKES A TEACHER GREAT
The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community has attracted a number of you but there is room for more. If you are interested in joining the FLC that is set to begin on September 4, send an email indicating your interest to Barbara Linder (8228) at adulted@mybrcc.edu. Some of the most promising and effective professional development opportunities involve learning communities. Learning communities provide opportunities for faculty members to interact with others as they explore new assumptions and try out new approaches to teaching and learning. Learning communities enable faculty members to explore and experiment with new approaches to teaching in an environment that simultaneously provides challenge and support. The initial FLC at BRCC will be using What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain as the text and promises to be interactive and useful.

VISION AND CHANGE IN CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Dr. Jo Dale Ales, who serves as Dean of the Division of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and I have been invited to participate in an ongoing project focused on designing biology curriculum for the future. Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education, a group coordinated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is holding a conference designed to mobilize people to focus on undergraduate biology education by engaging them in shared, directed, provocative, and ongoing discussions that lead to action in the immediate future. Dean Ales and I will be traveling to Washington DC later this week to join with colleagues from across the U.S. I will share some of the outcomes with you next week. One of the more interesting ideas I have come across in the pre-conference reading (guess they are using a flipped classroom approach) is by Dr. Ann Austin who writes, "Improving student learning requires: (a) knowledge about how students learn; (b) knowledge of effective teaching strategies; (c) faculty members who understand processes of learning and what strategies are effective under what conditions; and d) faculty decisions to implement such knowledge of learning processes and teaching strategies into their own practice. Each part of this constellation of ingredients is necessary to encourage student learning."

KEEP CALM AND BE ENGAGED

Some of the team members from the Division of Innovative Learning and Academic Support "caught" Department Chair Amy Pinero working hard to create lasting partnerships with her students. We rewarded her with a coveted peaceful green shirt. As you can see from the picture, she donned her green shirt immediately. Mrs. Pinero is Department Chair of Social Sciences and is also serving as Interim-Department Chair of Business. We know from testimony of her past students that she is very focused on creating a learner-centered environment. She was recognized as the BRCC Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year for 2012 adding to her already impressive list of academic accomplishments. When she is in the classroom, criminal justice is her area of expertise. Thanks to Mrs. Pinero, one of the folks who makes BRCC a better place.

MENTORING PROGRAM RELAUNCH
As a learner-centered institution of higher education, BRCC is committed to fostering good teaching that develops deeper learning leading to student success. Good teaching, in its essence, is defined as helping students learn in ways that make a sustained, substantial, and positive influence on how they think, act, and feel. Research shows that constructive mentoring and reviewing of faculty works to help such faculty meet high standards of rigor, depth, and innovation in teaching and learning, and to realize their full potential as scholars, teachers, and members of the academic community. In addition, mentees, when compared with un-mentored faculty, tend to feel more self-assured, exhibit greater political savvy, profess to feel more confident about their teaching, and, generally, in the long run tend to be more prolific. Faculty with mentors have been found to be more productive and they indicate higher career and job satisfaction, while achieving greater long-term success than those not mentored. The Mentoring Program is being re-launched beginning with the fall 2103 semester. If you are interested in becoming a mentor or mentee, contact Dr. Todd Pourciau at pourciaut@mybrcc.edu or 216.8534.

KEEP CALM AND BE ENGAGED
The New Faculty Orientation for the fall 2013 semester will be held on Wednesday, August 21 from 9:00 AM until 12:00 PM. All new full-time faculty hires are invited to attend the active workshop to be held in room 311 Magnolia Building. A special invitation is extended to the former CATC faculty who are joining the BRCC family. Topics to be covered include faculty development about teaching and learning, online delivery, responding to student's needs, testing, and student success. If you have not already received an invitation but would like to attend this event, contact Barbara Linder at 216.8228 or via email at barbaralinder@catc.edu.

CAN WE TALK
The Teaching+Learning Center will be offering a common reader Faculty Learning Community using Ken Bain's book What the Best College Teachers Do (which will be provided to the participants). The Faculty Learning Community will begin on September 4 and run until October 10, meeting from noon until 1:00 PM in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Building). Faculty Learning Communities have been utilized by higher education institutions for a number of years and are designed to provide faculty with quality time to focus on topics related to the scholarship of teaching and learning. Typically a FLC will agree on accomplishing a few learning objectives over the course of the term. If you are interested in joining this FLC, contact Barbara Linder at 216.8228 or via email at barbaralinder@catc.edu.

NOTE TAKING 101
Here are a few tips taken from a recent copy of The Teaching Professor newsletter on how you can help your students improve their note-taking abilities. When you say something important, go ahead and give students time to write it down--word for word if they like. Then give them 30 seconds to look at what they have written and put it in their own words. If you have two or three students read what they have written, you will reinforce the importance of the point and at the same time you can talk about the student's versions of the idea. Typically, students do not write enough in their notes. At the end of a lesson or content area, give students two minutes to look over their notes. Encourage them to add more or to ask you questions. Ask them, "What is the most important thing that you just got from your notes on this topic?" Correct any misguided remarks. Finally, facilitate a short discussion of what students can do with their notes as they prepare for an exam. If they say they will go over their notes, strongly suggest that they get into the notes. Suggest that they rewrite their notes, highlight the key points, compare them with another student, and compare the notes to the text. You can read more in the volume 27, number 6 issue in the periodical section of the BRCC Library.