Butterflies

submitted by Peg Balachowski, Associate Dean of Teaching & Learning at EvCC
 
I love butterflies. This summer I have been watching butterflies in my garden, and am delighted when they flutter around, landing for just a moment on a flower before heading off to search for more nectar.

The kind of butterflies I don't like are those I get on the first day of class. Walking into a classroom with a group of new students, wondering what kind of impression I’ll make has always made me a bit nervous. When I share this with students, they can hardly believe it - What? they say...but you’re the expert! You’ve been teaching a long time! Why do you still get butterflies on the first day??

Delaney J. Kirk Ph.D. from University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee (and who has 27 years teaching experience!) still gets a little nervous at the beginning of a class. In the most recent edition of the Faculty Focus blog she outlined 10 tips for getting ready for that first day:

Faculty Focus

1. Develop your own routine before going to class. Take a short brisk walk beforehand. Twirl your wrists to gently shake the stress out of your arms. Relax your shoulders; people tend to “hunch up” their shoulders when tense. Do some deep breathing.
2. Check out your classroom before the students get there. Walk around and get familiar with the room, podium, how the seats are arranged, etc. Make sure you know how to work any technology you’ll be using.
3. The first few minutes are crucial. Your students are curious about you and the course. Everything (how you dress, walk, present yourself) are clues as to your personality and credibility. Walk briskly and with purpose into the classroom.
4. Chat briefly with the students as they come into the room to make yourself (and the students) feel more comfortable.
5. Act confident and enthusiastic about what you will be doing that first day. Don’t say that you are nervous as this makes the students uncomfortable and you will lose credibility with them.
6. Also, it’s best not to tell your students that this is the first time (if it is) that you have taught this particular course. You should know more about the topic than they do so they’ll assume you’re an expert.
7. Use notecards or form to gather information about your students (name, email address, past class experience with the topic, work experience, etc). This takes the focus off you and onto the task which gives you time to get comfortable.
8. As you begin, make eye contact with two or three people in various parts of the room. Learn their names and use them several times. You are essentially beginning to build a relationship with your students.
9. Be enthusiastic about being in the classroom so that they will be also. Don’t just stand behind the podium but move around and move toward them. Look happy to be sharing your knowledge with them.
10. Start with something that is easy for you to talk about. Tell a story you’ve told often before, read something that is relevant to the class from the newspaper, share something from your days as a student or talk to them about why you went into teaching.

Are there some ways that you prepare for the first day? What do you do to help with that nervous feeling on Day 1 of the course?

Revisiting Online Quizzes

Are you working on or planning to revise the tests in your classes soon? Rather than just refreshing or updating the questions, Derek Jorgenson, Instructional Designer at EvCC, encourages you to take a step back and think about exams in the larger context of assessments. Listen to a two-part podcast about Revisiting Online Quizzes at the Center for Transformative Teaching blog. Handouts and other resources are also available.

eNewsletters and Resources

submitted by Brigid Nulty, Associate Dean of Teaching, Learning and Assessment.

I’m celebrating my 4-month anniversary as Shoreline’s first Associate Dean of Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. One of my little pilot project experiments has been an eNewsletter. I send it out about every 10 days (ish) to about 25 faculty.  It’s not particular fancy (it’s just an email) but my hope is to get some good feedback from my “guinea pigs” that will help me plan a much better all-faculty eNewletter program next year. (Note to self: learn MailChimp this summer. "(The appeal of a tool like MailChimp is that I’ll have access to metrics to find out if people are actually opening my e-Newsletter, and I’ll be able to find out which of the many links I provide actually get clicked.)"

One of the elements I’ve included in my newsletter is a Cool Thing O’ the Week. These are mostly just amusements.

•  http://explorabl.es/all/ 
• What’s your goal for Spring? What are your students’ goals? Set an intention in a simple fun way.
• Hand-drawn how-to instructions using no words
• Congruence
• I am now a fan of Simone Giertz. She makes fun robots.
• Now I want to draw one on our campus.

Another component I include in my newsletter is a Question of the Week. The hope is to prompt some reflection and musings, and maybe even elicit responses. So far, only one of my readers actually replies, so this particular feature may not persist next year. In any case, I thought I’d share the questions I’ve asked during these first few months:

• What experiences would help build community and camaraderie across disciplines, on this campus? 
•  Which of these ProD approaches would work for you? Here’s a different menu of approaches. 
• What would make for an awesome Opening Week in the fall? What kinds of experiences would make you feel energized, equipped, and connected? 
• What would get you to participate in a book group during the summer? Or during Fall quarter? Or, a book group that ran through two quarters? I’m amassing this list of cool books that I think could be so interesting – especially with our individual and institutional aims of creating a more equitable learning environment. Follow-up question: Has anyone ever participated in a virtual book group? If so, what made it successful?  
• Have you attended a conference this year? Did you go to a session that made an impact, got you thinking differently or trying something new? Tell me!  Are you planning on attending a conference this summer? Tell me! 
• What compliment do you wish you could receive about your work? [borrowed from Will Allen, c/o swissmiss]

So, now… a question to blog readers: What would make an e-Newsletter appealing to you?

Exams – are they really learning opportunities?

submitted by Peg Balachowski, Associate Dean of Teaching & Learning at EvCC

“Some faculty members lament that exams can be missed opportunities to cultivate learning because worries about grades consume students' attention. What if there were a better way?”

In a recent post in the Teaching and Learning newsletter (courtesy of The Chronicle for Higher Education) the authors described a two-stage exam:

“Here’s how it works: Students take an exam individually... After they submit their answers, they split into groups of three to five students and go over the test together to hash out the answers.” Hmmm… you might be wondering if students who know this is the exam protocol would neglect to prepare for the exam. I wondered that too. The faculty who used this technique decided to test whether students had really learned anything from the group session and gave a surprise quiz just a few days later on the same material. Note that this was an INDIVIDUAL quiz. To their delight, “students who tested collaboratively learned the correct answers to more than one-third of the questions they had initially answered incorrectly on the tests they had taken individually. And, when students were tested three days later, the knowledge largely stuck.”

Is that enough of a boost in learning to convince you to try this technique? Let us know if you do and how your students did!

By the way, you can sign up to receive the Teaching and Learning Newsletter from the Chronicle by going to this site.

Dealing with the Dip

submitted by Elisabeth Fredrickson, Associate Dean for Instruction at Edmonds Community College

When I was teaching, a colleague and I had a longstanding tradition of checking in with each other during the seventh week. This was our time to commiserate over what we called The Seventh Week Blues--that feeling of frustration that students just weren't getting it, coupled with the sudden impulse to redo everything for next quarter.

It helped to talk about it. The feeling would pass, and reason would prevail. I learned to make small adjustments quarter to quarter and save the major overhauls for summer.

I didn't realize what a common feeling this was among teachers until I read Bonni Stachowiak's blog post, The Dip. She compares the rhythm of the school term to Tuckman and Jensen's stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Then, she notes that teaching seems to involve a little extra storming (stress and frustration) just before the adjournment phase--both for students and for teachers. For some students, this is the point where the choices they have made throughout the quarter, or the setbacks they have experienced, have finally caught up with them, leaving them (and perhaps you) feeling discouraged.

If you don't experience The Dip (aka, The Seventh Week Blues) then lucky you! But if you do, it may help to know that it's normal.

If you want more than just reassurance, Stachowiak offers some concrete strategies for keeping your spirits up during The Dip. She provides tips on keeping an "encouragement folder," communicating proactively with students who are trying to renegotiate their grades, and injecting a little humor (used appropriately) to lighten the mood.

Motivation

submitted by Peg Balachowski, Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning at EvCC

"There is only one way to succeed at anything and that is to give everything."

Vince Lombardi, American football coach

MOTIVATION



What motivates you?

I was listening to a presentation by Crystal Hall from the Evans School at the University of Washington last week at the College Spark Guided Pathways retreat. She spoke about how we, as humans, try our best to avoid incompetence. She said, “Engaging in things in which we feel competent reduces stress.”

That’s a classic human response – when I do a cardio class and the instructor tells us we are going to take it up a notch, my inner student says “No, I am comfortable where I am, I don’t need to work any harder.” Of course I don’t see the benefits of the challenge when I keep doing the same routine and not going for the heavier weights.

The same is true for our students. They often feel frustrated when a new instructor doesn’t teach the way a previous instructor taught, maybe challenging them to reach a little higher, and take some chances – in other words, they are avoiding incompetence.

Crystal also used the phrase “hassle factors.” How can we remove those barriers that get in the way of students making good choices? This leads me to the work we are doing at Everett Community College in designing program maps for faculty to use when they are advising students. For any given program there are required courses (degree requirements). But there are also electives to complete the credits required for a transfer degree. Students need 15 credits from the approved Humanities list. And there are well over 100 courses to choose from!! Sounds like choice overload, and many students simply spin the wheel to choose a course regardless of whether it’s the “best” choice. How do we keep this from becoming overwhelming when students are making their educational plans? As faculty teams create their program maps we are asking them to choose elective courses that will complement their program. What are the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) that a student in your program will need as they progress in their education to a career in your field? How would the elective you are recommending support those KSAs?

Of course it’s “almost un-American to remove choice” Crystal tells us. But as we complete our program maps we believe we are intentionally designing for student success. That is what motivates us! As strategic thinkers, we know we have to take Vince Lombardi’s advice and “give it everything.”

Copyright Q&A

by Jeanne Leader, Dean of Arts & Learning Resources at EvCC

The following is a brief Q&A from a previous 5 Star Consortium event regarding copyright. Please note, each faculty member should refer to their campus' policies & procedures regarding copyright information and regulations, as institutions may vary in specifics.

Q: If we do a project, and the students make a powerpoint using pictures & text from the same book or website and it goes over the 1000 word limit & 15 image limit, what should we report on?

A: This is a great example of how faculty can help by reviewing fair use guidelines with students early and often!  Rather than reporting a copyright infringement, I think the most appropriate course of action is for the project to be re-done (including citing all sources).

Q: When presenting lectures in class, can you use images from internet for presentation only? (Not for handouts)

Use the same fair use guidelines to determine if you should use the image.  Repeated use of any image is never a good idea; one time use may be ok.  It is always a good practice to first look for images that are labeled for noncommercial use.

Q: Copyright – how much on videos, pictures; text?

Most of the time, the answer to any copyright question is likely to be “maybe!”  Always consider the four factors of fair use:

• What is your purpose in using the material? Are you going to use the material for monetary gain or for education or research purposes?
• What is the characteristic nature of work – is it fact or fiction; has it been published or not?
• How much of the work are you going to use? Small amount or large? Is it the significant or central part of the work?
• How will your use of the work effect the author’s or the publisher’s ability to sell the material? If your purpose is for research or education, your effect on the market value may be difficult to prove. However, if your purpose is commercial gain, then you are not following fair use.
• Fair use for educational purposes – I had always thought that the rules were guidelines pending the ability to demonstrate fair use, not hard and fast limits

These are indeed guidelines to consider carefully before using any material to which you do not own the copyright or have not be granted permission.  There is no guarantee that what you might consider to be fair use is not a copyright violation.  Click here to consider some scenarios.

The copyright info – What if I just have an article from an electronic journal that I want to create a PDF of and send to students. Is this ok?

If the journal allows you to save the article as a PDF, you may be within fair use guidelines to provide the article to students in one class and on a one time basis.  If you want to continue to use the article in subsequent courses, you should seek permission.  Check with your library about e-reserves as this might be another option for a specific journal.

Copyright – Who owns copyright for lecture slides & questions that I have developed for the course to share with the students? Am I allowed to use the same slides/questions at another institution without seeking permission?

If you developed the materials on your own time and with your own equipment, your ownership of the copyright should be clear.  If you were compensated for the development, the institution may own all or partial rights.  Check your faculty contract and any college policies about creative works. 

Getting Ready for Fall Quarter – Managing your time Part 2

Last week I wrote a post about time management. In that time I have worked on the to-do list, and am feeling pretty good about my efforts. How about you?

As I mentioned last week, I looked in my College 101 archives and found materials I used to discuss time management. I had a Top Ten list and shared 1 – 5 last week. Here’s the rest of the list!


6.    Combine Efforts:  Consider scheduling different tasks that can be done at the same time.  For example, while waiting in line or on the bus do some reading, planning or relaxing (it's important to schedule relaxing and other wellness activities).

7.    Avoid Perfectionism and Procrastination:  Often these common dynamics are rooted in a fear of results (i.e. failure, success, completion).  Examine your self-talk and/or try to temporarily depersonalize the tasks.  People often procrastinate by doing less important busy work instead of truly important tasks.

8.    Don't Overcommit:  Learn how to say NO and focus on your priorities or you'll do a lot of things not very well with too much stress.  Delegate and negotiate with others and remember to focus on your prioritized goals.

9.    Limit and Control Time Bandits:  Identify things or people who rob your time against your wishes and be assertive against interruptions.  Take action to limit the temptations of television, telephone calls, unexpected visits, extra food breaks, etc. . .  If possible, try to study in the same quiet and prepared space.

10.    Include Rewards:  Which one will motivate you?  You can arrange your environment to have someone give you this reward when you finish your task(s).  The reward can be a more enjoyable activity you decide you won't do until the task is done. But the best reward is finding a personal rewarding feeling of satisfaction through your accomplishments.

This week my favorite in #7. This is me sometimes! It makes me feel really good when all my pencils are sharpened and lined up nicely, but that doesn’t help me get my next large task, like writing a program review, checked off my to-do list. Have you ever heard the phrase “the perfect is the enemy of the good”? That’s me too. So I promise that in Fall Quarter I will work on these two tips from the list. Let us know how you’re doing!

Summer Reading 2017

What I’m reading this summer – Advice from faculty professional developers

Rhonda DeWitt
Rhonda is the chair of Pro-Development for Lake Washington’s Equity Diversity Inclusion (EDI) Council, which consists of employees from across the campus (VP, Deans, Faculty, Staff) and has 20 members reading the book, Is Everyone Really Equal? by Özlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo. The purpose of the EDI Council participating in reading and discussing Is Everyone Really Equal? is to ensure we are working from a stance of informed knowledge, rather than personal opinions, and to ensure we have the essential tools for effective communication and work on the subject of equity on our campus and in our classrooms here at LWTech. This is our way of showing a unified stance on our unwavering commitment to advocating equity at LWTech. 

Melody Schneider
Melody is the current Co-Coordinator for Faculty Professional Development at Edmonds Community College and she is recommending Small Teaching by  James M. Lang.
Melody says: Faculty in my department (High School Completion) at EdCC started reading this book last winter.  We tried strategies from the first chapter during winter quarter. For my part, the strategies around retrieval had a great impact on a student’s memory and they thought so too!  This summer I'm ready to finish the book and apply additional strategies.  I particularly like how Lang uses research to support each idea along with stories and examples.  It's a small book, a quick connect and absolutely useful.

Claire Murata
Claire is on the library staff at Shoreline Community College. She’s reading the assessment section from Reading for Understanding, R. Schoenback , Cynthia Greenleaf and Lynn Murphy, and also Metaliteracy in Practice Eds.  Trudi E. Jacobson and Thomas P. Mackey. This book shows how teachers and students can work together to boost literacy, engagement, and achievement. Specifically, it helps readers use the Reading Apprenticeship® framework to increase student engagement and academic achievement in subject area classes. Amazon says of Metaliteracy: “Today's learners communicate, create, and share information using a range of information technologies such as social media, blogs, microblogs, wikis, mobile devices and apps, virtual worlds, and MOOCs. In Metaliteracy, respected information literacy experts Mackey and Jacobson present a comprehensive structure for information literacy theory that builds on decades of practice while recognizing the knowledge required for an expansive and interactive information environment.”


Sally Heilstedt
Sally is the Associate Dean of Instruction at Lake Washington Institute of Technology. Sally says, “I would like to finish The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World, by Peter Wohlleben. So far, I have been astounded by the connectedness that communities of trees (aka forests) practice to survive and thrive. I find myself reflecting on the beautiful complexity of our world and where we have complicated it unnecessarily. I am inspired to seek out the same connectedness with family and friends and with colleagues. It has been a challenge. Trees have powerful resources for preserving their communities and even those fail. I face distractions and seeming urgencies that keep me from focusing on the great work and meaningful relationships that result when connectedness is the primary goal. Here’s to learning from our leafed neighbors!”

Natasa Kesler
 Natasa is the Director of Cascadia’s Teaching and Learning Academy. A couple of years ago at Cascadia College we had a very successful Faculty Learning Circle inspired by Therese Huston’s book “Teaching What You Don’t Know” (2009). The title summarizes a typical problem faced by faculty (especially at Community Colleges) who are often called to teach outside their own expertise area.  However, Huston’s book is much more than a manual for novice teachers. It is a well-organized work, full of practical advice and detailed descriptions of numerous successful classroom strategies for new and seasoned instructors. In addition to addressing the struggles faced by college faculty, the book offers very practical active learning classroom ideas, describes approaches to collect student feedback and ways to design meaningful assessments.  Cascadia’s Teaching and Learning Academy (TLA) was so impressed by Huston’s book that we decided to make a tradition of gifting it to all new Cascadia faculty.

Peg Balachowski
Peg is the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning at Everett Community College. From Peg: This summer I am going to read Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher by Stephen P. Brookfield. Marzano’s “Becoming a Reflective Teacher” is a handbook that I refer to often, and it’s a great handbook for strategies (important!) Brookfield opens his book with “We teach to change the world.” How can you not read a book that begins with that statement? After finishing this I hope to be able to move on to his more recent book, “Teaching for Critical Thinking. “ Critical thinking is one of EvCC’s College Core Learning Outcomes and I want to make it a big part of my work with faculty in the coming year.

Student Evaluations – Should We Pay Attention to Them?

The answer is YES!

Summer is a great time to reflect on the most recent academic year. Not only can you sit in the sun enjoying a refreshing beverage, reviewing your classroom activities and what went right and what might need some tweeking, you can and should also take some time to reflect on your student evaluations from the past year. In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education: As Summer Sets In, a Chance to Regard the Good, Bad, and Ugly of Student Evaluations, author Chris Quintana says, “Some of the weirder things students write in course evaluations can be fun to mock. But professors say they get helpful comments, too, and sometimes transformative ones that lead to improvements in how they teach.” Have you been dinged because of your accent or the way you dress? Quintana reminds us, “On the one hand, the students’ concerns can seem off-topic or mean-spirited. On the other hand, students’ unreserved criticism can be invaluable in improving a course.”
Sometimes we hear comments from students that are conflicting. Some students like projects, some students hate them. Some students like your jokes in class, some students think they’re stupid. What would you do with these comments? How would you take this information and use it to improve your course?


If you are one of those people who doesn’t really believe in the importance of student end-of-course evaluations or wonder if students are really “qualified” to evaluate their courses, you may ask why do we even do them? Betsy Barre, Associate Director of Rice University’s Center for Teaching Excellence, did a study and was highlighted in an article in Vitae. She concludes that despite many issues around student evals (such as they are used for a multitude of purposes), she says they are still important and valuable. In fact, “studies showed a positive correlation between student evaluations and learning.” While they are an “imperfect tool,” we have few other instruments of teaching effectiveness. And remember, these are evaluations of students’ perception of their own learning.

Some recommendations from this article in Vitae include:

Take your time – look at the results as soon as they are available, but remember that these reports contain a lot of valuable information. So if the results aren’t what you were hoping for, put them away and go back a week later when you’ve had some time to process.

Do a deep dive - Many of us go right to the numbers. However, there are other parts of the evaluation report that are (in my opinion) far more important! Make sure you are paying close attention to how students responded to the questions on the evaluation that are most important to you.

Go back in time – When you are thinking about the evaluations that you will be doing in the future, plan, plan, plan. Then plan some more! Remember that checking in with students several times during the quarter (remember to do a PLUS/DELTA at mid-quarter!) will ultimately result in better connections with students and better evaluation results.

Put the evaluations in context – Unlike other types of assessments (and that’s really what student evaluations are) these are anonymous student feedback. However, because you are asking the students that you have spent the entire quarter with to complete the evaluation, they are not exactly random!

When you are reviewing your evaluation report, you know what happened during the quarter…the students in your class, how each of them did academically, the material you covered. There may be students who didn’t do well and may express some of those “concerns” in their comments. Try to keep these comments in perspective. I can remember having many nice comments from students, and then one that seemed like a “grudge” comment that got me down in the dumps. How to deal with that? Keep it in perspective! We cannot make every student happy every quarter. It may be a comment from the student who didn’t show up every day and/or didn’t complete work, and who chose to be disengaged. Sometimes we have to admit we cannot reach all students.

So, in the end, with our refreshing beverage and a sunny day, the big take-aways from a review of student evaluations include: look for trends, look on the bright side, and look for ways to improve next time around.

Happy summer!

Dear Future Student...

As we wrap up yet another quarter, I imagine many instructors giving advice to students on how to prepare for their final exams, not only in their class but other classes as well. I also offered students my “pearls of wisdom” on how to prepare for math exams: re-read the text and your notes, go back to old exams and quizzes, find your weak areas and practice, practice, practice. And no all-nighters!

Recently, I came across an article by Maryellen Weimer about giving students advice on studying. She said that she was observing a class, and as the students were packing up to leave the instructor mentioned that there was a test next week, and handed out a sheet to use for review. Suddenly, the students stopped what they were doing and sat down to read this handout. Rather than a list of do’s and don’ts from the instructor, the list included recommendations from students who had taken the class the previous term. Do students listen to our advice on how to study? No? Maybe they’ll listen to former students.

Weimer writes, “I was even more taken back by the insightful advice former students offered.

“Come to class regularly. He goes over problems in class very much like ones that show up on the exam.”

“Don’t wait until the night before the exam to start doing the homework problems. Do the problems every week.”

“If you don’t understand something, ask about it. Chances are good you aren’t the only one who doesn’t understand.”

“It helps to check homework with somebody else in class, not to copy answers, but to see how they did the problem.”

Students gave the very same advice I’d heard countless professors offer, but I never saw students taking our study advice this seriously.”

What if, at the end of this quarter, you ask your students to write a “Dear Future Student” letter that you can give students the next quarter? I believe it would give your current students an opportunity to reflect on the strategies that they use (or should have used) to be successful in your class. Weimer also suggests that we ask our current students to share their study strategies. Ask students to submit this advice and create a small poster for your classroom. Make sure you give the class credit (this advice was submitted by students in Math 142) and even credit students with their permission.

By the way, the instructor who was being observed? He told Weimer that “he started including advice from students who had struggled in the class. Many of them wrote candidly about things they’d done that didn’t work and things they’d do differently if they were taking the course again.” Even if - and especially if - a student is struggling, we can encourage them to reflect on their role as a learner in your class by thinking about both successful and unsuccessful strategies. I recently spoke to a student who took a basic math class with me a few years ago. His struggles were with time management (a nice way to say he wasn’t very committed to coming to class everyday) and lack of persistence. When I saw him he told me that he now looks back at that person and recognizes what he needed to do to be successful, made changes in later quarters, and shared that he has been accepted into a Bachelors program. The candid nature of my conversation with this former students made me realize the value of reflective student advice for future students.

If you try this in your class, let us know how it works.

Comment on this post, or send an email to fivestarcolleges@gmail.com

Learning from Failure

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
- Winston Churchill

Since we are at the half-way point of the quarter, I took some time to reflect on my students from the past, especially when I was a new teacher. Typically by this point, there have been multiple assessments, and students who are not doing well may just disappear from class. If they stayed, some continued to struggle, and were often embarrassed by their failures. They were reluctant to ask for help because of that embarrassment. 

I have since changed my tune about failure. In a recent article in The Chronicle for Higher Education, Creative Ways to Help Students Recover from Failure, author Raynard S. Kington, President of Grinnell College, says, “The risk of failure — that we might not ‘get it’ — is the price we pay for the gift of new knowledge, and knowledge is at the core of our mission and our efforts to make the world a better place.”
Our challenge as educators is to help students understand this. Are there ways that you help students over the failure hurdle?

We’d love to hear your ideas! Comment below, or email fivestarcolleges@gmail.com

You Should Be Here: 2nd Annual EvCC Mentoring Conference

The 2nd Annual EvCC Mentoring Conference is happening right now! 


The Disruptive Innovation Mentoring group from EvCC has an entire day full of sessions to encourage, motivate and engage everyone attending today! There are opportunities to network, a phenomenal keynote speaker, and of course lunch!

YOU SHOULD BE HERE!

Why I Read Blogs

Why I Read Blogs – Keeping Up with the Latest in Educational Blogs

by Peg Balachowski, Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning

 

If you are reading this post, then you are a blog reader. As defined by Wikipedia, “A blog (a truncation of the expression weblog) is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries ("posts").”

This blog, the The 5-Star Consortium, is written by members of the 5-Star Consortium College’s professional developers group, and is regularly updated with posts on a variety of topics including “What Would You Do Wednesday?” with classroom management scenarios that are all based on real situations. Other topics have included growth mindset and formative assessments. 

Why do I read blogs? My office bookshelves are crammed full of scholarly works that I keep meaning to read. At times it seems overwhelming – the thought of getting through several hundred pages of scholarly texts in a short amount of time (i.e. in addition to an already lost list of things to do) makes me a bit crazy. But blogs? I can get through them pretty quickly. They are meant to be short (mostly) and offer a variety of viewpoints. 

Here is a sampling of the blogs that I read with the title of the most recent post. I hope you enjoy reading them. 

The Center for Transformative Teaching

Using an accessible syllabus to create an inclusive classroom: As we reach the end of one academic quarter and prepare for the next here at EvCC, you may find yourself thinking about updating the syllabus for one or more of the courses you’ll be teaching. Revisiting a syllabus is always a good opportunity to make some simple changes that can dramatically improve its accessibility. (Full disclosure – I am one of the contributors to this blog!)

The Dream Dean

High impact practices: Last month, I was at a meeting on my campus regarding High-Impact Educational Practices, where the discussion centered around the need to incorporate more of these practices into students’ educational experience.

Faculty Focus

How do students learn from participation in class discussion? Despite numerous arguments favoring active learning, especially class discussion, instructors sometimes worry that discussion is an inefficient or ineffective way for students to learn. What happens when students make non-value added, irrelevant, or inaccurate contributions?

The Teaching Professor

Learning outside your comfort zone: When we learn something outside the comfort zone, we attempt to acquire knowledge or skills in an area where we’re lacking. Part of the discomfort derives from learning something we anticipate will be difficult. We have no idea how to do it, or we think it requires abilities we don’t have or have in meager amounts.

ProfHacker

Find Open Access Articles Faster with UnPayWall: Have you heard of Unpaywall? It is a free Chrome/Firefox extension that helps you quickly find open access versions of articles you’re searching for.

Which of these is your favorite? Do you have blogs that you would suggest? We’d love to hear from you!

What Would You Do Wednesday: Scenario 7

Each week we will bring you a short scenario to address issues that you, your colleagues and students might face. How would you respond to these scenarios? Would you file a report, or do something different? Talk to your colleagues about these situations - the classroom should be a safe learning environment for students AND instructors!

SCENARIO #7

Typically our scenarios describe a situation that you might encounter with a student in your class. What if you saw or heard something about a student or students you don’t know? Let’s say you are in line at the café on campus, waiting to pay for your lunch. There is a bit of a disturbance close by, so you turn to see what’s going on. Two students, a male and female who you’ve seen together on campus before and assume to be a couple, are having what appears to be a heated argument. You can’t really tell what it’s about, but the male student is making aggressive gestures and getting quite close to the female student. She is backing away but the male student continues to move closer to her, and all the while his voice is getting louder. You look around hoping that someone else will intervene, but everyone else seems to be looking away, not wanting to get involved. You are worried about the female student’s safety. What should you do?

Post your comments below!

If you'd like someone from the 5 Star Consortium to follow up with you regarding this scenario, please email fivestarcolleges@gmail.com

What Would You Do Wednesday: Scenario 6

Each week we will bring you a short scenario to address issues that you, your colleagues and students might face. How would you respond to these scenarios? Would you file a report, or do something different? Talk to your colleagues about these situations - the classroom should be a safe learning environment for students AND instructors!

SCENARIO #5

It’s the end of the quarter! You have just finished teaching a section of a history course for the first time. It’s an area of history that you really love, and the students in the class really appreciated your enthusiasm for the subject. The papers that they wrote were so good! You know that you have inspired them, and it shows in the quality of their papers. Now, however, you have a huge stack of grading to do!

As you begin reading through the paper of one of your favorite students, you start to think that things sound familiar. Sure enough, when you google one of the paragraphs, it turns out that the student has plagiarized sections of a paper by an author whose work can be found online. Your favorite student! Those papers were always so good! You begin to wonder if this student’s previous papers also had parts that were plagiarized. What should you do?

Post your comments below!

If you'd like someone from the 5 Star Consortium to follow up with you regarding this scenario, please email fivestarcolleges@gmail.com

Keys to a Successful Mentoring Partnership

The 2nd Annual Disruptive Innovation Mentoring Conference at EvCC is coming soon!

In addition to the conference, there is a Pre-Conference Opportunity available! Here's what the Disruptive Innovation Mentoring team is offering:

Designing a Successful Mentor Training (Pre-Conference)

    Thursday, April 6, 2017 2-5pm
    Limit 20 attendees
    Early Bird Registration: $40 (Opens March 1, 2017)
    Regular Registration: $50 (after March 15, 2017)

What are the keys to a successful mentoring partnership? The first - and perhaps most important - step is training to provide mentors with the necessary tools to create quality mentoring relationships and programs. This workshop will guide participants in developing a training for potential mentors in their organization. Everyone who is interested in building a program is welcome to attend!
Goals and objectives will include:

•     Clarifying mentor's role/responsibilities
•     Clarifying mentee's role/responsibilities
•     Strategies for staying engaged
•     Sensitivity to cultural differences
•     Dealing with issues of confidentiality
•     Practical advice from past mentors and mentees
•     Discussion, questions, concerns
•     Time to design

Register today to reserve your spot! Make sure you select whether you wish to register for the Pre-Conference, Conference or both when selecting your tickets.

What Would You Do Wednesday: Scenario 3

Each week we will bring you a short scenario to address issues that you, your colleagues and students might face. How would you respond to these scenarios? Would you file a report, or do something different? Talk to your colleagues about these situations - the classroom should be a safe learning environment for students AND instructors!

SCENARIO #3

From the very beginning of the quarter, a student in your history class frequently interrupts your lectures by asking questions that are not related to the topic. She is also usually the person who blurts out answers when you pose a question to the class. In all other respects, this student is doing well – good test scores, assignments in on time, attendance perfect. But now towards the end of the quarter, you are totally frustrated by what you think is this student’s need to be noticed AND so are the other students.

Is it too late in the quarter to do anything about this? What do you do? How do you address this with the student? What do you say to other students? Who can help you with this situation?

Post your comments below!

If you'd like someone from the 5 Star Consortium to follow up with you regarding this scenario, please email fivestarcolleges@gmail.com