Adventures in Blogging, YC Style

Hi everyone,

Here we are at the end of the 9x9x25 blog for the third year in a row. Each year it seems to get easier to come up with ideas to write about. My latest strategy is to gather notes when I go to conferences and then to blog about these. As long as I have been a teacher here at Yavapai College, I remember going to conferences and then coming home full of enthusiasm to put into action the new ideas I have gathered. Then I get back here and get overwhelmed with the pace of teaching and going to meetings and find little time or energy to initiate these new ideas. Just knowing I can write about these ideas helps me to keep my commitment to myself to remember and apply what I have learned.

Why just last weekend I went to an OnCourse one day conference at Paradise Community College and came home with a few new ideas. Will these end up in a 9x9x25 blog next fall? We shall see, but I do enjoy writing these thoughts down and sharing them with the rest of my colleagues who didn't go to the same conference. Just imagine how smart we would all be if everyone shared even a few of the top ideas s/he learn at conferences, workshops, and other training events.

I also find it is worthwhile to talk about practical experiences from the classroom. Many of my colleagues have been writing about their time teaching math, nursing, physical education, humanities, and so on. I enjoy hearing from faculty who teach other subject areas. We share many of the same challenges as well as blessings.

One more valuable topic for blogs is technology tools. I have written about using the Kindle, iPad, and iPhone in different blogs. Actually, I have found the Kindle to be best used for stress reduction after a long day of meetings. But I do find technology tools to be gaining more and more importance and availability for our students.

Lastly, I find the 9x9x25 blog to be a great place to share important changes here at the college. This semester I wrote about the First Year Experience class that Amber Davies-Sloan and I are co-coordinating. This blog was primarily written to let the rest of our colleagues know what changes are taking place with this class. This class is foundational to helping first-year students at Yavapai College become familiar with college success strategies, gain personal responsibility, and become familiar with all of the support built into our system.

Todd, thank you for creating the 9x9x25 opportunity. I have enjoyed writing each blog. Each blog seems to be easier to write as well. I hope that more of my colleagues will take the challenge next fall. You will be glad you did. Even without the cookies, ice cream, conference bags, plants, books, and so on, it has been worth it. Signing off one more time!

Involving Course Model

Recently I viewed a Cengage instructional video by Victoria Basnett, M.Ed. titled, Keeping them Hooked: Strategies for Student Engagement and Success. In this video, she highlights the Involving Course Model. This model promotes the concept that classes should follow the formula below to best engage students.

• 20% Lectures
• 20% Exercises
• 20% Conversations and Sharing
• 20% Guest Speakers and Media
• 20% Quizzes, Evaluation, Preview, Review, and Assignments

Examples of Exercises:

• Group work where students are placed according to their learning styles
• Role playing
• Scavenger Hunt
  
• Weekly self-evaluation
• Students teach concepts
• Team building exercises
• Case studies
• Top ten quotes no one told me
• Skits

Examples of Conversations and Sharing:

• Share highs and lows
• Share how students perceived an assignment
• Brainstorm at the whiteboard
• Discuss relevancy of lesson and when to apply it.
• Combine with writing activity.
• Share ideas
• Give presentations
• Use song lyrics to connect to course concepts
• Offer success quotes or stories
• Show how this class relates to other classes

Examples of Guest Speakers and Media

• Use motivational music to begin class
• Bring in career services, financial aid, academic advising, another faculty member, and/ or mental health counselor.
• Bring in librarian
• Invite industry and community leaders
• Bring in a second-year college student or student ambassador
• Use PowerPoint, Prezi, Facebook, TED Talk video, YouTube, etc.
• Have students create Google Drive shared activities

Examples of Evaluations, Previews, Review, and Assignments

• Portfolio or ePortfolio
• Jeopardy Game review
  
• Journals
• Money-Time Motivators
• Self-assessments
• Small Group review
• Discussion groups
• Quizzes
• Tests

Basnett also gave additional ideas to help teachers engage students. For example, she shared that we retain 10% of what we read but 95% of what we teach. The learner often constructs meaning in collaboration with other students. It is a myth to say we don't have enough time for engaging activities because we have too much content to cover. Active learning isn't just games or an easy A.

At the end of the session, Basnett offered a guide of additional activities. Please let me know if you are interested, and I will email it to you. If you would like to view the Webinar, I can forward the link to you.

First Year Experience

This semester Amber Davies-Sloan and I are working together as FYE103 Coordinators. We seek to build an even better first-year experience for incoming freshman here at Yavapai College. This Friday we will be attending an all-day workshop at Paradise Valley Community College. Faculty from Arizona will be gathering to hear new learner-centered methods for teaching as well as in listening to a MindTap presentation from Cengage.

What is best for our students? So far we have learned that at Yavapai College, offering a New Student Orientation and a First Year Experience class each dramatically increased student retention. The college has responded with a mandatory Student Orientation for incoming students in Fall 2016. Rules are being set right now to determine how this will look and which students will be included, but good data is actually being implemented into policy. That is great news!

The next step on the agenda will be considering whether to make the FYE103 class mandatory. Is that reasonable? We have data to show it is highly beneficial, but mandatory is a huge step for us. If the college does make a first-year experience class mandatory, who should it be mandatory for? Would a 1 credit hour option be a good idea? These will be the topics of discussion for next year, and perhaps years to come.

Coming in February, Dean Holbrook, Amber, and I will also be attending the 35th Annual FYE Conference. Here we hope to gain wisdom and data from similar sized two-year colleges to help us make some recommendations. Please also feel free to share your ideas with us. Perhaps you worked at a similar college elsewhere in the United States, and you have some success and/or failure stories to share. I for one realize that sometimes I learn just as much from a failure as from a success, and that is what we are seeking for ourselves, our college, and our students.

Working with quality administration, faculty, and staff here at Yavapai College continues to be a blessing in my life. Yes, I get frustrated and fatigued at times, but truly I have never worked in a more rewarding environment. And teaching FYE103 is one of the highlights of my career. There is no class in which I have had as much freedom to be a learner-centered instructor. We get to watch mini-videos, play learning games, dive deep in journal writing, bring in outside speakers, take college tours, and so on. If this class sounds like one you would like to support, teach, or build up in any way, please let Dean, Amber, or I know. We are eager to hear from you.