Volume XXXVI, No. 7 | February 28, 2014 On Layers, Loops, and Learning Over the past decade we have made huge strides in understanding the wonders of brain development. If there are a hundred billion neurons and every neuron has the possibility of one to 10,000 synaptic connections to other neurons, the complexities, [...]
Volume XXXVI, No. 6 | February 21, 2014 PEDAGOGY BEFORE TECHNOLOGY: TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH THE DIGITAL GENERATION Tertiary education in Western society is seeing the impact of a new generation of students known as the Digital Generation. Although definitions vary somewhat by source, this generation, also known throughout literature as the Millennial [...]
Volume XXXVI, No. 5 | February 14, 2014 Promoting Critical Thinking and Active Learning by “Teaching Backwards” “Teaching Backwards” is an instructional method that explores cause-and-effect relationships by examining a series of connected events, starting with the last event first and proceeding backwards. Inspired by the movie “Memento,” this method promotes critical thinking [...]
Volume XXXVI, No. 4 | February 7, 2014 Armored in the Student Role While in graduate school, a classmate of mine would continually ask the professor, “Will this be on the test?” and, “Do I need to know this?” At the time, I considered it a little rude, and perhaps a little [...]
Volume XXXVI, No. 3 | January 31, 2014 Students' Questions Open New Paths to Explore In "Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers," a course for pre-service teachers, I decided that the homework would always be the same. The students would ask three questions using the following format: "My question is…" and "I ask it [...]
Volume XXXVI, No. 2 | January 24, 2014 Eliminate the Need for Textbooks by Leveraging Professional Organizations Course materials must be updated continually in order for professional and technical programs to stay current with industry and to ensure students are graduating with the necessary skills. But, textbooks are a big expense for students, [...]
Volume XXXVI, No. 1 | January 17, 2014 Time for Fun and Games? My students are engaged in a heated argument about the words "therefore," "as a result," "so," and "thus." What do the words have in common? What question can they devise to explain their relationship? More significantly, why do these [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 29 | December 6, 2013 The Sandbox—Not Just an Instructional Materials Resource Center Background Lone Star College-CyFair opened its doors in 2003 as a one-campus/two-location concept. The idea was to have two locations—a bigger campus that the majority of the students would attend and a smaller location that would be easily accessible from [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 27 | November 15, 2013 A Community College and School District Special Education Partnership In spring 2012, Parkland Area School District (PASD) approached Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC) about developing a learning support class on the LCCC campus to help the PASD special education students better transition into the community. [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 28 | November 22, 2013 Spirit Becomes Act: Creating Your Own Instructional Support System It was an unbelievable sight—325 students, faculty, and community members ready to reenact the Union army's 6th Corps march to Gettysburg. It wasn't money that enabled this moment. Neither was it a program, a pamphlet, a [...]