Foundational or “soft” skills occupy an unusual position in the debate over America’s workforce. Employers say these skills are hard to find, but they are also notoriously hard to define. Soft skills are called crucial and then treated dismissively in the next breath, as if these were abilities any child should have. “Works well with others” is a cliché on a school report card, but businesses grind to a halt when employees can’t meet deadlines, treat customers with respect, or waste time scrambling to properly format a document. Take a look at what employers want in the full report.

Regardless of their credentials, many freshmen doubt that they have the necessary brainpower or social adeptness to succeed in college. This fear of failing hits poor, minority and first-generation college students especially hard. If they flunk an exam, or a professor doesn’t call on them, their fears about whether they belong may well be confirmed. The cycle of doubt becomes self-reinforcing, and students are more likely to drop out. The good news is that this dismal script can be rewritten. Several recent research projects show that, with the right nudge, students can acquire ways of thinking that helps them thrive. Continue reading here.

Have you ever wondered if your students are as concerned about their learning as you are? If you prioritize student learning, you may be the only person in your classroom with that goal. Learning-centered teachers seek to coauthor classroom experiences with their students, whereas students may seek only to be taught passively. How might you inspire your students to share accountability for their learning? These five considerations can help you teach your students to be learning centered, too. Continue reading here.

NEW LEADERSHIP AT BRCC
The upcoming fall semester is shaping up to be something special now that we have new leadership in place. Dr. Dennis Michaelis joined us in late July and will serve as acting chancellor until the end of August when he becomes interim chancellor. Dr. Joann Linville will be interim vice chancellor for academic affairs beginning August 17. Both bring a wealth of experience, much of it at the community college level. Moving forward with the plans for Our Louisiana 2020 remains a priority for BRCC as we continue to realize the benefits of our recent merger. Things are looking up!

CONVOCATION WEEK OPPORTUNITIES
Speaking of the new semester, we will be offering a few opportunities to jump into faculty development before classes gets started. Please plan to join us on Wednesday, August 19 at 8:30 am in the Louisiana Building's boardroom. You will hear about the professional development opportunities for the semester provided by the Teaching+Learning Center as well as a session on your Canvas requirements provided by the eLearning Program. We will close with a session on an overview of the academic support available through the Academic Learning Center. The session will be a quick two hours with an opportunity for questions and answers. If you are a new faculty member and have not received an invitation to the New Faculty Orientation to be held on Monday, August 17 from 1:00-5:00 pm, please contact me now (pourciaut@mybrcc.edu). We will host a session on faculty development for all of our wonderful adjunct faculty on Monday, August 17 at 5:30 pm in the Louisiana Building's boardroom. This will be followed by a Canvas for Adjunct Faculty session at 6:30 pm in the same space. All eLearning faculty are required for a meeting on Wednesday, August 19 at 3:30 pm in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Bldg.). All of these events will be held on the Mid City Campus. Finally, if you are a veteran faculty who is looking to mentor the next generation of great instructors, please consider signing up to serve as a mentor for the 2015-16 academic year. You can do this by sending an email to me (pourciaut@mybrcc.edu) now. You will receive credit that can be used for college service. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or Academic Support Specialist Barbara Linder, eLearning Program Manager Susan Nealy, or Academic Learning Center Director Jeanne Stacy.

CANVAS CONTINUES TO IMPRESS
Over the summer session, we have implemented Canvas, our new learning management system (LMS). The smaller numbers proved beneficial as we were able to work out many of the kinks that could have caused serious disruption in what is typically our largest semester, namely fall. If you are looking to more fully understand how Canvas works with other software programs, you will want to attend eLearning Partner Integration Day on Wednesday, August 12. The day begins with check-in at 8:30 am while the programming begins at 9:00 am. Upon checking in, you will have a number of options as sessions will be running concurrently most of the day. The sessions set so far include ProctorU, Respondus lock down browser, TurnItIn, and Smartthinking. We will also have representatives from textbooks publishers Cengage, McGraw Hill, and Pearson. Each session will last between 30 and 45 minutes. Lunch is provided for the first 50 registrants. All sessions will be held in the Cypress Building on the Mid City Campus and the day concludes at 3:00 pm. You can register here. eLearning Program Manager Susan Nealy can answer your questions at nealys@mybrcc.edu. 

STUDENT RATINGS EXPLAINED
Tomorrow's professional development workshop "Interpreting Your Student Ratings and Using Them for Professional Development" will be your opportunity to have a frank and open discussion about the student rating currently being used at BRCC. I encourage you to bring your ratings with you so that we can focus our time and energy on the issues you find most important or most in need of improving. You can register now for the workshop set to begin at 1:00 pm in 311 Magnolia Building. This professional development event is sponsored by the Teaching+Learning Center.

WHAT ABOUT THE NON-COMPLETERS
Inside Higher Ed reports that most research on the payoff of attending community college actually doesn’t measure the effect of attending, but rather what happens for those who graduate. Yet when the majority of students who enroll in community colleges don’t complete their programs, the financial benefit should be adjusted given the likelihood of failure. That’s the philosophy driving a recently published report that tries to measure the economic benefit of two-year college for the mass of dropouts. The report was published by the Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment at Columbia University’s Teachers College. The report also compares the outcomes of completers and non-completers based on the students’ stated intent or goal. The algorithm, intent and goal models delivered different outcomes, demonstrating that students often don’t pursue the path they intended. (Sometimes there’s a deliberate change of paths, but often this reflects students’ confusion about what courses they need to take, the study said.)

WRITING GOOD NOTES
Students nowadays can be pretty demanding about wanting the teacher’s PowerPoints, lecture notes, and other written forms of the content presented in class. And a lot of teachers are supplying those, in part trying to be responsive to students but also because many students now lack note-taking skills. Maryellen Weimer writes in an article on this topic, "If they can’t take good notes, why not help them succeed by supplying them with notes?" She answers her own question by noting that providing the notes denies students the chance to improve their critical thinking skills. We know that once students hear new information they should spend some time writing and talking about it and then forming questions in their own words about the knowledge.  She concludes, "Students should find out in college (as they will in life) that they don’t always get what they want. They need to take their own notes and not think they are excused from doing so because they’ve got the teacher’s notes."

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.

BLACKBOARD EXPERTS ON THE RISE AT BRCC
The day started with a bang as several of your colleagues new to Blackboard began their training session at 9:00 AM in the Teaching+Learning Center. eLearning Program Manager Susan Nealy and IT Technical Support Manager Lenora White are facilitating the training sessions. The intermediate-level Blackboard users began their session at 11:00 AM. The training concludes with our advanced group at 1:00 PM today. The comments from the participants have been very positive about our latest version of Blackboard. Many are impressed with the analytics feature that will allow them to drill deep as they monitor their students progress during the semester. Next up is the eLearning teacher certification program planned for the summer. Those selected to participate in this year's program should be receiving their notification via email very shortly.

BEGIN SMALL WITH ACTIVE LEARNING
We have been encouraging the use of active learning as we move towards a learner-centered institution. One of the reasons that many faculty tell me they don't want to try using active-learning techniques is that they are comfortable lecturing and research shows that "they may find innovative instructional techniques intimidating." Paramount among your concerns is the fear of “losing control” of the class. In addition, some faculty may avoid incorporating active-learning strategies into their classrooms because they think that students will react negatively. Faust and Paulson note in their research, "A complaint we often hear is, “I tried active learning, but my students didn’t like it.” Indeed, most of us have had the experience of attempting to initiate class discussion and being faced with silence. These two issues are related, for both students and faculty tend to be comfortable with what they are trained to do. Thus, as long as faculty lean primarily on lecturing, students will expect to sit and listen (and often hide or sleep in class)." Faculty development experts suggest that you begin using active learning in small ways at first. You need to become comfortable with the approach before you can fully realize its potential. Some of the learning experiences listed in the revised Active Learning Manual that would be easy to try are the Muddiest Point or One-Minute Paper. The idea is to do something active each time you meet in a face-to-face class. You are building your expertise at the same time as you are creating expectation in your students. Let me know if you want a copy of the latest version of the Active Learning Manual.

CAN YOU HELP ME FIND A JOB
Why did you decide to go to college? Asking that question of new students in a more formal way might help colleges find ways to encourage more students to complete their programs, according to a new study from University of Rochester education researchers published in The Journal of College Student Development. The study found that students motivated by a desire for autonomy and competence tended to earn higher grades and show a greater likelihood of persistence than did other students. (The findings were controlled for academic background and various other factors, and were based on surveys of 2,500 students at a community college and a liberal arts college that were not identified.) The study also appears to validate other research that says that linking the subject matter to a student's current interests improves learning.

EMPLOYERS WANT STUDENTS WITH REAL WORLD EDUCATION
An article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education reports that students worried about landing a job after graduation might be attracted to a narrow education that focuses on building their knowledge in one area. But that isn't enough to help them pursue successful careers, according to the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The AACU survey shows employers' support for the idea that students should be broadly educated and should apply their learning to the real world during college. More than half of employers indicated that recent college graduates should have "both field-specific knowledge and skills and a broad range of skills and knowledge."

GRANT WRITING WORKSHOP
Ann Zanders will present the second grant writing workshop on Thursday, April 11 at 3:00 PM in the Teaching+Learning Center (311 Magnolia Building). The faculty development opportunity will focus on BRCC's internal grant process, approval of projects, and proposal writing. It is not required to have attended the previous workshop last Thursday in order to participate this week. You can reserve your spot by sending an email to Ann Zanders at zandersa@mybrcc.edu. The event is sponsored by the Grant Resource Center and the Teaching+Learning Center.

ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM FOCUSES ON STUDENT SUCCESS STRATEGIES
BRCC will host its 5th annual development education symposium on Thursday, April 11 from 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM in the Board Room located in the Louisiana Building. Dr. John N. Gardner, President of the Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, is the keynote speaker for the faculty development symposium focused on providing the tools to promote student success, retention, the first year experience, and best practices. The event is sponsored by BRCC STARS Gate Title III and the Teaching+Learning Center. Registration is continuing and open to everyone

UNDERSTANDING YOUR STUDENTS
Understanding what stage of cognitive development your students currently reside at is a key component to determining how you will approach teaching that class. William G. Perry's classic study Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years (LB3609 .P4 1998) gives us the four stages of cognitive development your students will typically experience. These include dualism, relativism, multiplicity, and commitment. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule modified Perry's categories based on gender in their book Women's Ways of Knowing (HQ1206 .W88 1997). They write about connected knowers versus separate knowers. Teaching at a community college, we know that economic issues also influence many of our students’ abilities to focus on their academic progress. This is often compounded by academic preparation, mental models, and learning styles. The key to providing an environment that promotes deeper learning is by being engaged with your students. Understanding their "story" and how they have come to be enrolled in your class will help you to provide the support they need to succeed.

ASKED AND ANSWERED
Elizabeth Barkley's book Student Engagement Techniques: A handbook for college faculty, is quickly becoming a classic in the student engagement arena. Noticing that a gap existed in the BRCC Library's collection, the T+LC asked that this book be purchased. We are excited to tell you that it is now available for circulation (LB 2342.92 B34). Special thanks to Associate Dean Jacqueline Jones who facilitated the purchase. Barkley's book is full of terrific ideas that you can implement in your course immediately. It should quickly join Ken Bain's book, which is frequently referenced on this blog, as one of the most circulated resources from the faculty development section.

EMBRACE THE RUBRIC MATRIX
A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the instructor's performance expectations for an assignment or a piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of different levels of quality associated with each component. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, and so on. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, and to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts. Using a rubric provides several advantages to both instructors and students. Grading according to an explicit and descriptive set of criteria helps to ensure that the instructor's grading standards remain consistent across a given assignment. Rubrics can be constructed by the instructor or even have input from the students. The key for full effectiveness is to distribute the rubric to your students when you make the assignment. There are a number of good websites that can get you started building a strong rubric including one from Blackboard and the University of Colorado-Denver.

COLLEGE 101
While you are visiting the Library, you might want to pick up a copy of Upcraft, Gardner and Barefoot's book Challenging and Supporting the First-Year Student: A handbook for improving the first year of college (LB 2343.3 U63). The chapter entitled Inside the First-Year Classroom offers some sage advice for those looking to improve student learning. "What once appeared as the most effective and efficient way to teach and learn--the research university model of faculty who create knowledge and deliver it to students through lectures--falters under today's learning demands and with today's students. While practically it may be too cost-effective an instructional method to abandon totally, the diversity of students in background and learning style, their developmental position, and what we know about human learning all argue for using classroom strategies that actively involve students." They go on to list a number of active learning methods you can use in place of strictly lecturing to your students.

ADDING RUNGS TO THE LADDER
"The certificate is the odd man out in the debate over college completion. But the rarely discussed and little-understood certificate is the fastest-growing form of college credential, and a key component of work force development and the completion agenda." Paul Fain shared that and other bits of information in a column he wrote earlier this year about a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, that found that certificates make up 22 percent of all college awards, up from 6 percent in 1980. Certificates are earned through seat time in a classroom, the study notes, with more than half taking less than a year to complete. Industry-based certifications, which are often confused with certificates, are typically awarded based on tests.

ANOTHER REASON TO TEST
While reviewing some material for an upcoming presentation on Millennials, I found a terrific one-pager from Mary A. Pyc and Katherine A. Rawson entitled Why Testing Improves Memory: Mediator effectiveness hypothesis first published in Science (vol. 330) in 2010 (Q1 .S35 V.330). They set out to disprove the assumption that learning can only occur during study. They also wanted to see if testing could be used for something other than evaluating the state of memory. What they found was intriguing and could be incorporated in your classes as a test-restudy intervention. They noted that testing improves memory. One of the more important ideas to remember when constructing tests is to focus on what is truly important. Take a look at the course learning outcomes and make sure that you are aligning your learning experiences and assessment with those outcomes. The other important connection that this empirical research confirms is that important concepts should be included on subsequent tests and a comprehensive final may be your best opportunity to help your students retain what they have learned in your course.

TEACHING ONLINE
If you are looking for strategies for group learning activities for the online environment, take a look at this blog post by Debbie Morrison. Stephen Downes writes that the PAD (Personal Access Device) will become the dominant tool for online education, combining the function of book, notebook, and pen.

CHARACTER MATTERS
Paul Tough believes that character development may be the most important thing we can teach our students. He writes about that and may other things including the effects of poverty in his book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. When asked how failure can help us succeed, he responds, "That’s an idea that I think was best expressed by Dominic Randolph, the head of the Riverdale Country School, where they’re now doing some interesting experiments with teaching character. Here’s how he put it: The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure. And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything. That idea resonated with a lot of readers. I don’t think it’s quite true that failure itself helps us succeed. In fact, repeated failures can be quite devastating to a child’s development. What I think is important on the road to success is learning to deal with failure, to manage adversity. That’s a skill that parents can certainly help their children develop--but so can teachers and coaches and mentors and neighbors and lots of other people." He elaborates in this podcast.

CAPTURE THE MOMENT
After we discussed the use of Wordle to create word clouds at the faculty meeting last week, a number of you contacted us to get some more information. Studies suggest that the current generation of traditional college students, often referred to as Millennials, can be engaged through visual stimulation and creative, active learning strategies. The importance of using Wordles in your course is not necessarily about the words used but more about capturing the opinions and emotions of that moment. The thought-provoking images also afford openings to start conversations between and among students and teachers. George Williams offers some alternative uses for Wordle in a piece he wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

DEVELOPMENTALLY SUCCESSFUL
Dr. Peter Bahr's article Does Mathematics Remediation Work?: A Comparative Analysis of Academic Attainment among Community College Students offers evidence that indicates that remedial math programs are highly effective at resolving skill deficiencies. Bahr says that at least three important implications for educational policy may be drawn from this work. First, when mathematics remediation works, it works extremely well. Second, remediation is not simply one of many functions of the community college but is fundamental to the activities of the community college. Third, his analysis suggests that, all else being equal, assisting all remedial math students to remediate successfully may reduce the number of students who enroll in nonvocational math, but do not complete a credential and do not transfer, by as much as two-thirds (65%).

70805 RISES
Baton Rouge Community College is partnering with local entities to provide educational training for the folks living in the 70805 zip code.The training initiative was born out of a partnership among the Capital Area Technical College, Baton Rouge Community College and area companies including Exxon Mobil and Turner Industries. CATC Chief Development Officer Tammy Brown said the initiative calls for 60 people to be selected out of about 150 people who have applied so far to earn free classes in welding, pipe fitting and electrical work. Those students will earn national certification through the program and assistance finding a job with one of the participating sponsors. Baton Rouge Community College Chancellor Andrea Miller added that “it’s always good when businesses are able to connect their needs with the training of the people living in close physical proximity.