October 2008

Reach to Teach is a bimonthly publication focusing on instructional articles and news. We hope that you will benefit from information and ideas to provide the best learning opportunities for our students at YTC. Please share your successes and challenges as you provide instruction in the classroom and one-on-one services vital to our customers and to our success as a college. Share your tried-and-true strategies or your recently discovered learning activities. Include results of your successful student interactions or helpful information you’ve acquired at a conference or workshop. Please e-mail lochsner@yorktech.com to contribute to future issues of Reach to Teach.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

People often say, "Zig, motivation doesn't last." And I say to them, "Bathing doesn't either. That's why I recommend it daily." --Zig Ziglar

GIFTS - Talk Six Minutes Less!

In a lecture-oriented class, pause for two minutes after every 15 to 20 minutes. During the pause, students should get a partner to discuss and refresh their notes. Integrating three two-minute “pause and refresh” breaks into a class can dramatically increase retention of content material.

Research suggests that information retention falls after 10 to 20 minutes; the short lectures and two-minute reinforcements should increase student learning. “If we talk six minutes less, students learn more.”

Ruhl, K. L., Hughes, C. A., & Schloss, P. J. (1987, Winter). Using the pause procedure to enhance lecture recall. Teacher Education and Special Education, 10, 14-18.

ACROSS THE CAMPUS

TUTORING…. A Great Way to Success!

The TUTORING CENTER has become a popular place on campus! We have a great group of professional and peer tutors who are willing to help students achieve success in problem subject areas. Math and English tutoring are the most-often requested; but we also offer assistance in a variety of other subjects such as accounting, biology, chemistry, and even Spanish.

The Tutoring Center is located in the Student Services building across from Financial Resources. Students can drop by the Student Support Services reception area to request assistance; the service is free to all YTC students and is offered on a drop-in basis.

Information about tutoring services is available on the Tutoring Center’s webpage. Access the web page from the YTC Homepage > Current Students > Student Services > Tutoring Center. Students and faculty will find a link for the fall semester tutoring schedule, which lists all the subjects and times offered for tutoring.

Do you have questions or need more information? Contact Nita Forrest, SSS Director, 325-2891 or Ginger Lujan, Tutor Coordinator, 981-7121. Please encourage students to take advantage of our free tutoring services.

Readiness for Education at a Distance Indicator (READI)

Attention advisors—Encourage your students to discover if they are “READI” for online learning! READI is an online survey tool which asks questions such as: How well can you use a computer? How motivated, organized, and self-directed are you? How do you prefer to learn new information? And what is your on-screen reading speed and comprehension?

But relax, READI is fun! Scores on this assessment will not prevent students from being able to take online classes, nor will scores impact grades in courses students may already be taking. After completing READI, students can view a webpage which will show scores in easy-to-interpret graphs and text. READI is just being provided to help students better understand their strengths and weaknesses as they consider online learning. READI is a tool for success!

When your advisees call or e-mail to make an advising appointment, give them the directions to take READI before they come in to see you.

Username: yorktech

Password: student

LearningExpressLibrary

Overcome test-taking anxiety, raise test scores, and improve skills with just the click of a mouse at the library or in the virtual library! LearningExpressLibrary is an innovative instructional and test preparation website that offers comprehensive courses in math, reading, and writing; essay writing practice with instant scoring; resume writing and workplace skills enrichment; and more than 300 online practice tests for students and adults of all ages.

In addition to interactive skill-building courses, a broad range of practice tests based on such official exams as the ACT, SAT, GED, ASVAB, Firefighter, Police Officer, Paramedic, EMT Basic, U.S. Citizenship, Postal Worker, Cosmetology, and Real Estate Agent & Broker exams are available to students through LearningExpressLibrary. All practice tests include instant score reports that help students target those skill areas that need the most attention. Complete answer explanations accompany each test question so that they understand why a particular answer is right or wrong.

Refer your students to LearningExpressLibrary:

· Go to the library website http://www.yorktech.com/library

· Click on the “Books” link at the top of the page

· Click on “Test Preparation Guides,” and then click on “LearningExpress”

Once in LearningExpress, students can set up their own accounts by clicking on “New User.” After an account is set up, click on “Returning User” when returning to the site. Call or e-mail Kris Jones, Head Librarian, at 803-981-7075 or kjones@yorktech.com for assistance or questions.

Atomic Learning

The college has subscribed to Atomic Learning, a web-based training service for more than 110 applications. It includes just-in-time training, resources for classroom activities, and approximately 35,000 short video clips on a multitude of topics. Sample topics are Office 2007 and 2008, Dreamweaver and Contribute, Blackboard and Desire 2 Learn, iTunes, Inspiration, Google Docs, OpenOffice.org 2, TI-84 and TI BA Plus Professional, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X Leopard. This is only a short list of all the many tutorials available!

To get to Atomic Learning on campus, go to http://highed.atomiclearning.com; and you will be automatically logged in to the site. If you are off campus, you will go to the same link; but you will need to log in to the page. The username is yorktech and the password is atomic.

Please share this information with your students. You can put a link in your WebCT or Campus Cruiser course directing the students to Atomic Learning; as part of the license agreement, YTC cannot put this information on a public site such as our web page.

Use this great opportunity to build your own skills and to help our students be more successful!

Global Compliance Network Online Training

Was the FERPA professional development workshop offered at a time that didn’t fit your schedule? Would you like to know more about a 403(b) account? Do you need information about copyright law but don’t have time to do the research? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, you can learn at your convenience using the Global Compliance Network (GCN) online training program.

A series of online sessions is available at http://www.gcn1.net/home.htm. The link is also available on the library home page under Ask A Librarian -- Interactive Tutorials. Your username is "york"; you will choose a password to set up a personal account.

You can find a list of the tutorials available at http://www.gcn1.net/tutorialsAvail.cfm.

Back Up Your Enhanced Course in WebCT

After recently experiencing technical issues with WebCT, the importance of making backups for your courses can’t be understated! We are currently backing up all courses nightly.

Instructors have always been encouraged to back up their courses. You are encouraged to make a periodic backup of your course. You will want to retain a copy of the backup in WebCT and save a copy of the backup on your personal computer to have a backup in another location should you need it. WebCT allows a limited number of backups to be retained inside the system; if you currently keep backups, please be sure to delete the oldest backup before creating a new one.

To delete a previous backup:

1. Log into WebCT

2. Click on the course for which you wish to make a backup

3. Click on Control Panel

4. Click on Manage Course

5. Under Backup Course on the right-hand side of the screen, click Backup Course

6. Click in the circle to left of the oldest backup you have listed (3 backups maximum within WebCT)

7. On the right-hand menu, click on Delete

8. Click OK

9. Proceed to step #14 to create your backup

To create a backup and save it to your personal computer:

10. Log into WebCT

11. Click on the course for which you wish to make a backup

12. Click on Control Panel

13. Click on Manage Course

14. ***Begin at this step if you deleted a previous backup***: Under Backup Course on the right-hand side of the screen, click Create Backup

15. Type in a title (for example, Oct08 XYZ 123) and click Create

16. Click Continue (the backup is now created in your course)

17. Click in the circle to the left of the backup file

18. On the right-hand side, click Download

19. Click Save

20. Find the location where you want the file saved on your computer and click Save

Note: You will create a zipped file that can only be opened by restoring the course in WebCT.

STUDENT FOCUS

Extreme Make-over in Surgical Technology!

The Surgical Technology Program is getting a make-over under the direction of new Program Director John Ratliff and Clinical Coordinator Sandra Farley. The lab itself now includes not only an “Operating Room” but also a “Central Service Area.” Distinguishing between the different areas early will better prepare students to function in the clinical setting in the next semester. At the beginning of the semester, students were all asked to bring in pictures of their heroes and their favorite motivational quotes to be used as a border in the lab. When faced with a difficult day, one must only look up to find inspiration.

Students were divided into three lab groups, each responsible for completing a bulletin board and creating a flag that represents their group to hang outside the lab on their lab day. The activities make students active participants in their program and build community; research shows this level of involvement contributes to student persistence.

John chose to assign a poster project rather than a paper-and-pencil test on surgical team duties to engage the students in all three of the learning domains—cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains. The students researched the information needed to construct the poster; each of the 31 students presented their posters to the class giving repetition to the information and the opportunity to discuss the content. The audience was allowed to ask questions of each presenter, requiring them to articulate on the subject. This project required the student to get in touch with their creative side, practice public speaking, and improve their listening skills, engaging them on many levels.

Students are introduced to skills that they must practice, master, and demonstrate for the instructors in a return demonstration. The program purchased a DVD recorder to record a model demonstration for review on WebCT. The recorder will then be used to record each student’s performance during the return demonstration. This recording will be reviewed by the instructors prior to awarding a grade for the assignment, and the students will be able to see exactly what they did right or wrong.

To celebrate National Surgical Technologists Week in September, the program partnered with one of their clinical affiliates, Piedmont Medical Center, to provide the students with a “Surgical Expo.” The Operating Room department manager and four surgical technologists created realistic table displays for four common surgical procedures the students may be required to do in a second return demonstration and in the clinical setting. The students could bring their cameras to take pictures as well as ask questions and get hands-on experience. CN2 news was on hand to record the event, providing positive exposure for the college, the program, and the students.

John and Sandra are engaging their students with active learning strategies and providing various methods of assessment to demonstrate their learning. Their make-over will certainly encourage persistence and maximize student success!

EGT 110 Critical Thinking Bulletin Board Discussion

Susan Roberts’ EGT 110 class discusses an issue on the WebCT bulletin board four times throughout the semester on given topics. Recently, Susan asked the students to take a learning styles inventory quiz to discover if they were primarily auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learners; then they viewed a short video that argued there were no learning styles. Susan posted the following questions to which the students responded:

Please take this Learning Styles QUIZ and address the following:

What is my learning style according to this quiz?
Is this assessment accurate based on my experiences?
What are some ways I can adapt and use other learning styles?
What can teachers do to address multiple learning styles in class?
Should my natural learning style reflect my choice of career?

Please watch the this VIDEO (about 7 minutes) and consider the following:

How does motivation to learn the subject influence learning?
How does prior knowledge of the subject influence learning?
Must the student simply “learn how to learn”? And does learning success depend on the extent to which they've mastered this?

Students posted thoughtful responses from which we may learn. Excerpts are listed below:

· I am a visual, tactile learner. When I study I have to take frequent breaks and have to be doing something constantly.

· i think learning styles exist because some people really do read it and learn it where as it doesn't work that way for others. I know i can read the instructions all day but I won't know how its done until i do it myself.

· You have to know "how to learn." If you don't know how to do something you learn to. There are always 20 ways to do the same thing but the company you work for does it differently than how you used to do it at your last job, you have to learn how to do it differently. Adapt! You combine all the different learning styles depending on your situation!

· The more experiences in life you have will affect the way you think and learn. Motivation also will change the way you learn.

· There are many different tools used to absorb knowledge and whatever works best for one individual may not necessarily work for another.

· Learning is easier for me through hands on work. I do also believe that a good teacher can help by using different examples to reach out to the students and their learning needs, whether it is auditory, visual or tactile.

· Teachers can try to adapt teaching styles that maybe use all three learning styles. Of course, most of the professors that I have had seem to do this already.

· I have an idea that the student is more responsible for how he tries to commit material to his memory. He/She should take the information he got from class and use his visual or auditory or tactile methods to learn the material by repetition.

· I have formed an opinion that information presented in multiple styles is not just reiteration for the individual, but is probably the best method for finding a way for each person in a group to have the chance to grasp the info in a way that works for them.

· For learning to go on, the student must adapt himself to how the material is taught. Teachers have to adapt themselves to the material too.

Although this is just a sample of a week-long discussion, students posted a variety of viewpoints and ideas on learning styles and learning. Their comments inferred a partnership between teachers and learners, with teachers using a variety of methods to help students learn and students taking responsibility to use their strengths, abilities, and effort to be successful in their education and future careers.

Dental Hygiene Students Present at Holiday Dental Conference

The second-year dental hygiene students are researching and preparing table clinics to present at the 19^th Annual Holiday Dental Conference on November 14 at the Embassy Suites Hotel, Golf & Spa Resort and the Concord Convention Center in Concord, North Carolina. The YTC program has participated in the conference since 1992, with its first dental hygiene class.

The Commission on Dental Accreditation (Standard 2-24) states that students must be competent in the evaluation of current scientific literature. As part of the Public Health Dentistry course, students research relatively new topics in dentistry. They complete article critiques on the literature and use this information to form the titles of their table clinics. Groups of two prepare a board (usually tri-fold) and make ten-minute presentations to dentists, dental hygienists, and dental assistants. In a two-hour time period, students utilize skills learned in their communications and public speaking courses along with the skills and knowledge acquired in their dental courses.

These presentations challenge and actively engage students in activities directly related to their chosen careers—and will most certainly help to maximize their success!

LEARNING LINKS

Should instructors provide students with complete notes? Providing complete notes for a face-to-face class is easy to do when enhancing the class with WebCT. But is it the right thing to do? Researchers have studied both the process and product benefit of note taking. Read an article that first appeared in The Teaching Professor in June/July 2008 to help you decide whether posting class notes is the right thing for you to do.

Should Instructors Provide Complete Notes?

“I think teachers really need to take greater interest in the way their courses are structured, rather than just following a textbook from point A to point B. Throw a few twists in there, make things interesting, and hammer home the concepts.” This quote from a student reminds us that students do pay attention to how they are taught! Read this essay by Andrea Conklin Bueschel entitled Listening to Students About Learning, one in a set of reports and products from Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges (SPECC). SPECC is the result of research on 11 California community college campuses on improving basic skills education for students, and the suggested strategies can be used to improve student success at all levels. Read all four essays and access other resources at the following link.

Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges

Find quality videos from Annenberg Media to use in your classes. You can view films on a variety of topics free—the Arts, math, science, economics, history, ethics, English, etc.

Annenberg Media

Book Group

Join the Faculty/Staff/Retiree Book Group for lively discussion each Friday from noon to 1 p.m. in Student Services Conference Room A. The book selected for fall is Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul by Kenneth R. Miller. Participate in fascinating conversation that will encourage you to contemplate philosophy, science, politics, religion, history…. Call Taunya Paul at X7316 if you have questions.

You can purchase the book from Amazon for as little as $14.98 using this link: Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul. Miller, a Brown University biologist and leading proponent of evolution, attempts to dismantle the scientific basis of intelligent design by taking seriously the claims of intelligent design (though with tongue often in cheek), such as irreducible complexity, and looking at the biological facts and the conclusions ID concepts would lead to.

The next book will be The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, which can be found at Amazon for as little as $7.99. The Omnivore's Dilemma explores the origin of our food (oil and corn), agribusiness, organic farming, food fads and taboos, and much more. You may never look at your food the same way again!

REACH TO TEACH DEADLINES AND ARCHIVES

Make this your teaching and learning publication! Send us your feedback by letting us know what is helpful and useful to you. Contribute material, and tell us if you or your department would like to be a regular contributor. Share your best practices as well as what you’ve learned along the way. Tell us what you and your colleagues are doing to better serve our students and associates throughout the community and the college. Send your contributions and comments to lochsner@yorktech.com.

Next article submission deadline:

December 1

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