Volume XXXIII, No. 26 | November 4, 2011 CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: STUDENT ENGAGEMENT VIA SOCIAL MEDIA So what is all this tweeting, Facebooking, and blogging about? It is about student engagement—active involvement during academic sessions. As faculty and administrators, we can agree that student learning is our goal, and we must [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 26 | November 4, 2011 The 75-Percent Rule I have been in the education profession for 20 years as a middle school math teacher, high school football coach, junior high basketball coach, math team coach, assistant principal at a middle school and elementary school, and adjunct instructor. For the past [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 25 | October 28, 2011 Needy Students Need Textbooks: A Campus Library Responds Textbooks are expensive. New textbooks costing less than $75 are the exceptions; most cost more. For many community college students, these costs are burdens that they struggle to handle as well as they can. For others, they [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 24 | October 21, 2011 A Masterful Experience I recently had the opportunity to attend the state-wide Master Teacher Conference at Northeast Alabama Community College with three of my coworkers. The primary objective of the conference was to motivate, rejuvenate, and teach us to become…well, Master Teachers. This goal seemed [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 23 | October 14, 2011 Student Awareness: Bringing Chemistry Out of the Ivory Tower Each semester faculty members across the country in every field of study begin the term with excitement and anticipation of the prospects of what we know could be a great experience for ourselves as well as [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 22 | October 7, 2011 Writing To Serve I teach writing, literature, and speech classes at a community college in rural Southeast Arkansas. This assignment was for my English Composition I class. Early on in my own education, I was taught that the primary purposes for writing were to instruct, [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 21 | September 30, 2011 Integrating Industry Certification into an Occupational Program It is quite clear these days that federal and state governments expect our nation’s mix of higher education institutions to get better at fulfilling the promises and hopes heard at their commencements or in their competitive marketing appeals. [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 20 | September 23, 2011 Collaborative Learning: Reducing Communication Apprehension When Aaron entered the classroom on the first day, he immediately joined his buddies and headed for the back of the small lecture hall. Just as he began to settle down with the normal gear (the overstuffed backpack and mandatory [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 19 | September 16, 2011 Calatrello’s Highly Unscientific Theory of Halves: A Primer for Student Success Those of you who know me know I occasionally may use some class time to regale students with leisurely pedagogical strolls down Amnesia Lane. Sure, some small-minded administrator might refer to such dramatic monologues as [...]

Volume XXXIII, No. 18 | September 9, 2011 Traditional Note-Taking Meets Innovative Note-Creating Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, as the old adage goes. However, this “monkey-see, monkey-do” mentality has not transferred to effective note-taking skills that today’s students seem to lack. It’s a frustratingly perennial issue: students arrive to class, [...]