Archives+of+notes+sent+to+faculty

The Archives you see here are notes I send out to faculty on campus (Lamar Community College) periodically as part of a teaching and learning element. Now I am not sure how well received the information is but I believe you can never read enough on teaching and being better prepared. So I will add to this as I round up all those mailings. Hope the links work.

Postings of ideas, thoughts, helps, tips, and … January 21, 2011 Have had a couple of faculty ask about video capture of some lectures for the classes. One faculty member had recorded a couple of sessions before the term because of the potential absence. Others are looking at getting the material to the student but realize in class time is limited. So with that in mind, if you have considered capturing portions of your classroom lecture or would like to add some additional video lecture, please let me know. Classroom projectors – you must shut the projectors down before you leave. There have been a couple of instances where the projector has been on overnight. Some projectors require that the user push the on/off button twice, whilst others you will only push the button once. Always see what the screen has on it to see what is required. These bulbs cost in excess of $200+. If you were going to Webb School in Knoxville, TN next fall you can forget the school supply section at Walmart, you would be required to come to class with an iPad. [|Read the article.] 3/11/2011 Although training in D2L prior to teaching an online or hybrid, it is highly recommended that if you are planning to teach an online or hybrid course and you have not taken EDU 263, you must take the courses offered via CCCS/CCCO – Discussing the issue of no longer having EDU 263 paid for faculty the alternative that several system schools are making is that it will be mandatory for any faculty teaching online and hybrid will take a series of the courses listed. The link for the training is: [] The courses you will need to take to be qualified to teach online and hybrid courses within the system, e.g., ccco, ppc, ppcc, etc will be: Learning Styles; D2L Essentials; Managing Discussions; and the webinar regarding the gradebook. But don’t hesitate to take the many offerings as these will only help you. With my position going to a 9 month your only option will be to have this training completed before June 30. Now the other system schools’ D2L staff can answer questions but only if you have completed the training. So just a head’s up. I will be offering up a couple of seminars on gradebooks, attendance, and quizzes – stay tuned. Just discussed in the LTC meeting – Using Elluminate vs testing another web based synchronous platform. I know no one uses Elluminate for teaching synchronously – although you can. However the system is looking into another product. Any thoughts? So many other schools use this to teach and I would think it would work here. Ok, just one more item – I was told that we can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink. Well, if all we can offer up is a tin can of the stuff we are missing the intent of faculty orientation for academic technology. So I am asking for faculty to reflect on what they feel would be necessary for faculty orientation primarily in the area of academic technology. 3/7/2011 Or what makes an instructor good? I was asked that question by another institution. I thought back to some of the teachers and instructors I have had at one time or another. I also thought of those instructors I supervised for a time in my academic career. They were usually those individual that was able to put some life in a subject that was really lifeless. They knew the subject. They worked in the field and were current. And the list could go on… From the faculty orientation for faculty @ University of Colorado Denver:

What Makes a Good Instructor? What Students Tell Us
In a recent Educause article, Mark Morton summarizes his qualitative research of a thousand student comments about the ten best and worst Canadian university instructors listed on ratemyprofessor.com. He found four salient characteristics of a good teacher:

The Fantastic Four
**Character** - enthusiastic about their topic/discipline, friendly, good sense of humor. **Transmission** - gives good lectures, uses good examples and demonstrations, clearly responds to student questions. **Course Design** - well-organized course materials, well-prepared instructor, coordination between what is taught and what is tested. **Assessment** - instructor grades fairly, provides prompt feedback. One caveat: Mark Morton indicates that students may value transmission over interaction because they don't fully grasp the benefits of collaborative and interactive learning activities. In a sense, they don't know what they're missing! AND also in the orientation:

Faculty Success Advice
Based on our Downtown Campus student surveys and faculty development workshops, we've come up with some simple survival success strategies for our new faculty:

To minimize your problems and stress:

 * **Familiarize yourself with the registration procedures and deadlines**.
 * **Familiarize yourself with the registration procedures and deadlines**.

Some web presentation tidbits that you will find interesting: Are you a digital native or digital immigrant? [] [] [] 3/3/2011 I believe tips that follow are worth sharing with our faculty. My issue is getting the web sites and links loaded before class starts. Waiting for the computer to ramp up is always an issue. So there is that dead time. If you have ideas or lessons-learned that you want to share with others, please do. There are a number of schools that have a center for excellence in teaching and learning with posts to better the classroom and learning experience. It boils down to //student retention// and //success//. Georgia Tech has some tips and tools @ [] - go to the faculty link and to the resources link for more information. Under the faculty link there is a link to scholarship of teaching and learning. Get to that page and scroll down to the “writing and assessing…” for some excellent tips on learning outcomes and more. From PPCC/CETL This is a CETL minute for the week of February 28-March 4. Here are some interesting ideas for taking role. Instead of asking students merely to reply with “Here!” try: 1. Expecting a reply to the first study question for the day’s assigned reading 2. Asking for the most interesting idea in last night’s reading 3. Defining one of the key terms from the reading 4. Repeating one of the key ideas from the last lecture/class discussion 5. Raising a significant question from last class or from this class’ assigned reading There are many possibilities here. The important thing to remember is: 1. This is a great use of otherwise dead class time 2. If done consistently students will come prepared with a couple of possibilities 3. Never allow a student to pass, simply wait, and if necessary encourage his/her neighbors to help 4. Mix it up. Never start the roll in the same place twice. Let students know that they should come with several possible responses in case someone before them has already offered their first choice. 5. Make it fun. Congratulate for good responses. Encourage as needed. Always give thanks for effort. Make it a whole class effort. Enjoy it yourself. You may be surprised how many students are waiting and ready with notebooks opened after a few days or weeks of this practice. If you are looking at ways to record your lectures, here are two links – the first is the home page and the other is the follow-on. [] [] 3/17/11 The video shown in the all-hands (a military term for those mass theater meetings) was very interesting and really unpacked a lot of what student retention is all about. One of the concepts that the speaker detailed was that of the “E” communication. Our students are involved in the “E” more than we think. Many have the social networking pages – Ok, what can or should we use to stay in contact? Uhm, I was going to do a survey via [|Polleverywhere] but you guys don’t like to play along so I will forgo that exercise. Other ways can be a faculty website. We do not have a server to provide faculty with a website but there are numerous ways to post info that the student can access without the student evading your Facebook or Twitter account. Wikispaces could be an option for you. This is where you can post ideas and thoughts. You can set it up to be public, protected, or private. [] Here is a link to one I have opened but have not progressed very far – |http://scholarship4faculty.wikispaces.com/ You can add pages and you can start a discussion – You can link to it from D2L. The title of the online article is “[|Top Reasons You Should Use Social Media for Recruiting]” and the article comes from an HR site – but the reasons can be applied to how we reach our students, present and future ones. The University of West Florida has an Academic Technology Center that provides some very useful information regarding Some the “E” concepts. I picked this page because of the Horizon reports but if you look on the left side you will see what is under cool tools. These will define each of the terms. [|Click here]

Did you know social media is being used in a number of academic institutions to increase recruitment efforts? How many of your students tweet or use Facebook? Blogs and message boards have also been successful tools to reach out to current and potential students. See an interesting article on this subject ([])

[] Characteristics of effective teachers [] – I wish for a pill or do I? The issue is - knowledge is power. Do we give our students the ability to recognize how to attain knowledge or do we read to them with little expectation that they will take that “information” and seek to gain more? Is it critical thinking or lateral thinking that is missed when the students graduate with the ability to answer Jeopardy questions but can’t get beyond a self defeating mentality? I met an author a long while back that had written a book titled, The Way They Learn. Cynthia Tobias wrote about discovering the strengths of a child by defining the individual’s learning style. And having spent considerable amount of time with Dr Leman of the Birth Order book, it becomes obvious how one does learn. But what I have learned is that we all have a learning style. It is a matter of understanding what those are and then developing the lesson plan to meet those various styles. First to consider are two views or perceptions: Concrete and Abstract. From those we have a way of ordering. The two ways that we order is Random and Sequential. Put that all together and there are four different combinations: Concrete Sequential, Abstract Sequential, Abstract Random, and Concrete Random. Of course the book details each of these, but one source to consider is the Gregoric Adult Style Delineator. This was developed by Dr Gregoric as a way of determining learning profiles. How do you learn? Try the delineator - [] You can visit - [] And - [] Wow, and to think that some educational institutions consider this profile useful. Well, I have used it as I consider the students in the class. And I would bet that if you had your students complete the delineator you would find that your teaching style may not be in line with the students in your class.

A study in the UK (United Kingdom not U of Kentucky) revealed some interesting numbers in support of blended learning. The numbers were compared to those of the US were similar and identified that instructor led was almost 50% and yet considered the least effective and efficient. A forecast showed that with the evolution of web-based learning management systems and changes in how “we” teach, the instructor will be more involved in delivering e-learning and blended learning methods. As faculty and administrators review what students are looking for in education, we are seeing a change in the student make-up. A site - [] - this is a good web site to assist the instructor to look at methods in teaching, especially if we direct our online and blended courses. What makes a student successful? Review the principles - []. Assessments: there are a number of assessments; the one you provide your students to see how well they learned the course material, and the assessment that is taken of the faculty member by the students for evaluating teaching the course. No matter how you look at assessments, these are part of life. From the Chronicle: Commentary on the book //Academically Adrift//. [] – discusses some research on learning or maybe the lack of learning. Interesting discussion on the research methods and some of the problems. However, does lend itself to look at how learning is taking place. This next one applies to more of what was discussed in the faculty senate meetings of past: The title is, “Why do I like assessment?...” [] – last line – “Let’s do it to improve learning.” Another commentary on teaching and assessing - [] For faculty and those that fall into the category of adjunct, here is an interesting article - [] - A good point regarding the role. But more over, review some of the blogs (advice) that can be a lift to many of our faculty. Teaching Tips Here is a teaching tip: How to teach English to at-risk college students - [] – The author of the article provides some tips that will impact more than the student in the English class. An Online public university takes on the dropouts – now my question is why online? [] – I was asked last week what my opinion of the future of online. It is here to stay and this method might be the only way to reach students in our service area. Are you considering recording your classroom lectures? Come over to my office and I can show you some ideas. And on your computers you have Movie Maker. This is a simple way to build a lecture. Here is an example - [] – now I do think I am better at radio, but…

The video shown in the all-hands (a military term for those mass theater meetings) was very interesting and really unpacked a lot of what student retention is all about. One of the concepts that the speaker detailed was that of the “E” communication. Our students are involved in the “E” more than we think. Many have the social networking pages – Ok, what can or should we use to stay in contact? Uhm, I was going to do a survey via [|Polleverywhere] but you guys don’t like to play along so I will forgo that exercise. Other ways can be a faculty website. We do not have a server to provide faculty with a website but there are numerous ways to post info that the student can access without the student evading your Facebook or Twitter account. Wikispaces could be an option for you. This is where you can post ideas and thoughts. You can set it up to be public, protected, or private. [] Here is a link to one I have opened but have not progressed very far – http://scholarship4faculty.wikispaces.com/ You can add pages and you can start a discussion – You can link to it from D2L. The title of the online article is “[|Top Reasons You Should Use Social Media for Recruiting]” and the article comes from an HR site – but the reasons can be applied to how we reach our students, present and future ones. The University of West Florida has an Academic Technology Center that provides some very useful information regarding Some the “E” concepts. I picked this page because of the Horizon reports but if you look on the left side you will see what is under cool tools. These will define each of the terms. [|Click here]

I believe tips that follow are worth sharing with our faculty. My issue is getting the web sites and links loaded before class starts. Waiting for the computer to ramp up is always an issue. So there is that dead time. If you have ideas or lessons-learned that you want to share with others, please do. There are a number of schools that have a center for excellence in teaching and learning with posts to better the classroom and learning experience. It boils down to //student retention// and //success//. Georgia Tech has some tips and tools @ [] - go to the faculty link and to the resources link for more information. Under the faculty link there is a link to scholarship of teaching and learning. Get to that page and scroll down to the “writing and assessing…” for some excellent tips on learning outcomes and more.

Here are a few links that might just help you in your writing of the ebook you are considering for your classes. These are from TechRepublic: [|Sorting whole paragraphs in Word] [|Keeping Word text together] There are more books being published in an “ e ” format. There are a number of sites that offer the download of some of the electronic versions of those texts you want your students to read. Some of the concerns I have run across is what do I need to have in order to read some of these books and articles. Some come in pdf which is easy to fix as we should have Adobe reader installed on our computers. Others are HTML, but then there are those extensions that are ePub, Kindle, Plucker, Mobi, or QiOO. These require a reader, however do not think you have to buy an iPad, Sony, or Kindle in order to read those classics or the latest text McGraw-Hill sent. There are a number of readers that you can download to your computer for free. And with that many of the sites offer up free books as well. [|Kindle for PC] [|B&N reader (Nook)] – scroll down on the left side to find NOOK for PC [|Mobi] Besides being able to download textbooks and other reading material, there are the free ebooks as well. [|Project Gutenberg] [|Free-eBooks] – you can also publish here as well [|B&N] [|Amazon (Kindle)] – some are 99c [|Mobi] [|A link to a few others] – the 20 best The Disclaimer – Always verify the site you are downloading from. You will be responsible for any and all costs and fees when downloading books to your computer if the book is not free. Extensions??? But what about *.abw, *.odt, *.wps, or… Students are submitting their papers in a number of different formats and that causes some problems with grading. Students need to be aware that documents need to be saved as rtf, doc, or docx for any instructor to grade those on the computers on campus. And if you are using Turnitin in D2L, the program works best with rtf, doc, and docx. Space Shuttle Discovery’s last mission is on right now and here is a link to some photos – [|Click here]
 * .wps – this is Microsoft Works that comes with a standard Home edition of Windows. Unless you have Works loaded on your computer, you will not be able to read the paper nor will the Turnitin work.
 * .odt – this is an OpenOffice.org software that is free and works much like Windows Word 97-2003 but does not translate unless the document is saved as a *.doc.
 * .adw – A new one for me. This is AbiWord from OpenSource.org, a free software. It also does not translate unless saved as a docx.

Looking over some material for developing online courses and then finding additional information on how students learn, the models of concept mapping came up. The idea of concept mapping has been around but not discussed. Maybe we need to take a moment and revisit this idea for developing not only our classes but also as a way of encouraging our students to develop a methodology for study and preparing papers and speeches. (Looking over some speech outlines and reflecting on last term I have to think that if I had taught more of this, maybe, just maybe… - wishful thinking?) The concept mapping is used extensively in nursing education. ([|Scribd]) Having used fault trees in some engineering analyses this seems like mapping might be the way to go in getting the student to understand the subject at hand. Well, it is an idea and after reading an interesting thread on the Journal, this is another way to help our students be successful. [] - good video and software for creating concept mapping [] - some broken links [] [] [|http://www.west.net/~ger/notetaking.html] [] [|http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmargeru/conceptmap/types.htm] [] A video - [] search [|http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=qwo&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=concept+mapping+examples&revid=722905108&sa=X&ei=yC1tTaOHFsT6lweMu9HPBA&ved=0CJEBENUCKAE] [|http://www.google.com/search?q=concept+mapping&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a] []

A very interesting blog on teaching online - [] - The presenter has shared much of what is available for instructors and designers. Also notice how this presenter is delivering these. My opinion – some very good tips and ideas.

[] and you can go forwards and back to see what articles might interest you. But I do recommend that you visit this page on the top 10 sites for educational resources – [|click here] – look at the stats for online.

From the people at Tech&Learning: How to grow a textbook by Joyce Kasman Valenza -[|http://techlearning.com/PrintableArticle.aspx?id=36452] – How many of us have made the statement that “I should write my own text for this class”? And with the cost of textbooks today, how can I get the subject matter across to the students and not have two or three books for purchase? I am willing to bet you have plenty of written lecture notes and a collection of articles and pieces that you can organize and put into a text – of course working through the legal stuff, but… There are a number of sites that you can publish a text on. Scribd is one of those.

Over the past 3 months I have been repeatedly asked two questions in various academic circles: 1) what is my distance learning and teaching philosophies; and 2) How do I define faculty scholarship and how does this benefit the academic institution. In many colleges and universities //centers for teaching excellence// programs, the topic of faculty scholarship is discussed in some detail. For one school faculty scholarship means additional external funding. But what does it mean? What does the term “faculty scholarship” mean and probably worth asking, how much of an impact would a sound faculty scholarship have on LamarCC? AQIP is one focus we have here at the campus. So those 4 letters caught my eye when looking for information on the topic of scholarship. From the AQIP web page of one school one reads, “The Academic Affairs Division is strongly committed to enhancing the pursuit of scholarship by faculty and staff. We are committed to the concept of the //teacher-scholar//, a distinction that was emphasized by Ernest Boyer when he said that the time has come to move beyond the teaching versus scholarship debate. Teaching and scholarship are two sides of the same coin;…” Several academic institutions tie in many of the grants that are sought with scholarship. That explains the external funding aspect. Boyer – an interesting individual. Attached are some documents that relate to Boyer’s idea of scholarship. Very interesting reading. And yes, community colleges are involved in faculty scholarship. See - [] - and you find some very interesting discussion points about CC faculty. From Boyer – scholarship “encompasses four functions: discovery, integration, sharing knowledge, and applying knowledge.” There is quite a bit on the engaged scholarship that is involving the community. Similar to our community engagement efforts. But that is for another email. Some links that are worth reading: [] [] []

I was clearing out my mail box when I came across the following email and some notes. We just "talked" about this subject of retention last week. Maybe it is not all dorm or facility related. How do we use the tools we have to aid in retention? Interesting to see how the faculty at PPCC respond to the question that was raised in the following email. Look at the responses. Personally I do not think we needed a committee of 40+ to determine the dorms need improvement as a way of retaining students. Geez, I could see the dorms needed help 18 months ago. Here is where I see retention issues based on discussions with students - "professor X coddles the athletes and does their work for them whilst I have to bust my buns to get a passing grade." "I just received a letter that states I am not going to graduate as I thought. So screw this place I am going to CSU-P because I don't need an AA and don't need the hassle." Or that the technology in the classroom does not work or no two classrooms are the same and no two workstations are configured alike. Or how about a course that goes from classroom to online and while the students are in their online course the whole thing changes and the students and faculty are trying to figure out what happened to their class. Students that don't want an online class in the first place. It is interesting how schools that do not have dorms assess retention or those that do and what these schools focus on. We should ask the administration for these resources - [] & [] Wow, here is a list of links and topics that affect retention - [] Interesting, I could see where I need to improve - [] Download this one, very good article - [] I am not suggesting another strat plan, but - [|www.sunysuffolk.edu/Administration/.../CollegeWideRetention030106.doc] & [] First year retention - [] This article asks if we should take student retention seriously - [] here we are, now entertain us Just the title of the subject set off all the alarms, bells, whistles, and lights of what some of us have seen in our classrooms. How do we motivate our students. In this particular article the discussion revolves around social networking. Apathetic students? However the question that we can focus on is that of involving students in the course including the discussions within Desire2Learn. On the side, Wesch is a professor of anthropology with K State has a presentation that is very interesting – and could be some factors we are dealing with here. – [] I overhear someone say that they thought that this distance learning thing will go away. Another article that you should read is one identifies an explosive growth in distance ed. [|Click here for the article].

This came to me via PPCC. The attached is what the syllabus looks like @ PPCC but with some interesting changes to the way some of the topics and paragraphs are written. Sure not like my latest edition of syllabi. In What The Best College Teachers Do, Bain writes that the syllabus should be one that identifies "trust, rejection of power, and setting standards." Do we lay the trust or promises the course has to offer? Is the student taking this to keep the athletic scholarship or will the course be a life learning experience? Do we in our syllabus identify how the student will "realize" the promises? Well, there is a whole lot more to this, but I am intrigued by ways or methods that we can encourage our students and build a foundation for retention. Just a side note: Do our students know what our mission pillars are? Do they know our mission statement? Do we incorporate the mission and vision in our syllabi or course outline? Just my mind escaping.

Here is something I found on readwriteweb.com: The Florida Virtual School @ [] Read the last paragraph – I bet someone will make this successful.

I was reviewing a PDW schedule for another system school and I noticed on the calendar a seminar on critical thinking. As an associate professor and chair at a university it was a standard action to stress critical thinking among the faculty and students in the various programs. Inquiring why CT was on the calendar, it was explained that “as a school we are seeing some deficiencies in the students’ ability to critically think and the first point of instruction should be how to.” Ken Bain, in his book What The Best College Teachers Do, states in chapter 4 titled “What do they expect of their students,” instructors promote intellectual and personal development. What we should be adding to the course material are intellectual development and disciplinary thinking. The following document has been around since 1992 - [] - with Hirose focuses on the community college. As one reads the article you could probably say the information is a valid today as it was 19 years ago. The folks at MCCKC ([]) have a site on critical thinking. It is worth checking out as does Alamo Colleges - []. After grading or trying to be objective in my grading of the papers I have seen come in to the classes here at LamarCC, I am wondering if we as instructors need to spend more class time discussing the college research paper since we do not have an active writing lab? As part of our efforts to be effective in the learning and teaching, we should look at ways to assist our students to be successful in their writing abilities. One of the first resources for the research or term paper is the [|Purdue OWL site]. At this site you will find the criteria for MLA and APA. There are general writing tips and some resources for the teacher. The Flashes and Podcasts are worth a visit as well. I really like what Capital Community College has put together to assist the student in preparing a paper. [|Click here] for the site. And [|Michael Harvey from Washington College] has put together a web site that covers the important stuff of writing Now Mayland Community College has put together a [|college papers guide] that provides some examples of how to write a paper. This one is a keeper for sure and might even be worth adding to your resources in D2L. Here is another site that might be worth passing on – [|click here] In D2L you can have in the “dropbox” section a place for drafts. If you are inclined to help the student write a worthy paper, this is a option open to you and the student. I find the student that does ask for a review has a better research paper in the end. There are ways to review the paper without having a hard copy. Both Word and Open Office has a review process that allows you to open the paper, make your marks, and return it to the student for their review. Using Turnitin for part of the grading the instructor will where the paper has been before it became a term paper for your class. For instance one student’s paper showed 70% of the document has been pulled from another source. But in looking at the paper it is obvious the student does not understand quoting the sources used. This makes for a good teaching moment. Now here is a question for you. If you state in your syllabus that the term paper is to be 5-7 pages, does that include the cover page and references? That explains why we need to follow the suggested page length that is in the faculty handbook.

How do we encourage student success? One answer probably would have been in response to a student who stated that if I had provided the answers to the questions on the exam they could have had a good grade. I don’t know if I could rate that up there with being successful in college. No more than I can accept curving an exam to reflect a failing student as a “C.” As I have posted in the past and what we have discussed in the faculty senate regarding student success, we find that many of our students still are not clear on what it means to be a successful student. Eckerd College has some great tips for students – I like the statement that going to college is like a job – [|click here]. [|Dr. Brewster] offers up some great tips for being successful but are students seeking these out? Are tips like these something the student should seek out prior showing 3 days before classes start? Samuel Scott has what he calls the [|top 12 ways to be successful]. I like #s 8, 9, 11, and 12. However trying to get students to comprehend these ideas, well, how do you engage the students to understand these ideas? I was looking at what was happening in Coon Rapids, Minnesota and came across the Anoka-Ramsey Community College website. I found a link to “[|Being a Successful Student]” under the student advising link. I wonder if we should have something similar that we can link to in our classes. Dr. Cameron from Manitoba has a post on his [|faculty webpage] on successful students. I came across a short text on the [|free-ebooks] site that is titled [|An Instructors View on Student Success]. The author also posted this on [|BookRix]. It reminded me of a writing tablet that was handed out to new students when I first enrolled with the University. How do you feel about what you do? What motivates you to teach at a community college? Here is a link that is worth reading as well as the document (attached) referenced in the blog: [] As a colleague at another system school stated: “We ARE good. Let’s share the wealth.”

I just had to pass this on (the following paragraph). We have had these moments when we just don't have it all together. In case you are tired of reading to your students, just show a video. Our libraries do have videos. I have a few I picked up when the video store closed that I use in class especially when I want the students to get their educational dollars worth of time in the classroom. // "OK, we’ve all had them, those days when because of emergencies or work pileups we’ve just not gotten fully prepared for a class. Here’s a little trick that might help. Show a video. Wait, don’t just show it, have the students make use of it. This works especially well when you haven’t had time to preview it yourself. Go online to find out what you can about your video [by the way, both The Colorado College and PPLD have great collections] and then make up a quick worksheet with a few guides based on what you learn. Here’s the engaging part: tell students that they can write questions about the video that you will consider using in a quiz or exam. You can specify the reward for a successful question (extra credit, exemption from having to answer it on the exam) as well as the format in which you want potential questions submitted (multiple choice, true/false, short answer). Tell them you are looking not just for content questions but for deeper, thought questions as well. Then watch them watch that video! Works like a charm." //

I have received some interesting feedback on the issues of the brain and in some cases the lack thereof. So with that I wanted to followup with some other information. I do want to share another book that outlines some interesting issues that face the college instructor today. The book was first published in 1989 and titled, //Endangered Minds; Why children don’t think __and__ what we can do about it.// The author, Jane M. Healy, PhD wrote in one case about some changes she observed in testing from 1964 to 1988. The chapter titles outline much of what we have discussed in our meetings and learning circles. Here are some additional links that you can review whilst on your summer hiatus: · [] · [] · [] · [|http://www.marthalakecov.org/~building/future/Creating_the_Future/crfut_healy.html] * · [] - a short synopsis * [|http://www.marthalakecov.org/~building/neuro/front_neuro.html] - An expansive list of papers, articles, and links on the brain. I would recommend visiting the New Horizons site hosted by John Hopkins and reviewing the journals. Some very interesting articles. Too bad my junior high science teacher and high school counselor didn’t have access to the articles on ADHD. Mind Mapping? []; []; [] Peter Sacks wrote the book, //Generation X Goes to College//, that outlined the type of student we had entering our classrooms. But now that the Xers are out on their own, what or who are we dealing with now? Gen Y, Gen Next, Gen Ritalin, Post Email Gen, Net Gen, Txt Gen? Maybe the High School Musical or Glee Gen. Interesting… Maybe I will show a video.

We have talked about writing our own books. And in some cases we have talked about what it would take to have an ebook for our classes. (uhm, how do you sell back an ebook?) Here is an interesting blog article that discusses the “end of book publishing as we know it.” []

An interesting link to course development – hybrid but useful for teaching online and in the classroom - []

[] Serious stuff – the article from Campus Technology addresses the concern of plagiarism