One Book - High Impact

by Guest Blogger Susan Murphy

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed. – Orhan Pamuk

Books are powerful.  They transport readers and broaden horizons.  Words are the medium of growth.  These are the ideas behind One Book One LCC.

About One Book One LCC  

One Book One LCC is a community reading experience. During the 2015-2016 academic year, all members of the LCC community - students, faculty, and staff – are encouraged to read The True American by Anand Giridharadas. The book offers a rich opportunity to engage with issues such as race, religion, health care, the American criminal justice system, and more. The greater Lansing community is invited to participate as well.

To enhance the experience of the book, special events, discussions, and college-wide conversations are planned, including possible visits from Anand Giridharadas and Rais Bhuiyan in spring 2016.

Change is the end result of all true learning. - Leo Buscaglia

One Book One LCC supports Teaching and Student Learning

One Book One LCC embodies high-impact educational practices and supports our students’ achievement of essential learning outcomes in many ways.  One high-impact educational practice is a common intellectual experience.  A community read can center college-wide intellectual conversations and activities; and the more courses that include the book, the broader the experience.  A second element of high-impact educational practice is the first year experience.  Here at LCC, students who take our first year experience course are required to read the One Book One LCC selection, where the book serves as a focus for assignments and conversations. The One Book One LCC selection can also serve as a platform for writing across the curriculum – another high-impact practice. Furthermore, while a community read does not meet the formal definition of a learning community as a high-impact educational practice, it does grow a community of learners.  Finally, engaging with a common read helps students achieve essential learning outcomes such as intercultural knowledge, civic engagement, critical thinking, and ethical reasoning.

To learn more about One Book One LCC and to participate, visit the website or contact Susan Murphy.  Her telephone number is 517-483-1645.

T5 - Opening PDF Files

A new feature that is often overlooked in the 2013 version of Microsoft Word is that word can open, edit, and save Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) files.

To do this using MS Word Go to File > Open > Computer > Browse and change the All files (*.*) to PDF files (.PDF) find the acrobat file and click the Open button.  Word will convert it and open it as an editable document.

If the Acrobat file is a scanned graphic of text, the procedure above will not convert the graphic; it will remain an image of a page of text.

For more information, visit us in the CTE or email John Thommen at thommej@lcc.edu.

What About...FAD?

In April we celebrated Faculty Appreciation Day (FAD) at the CTE, as almost 200 colleagues chatted and enjoyed food with each other. Additionally, we honored two of LCC’s finest, Tracy Price and Dale Herder with awards. The ceremony was heartfelt as many in the room shared a tear or two during the testimonies to them. Tracy and Dale spoke of their appreciation for all of the faculty they have worked with and each of them provided a long list of people who helped them over the years.

It is always nice to see people get recognition for the work they do and for people to know that they really do make a difference in the lives of others. The CTE staff truly appreciates all of the work and effort that faculty put into their teaching and we want faculty to understand that their efforts on behalf of our students is celebrated here.

Yet, how do we go about appreciating each other on a daily basis? How often do we take a small moment of time to consider the instructor/staff/administrator working in the next classroom or the next office? Most of us think about the difference we can make in the lives of our students, but equally important is the difference we can make in the lives of our colleagues. My mother always told me that I don’t have to like a person to be civil to them and that I can always greet another person with a smile and a hello. Perhaps we can try to extend a modicum of appreciation with a smile and a hello to fellow LCC employees as we move through campus, even if we don’t know them!

For a cup of coffee and some collegial discussion, please visit the CTE or email Carole Kendy at kendyc@star.lcc.edu.

Teaching Games - Challenge Your Students with GeoGuessr

Have you been thinking about incorporating games into your learning activities?  The world of online educational games is immense, and goes beyond simple multiple choice "quiz show" type interactions.  GeoGuessr is a tool that I use in my online sections of BIOL 120, an Environmental Science class that fulfills CORE and MTA for non-science majors.

GeoGuessr was created in 2013 by programmer Anton Wallen.  It challenges the user to guess the location based only on a random Google Street View.  It may sound easy, but remember that there are many mapped roads that have only trees and topography as clues.  Google also blurs out license plates and phone numbers, so no help there. Take a look at the picture below...where do you think you are?  This is a screenshot from the North American version of the game, so that should narrow it down a bit.

I scored high by picking the middle of Kansas for this picture, which was only 222 miles from the actual location in Nebraska.  

I present a link to this game to my online students and they report their scores (a total of five rounds) to a discussion board.  It's easy to see the relevance in a unit on Ecology or Agriculture, but there are other ways to use it in non-science classes.  There's a Famous Places version that could be used in Art or History, and even a version that's entirely within Paris!  The game could be followed up with questions such as:

• How did you make your guess?  What clues did you use?
• Were you misled by any of the things that you saw?
• Are there any assumptions you made that skewed your answers?
• (For a math class) Can you figure out the model the programmers used to calculate your score?

For more challenging play, try the World Version.  Can you guess the correct location of the view below?

(It's southern Argentina)

If you want to explore ways to add games into your curriculum, visit us in the CTE or email Meg Elias at clarkm1@star.lcc.edu.

Inside The Online Cl@ssroom - Improving Discussions

Anyone who has taught online knows discussion forums sometimes illicit perfunctory, ill-considered student responses: “Good job. I agree with you.” OR “I like what you wrote. It is important.” Often the discussion goes nowhere, along with the instructor’s goal of creating an active, engaged learning environment.

Lolita Paff, associate professor of business at Penn State-Berks, offers tips for creating memorable interactions in the April 2015 edition of The Online Cl@ssroom. Paff recommends three changes to the way most discussion forums are run.

First, carefully consider the content of such discussions, making sure they are relevant and interesting to students. After all, Paff notes, “Indifference is the bane of noteworthy discussions…Online, the content may matter more because people aren’t physically together.” If students don’t connect with a topic, they will simply go through the motions, meeting the instructor’s minimum requirements. To help students engage in a topic, Paff suggests using current events, case studies, and what-if scenarios. Find ways for students to use their own research and personal reflection to provide input and ideas.

Second, creating community is vital to maintaining quality discussions. Paff endorses the idea of having a “discussion about discussions.” Have students define participation for themselves, explain why it’s important, and describe how it can bridge the distance between all class participants—professors and students.

Third, relinquish some control in online discussions, just as you would in face-to-face discussions. Paff points to research indicating that students are unlikely to participate if the professor seems to be the only source of classroom knowledge. Moreover, she remarks, “Unscripted, happenstance, and disorderly describe the lively exchanges most often remembered.” Still, Paff clarifies that online instructors must actually plan if they want online discussions to have an impromptu feel. Online instructors should scaffold discussions so that students have an increasing amount of control over what happens.

If you would like to examine Paff’s entire article or read more from The Online Cl@ssroom, a copy is available in the Center for Teaching Excellence. Stop by, visit us, and maybe even have a cup of coffee.

What About……Using the Annotated Bibliography in lieu of a Research Paper?

Many instructors want to incorporate writing assignments into their courses, but assigning a research paper seems daunting. Perhaps assigning an annotated bibliography will do the trick. 

An annotated bibliography is a method of demonstrating to readers an understanding of a topic and the research that supports it. The annotated bibliography allows students the opportunity to select a topic of study (or be assigned one) and to conduct scholarly research about it. Students then evaluate what research would effectively support a thesis concerning the topic. By locating and reading research concerning a topic of study, students must critically think through the topic, gaining perspective about the subject matter. 

After this process, students then prepare an annotated bibliography that presents a thesis and lists each piece of research deemed important to the topic. The annotated bibliography includes a summary paragraph of each research piece and an explanation as to how the research supports the thesis. In this way, the annotated bibliography will provide you with evidence that your students have read about a topic and made analysis of it. Depending on the depth of study you want from your students, the annotated bibliography might be two pages or longer. Plan to allow students several weeks to construct their annotated bibliography and encourage them to contact our librarians for additional help in locating research. The beauty of using this format is that it can easily be used with any subject matter at any time during the term, and it can be as involved as you want it to be.

For suggested tips on how to prepare this type of assignment and a sample of an annotated bibliography entry, please visit the CTE website/Teaching Tips or email Carole Kendy at kendyc@star.lcc.edu.

Change-Up Your Teachable Moments with a Word Cloud

In the Environmental Science class at LCC, students will generate a lot of data while completing their labs and discussion boards.  In one assignment in the online sections, students are required to take a 20 minute walk and make a list of all of the litter they see on their trip.  It’s amazing what they find: all kinds of plastic wrappers, one shoe, and even an entire couch.  In previous semesters I would provide feedback to individual students in the gradebook but never tried summarizing the overall results.  It seemed like a wasted opportunity for “in the moment” sharing and learning.

Representing the data in a graph seemed too formal a process for this assignment (and a little too much work), so I tried out an online tool called Wordle.   Wordle is a program which takes a list of words to generate a “word cloud”, the size of the word loosely representing the number of occurrences in the complete set of text.  To create a Wordle for the students’ responses I copied all of their lists of litter and combined them into one big, messy Word document.  I then copied the text into the textbox on the website, which also lets you select a layout and color scheme. The result is a visually interesting way to represent the top 100 words found in the students’ lists.  Because of the nature of the assignment, the graphic also conveys a powerful message. 

To learn how to use Wordle or to share your ideas, visit us in the CTE or email Meg Elias at clarkm1@star.lcc.edu.