Volume XXXIV, No. 21 | October 5, 2012 Improving Teaching Effectiveness Through Self-Observation Teachers are accustomed to being observed by their students, by their supervisors, and occasionally by their peers. However, feedback from these observations is limited. Student reactions usually are not documented until the term has nearly ended. Supervisory observation, for the [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 20 | September 29, 2012 Going Officeless Vision During a period of increasing community demand for service and declining external support, community colleges around the country are “doing more with less.” In times like these, it becomes tremendously important to be entrepreneurial, rather than retreat to compromised services at the [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 19 | September 22, 2012 Year Up: Social Entrepreneurship and the Community College Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) is a medium-sized public, urban-serving single-college, multi-campus system, located in the mid-Atlantic region. Year Up (YU) is a non-profit organization designed to provide participating youth with continuing education, guidance, skill development, and [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 18 | September 15, 2012 The Return of the Abacus in Teaching Subtraction? Correcting the Almost-Correct A child’s subtraction error is noted on page 71 of the text Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers (Bassarear, 5th ed.). The problem is 52 –16, and the child’s answer is 44. The question to [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 17 | September 7, 2012 Does a Fiscal Austerity Measure Mitigate Academic Excellence? Sustaining academic excellence in lab science classes amid fiscal austerity measures is a formidable task. With existing and imminent national and local fiscal programs dwindling and impinging upon the limited academic resources for learning communities, it is [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 16 | August 31, 2012 The Role of Blogging in Learning Support Writing Classes In 2006, I introduced blogging to my freshman composition class as a way to showcase the skills students learned during the semester. The blog—a public journal maintained on the Internet and available for reading and commentary [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 15 | May 4, 2012 Effective Faculty Communication in Online Learning: What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate! How did things go so wrong? When Dr. Adams (fictitious name) was hired as an adjunct faculty member to teach psychology online, he seemed so motivated and ready to work [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 15 | May 4, 2012 Transforming the Accounting Classroom Into a Laboratory As faculty and administrators, we can agree that student learning is our goal; and we must do what it takes to engage students while they are members of our learning environments. So how do we “catch,” or engage, [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 14 | April 27, 2012 Teaching Theatre in a Theatre-less World Students at Calhoun Community College (CCC) are mostly working-class young adults, members of the military, and non-traditional students. Each student must choose an arts elective from Theatre Appreciation, Arts Appreciation, and Music Appreciation. I teach Theatre Appreciation. Upon my [...]
Volume XXXIV, No. 14 | April 27, 2012 It Makes a Difference Let’s start with the question “What’s the difference between 7 and 3?” The answer is 4. If you ask students how they got that answer, they will say something like, “I took 4 from 7,” or “I subtracted them.” The point [...]
