Spring Conference

Session 1: Opening Keynote: Teaching Change with New 3Rs
Presenter: José Antonio Bowen
Summary: Learning something new–particularly something that might change your mind–is more difficult than we think. A new 3Rs of Relationships, Resilience and Reflection can help us lead better discussions and reach more students. Without sacrificing content, we can design courses to increase effort and motivation, provide more and better feedback, help students learn on their own and be better able to integrate new information now and after they graduate. The case for a liberal (or liberating) education has never been stronger, but it needs to be redesigned to take into account how human thinking, behaviors, bias and change really work. Recent and wide-ranging research from biology, economics, psychology, education, and neuroscience on the difficulty of change can guide us to redesign an education of transformation and change.

Session 2A: Grading Doesn’t Always Mean Learning: “I blew up my class, and hope you will too!”
Presenters: Michelle Francis, Child Studies Faculty and TEACH Center/Professional Development Chair
Summary: Join us for this engaging and thoughtful session where we will discuss the purpose of grading and assessments and how can more closely tie those to deep learning. Hear about one instructor who blew up her assessment policies in an effort to refocus on the learning process. Come to this session ready to learn some simple strategies you can use to harness the power of the eight On Course principles to shift the conversations around learning in your classroom.

Session 2B: Engaging Discussions in STEM Courses: Creating Community & Applying Scientific Literature 
Presenter: Heather Rothenberg, Faculty, Nutritional Science, Mission College, CA
Summary: Students succeed when what they are learning matters to them. Discussions can be a powerful tool to drive student centered learning in online STEM courses.  Well-designed discussions can sharpen critical thinking and analytic abilities, while providing an opportunity to bring diverse perspectives into the classroom.   Discussions also provide a way to authentically assess student learning.  In this session, you will be shown to craft engaging discussions that develop science and math communication skills. 

Session 2C: “Beyonce” [Beyond Once]
Presenter: Cheryl Burk, Faculty, English Department, Wake Tech Community College, NC
Summary: Looking for assistance incorporating On Course student accountability strategies at multiple times [beyond once] into your course curriculum without having to sacrifice curriculum rigor? Invite “Beyonce” into your classroom. College students live complex lives – they are easily distracted by the myriad of non-classroom opportunities and experiences competing for their attention, often at the expense of completing otherwise manageable course assignments, AND instructors have limited class time to spend on non-curriculum instruction.  In this session, we will examine and brainstorm different strategies for reinforcing student accountability — strategies that help students stay On Course from the reading of the course syllabus to the final exam – without losing valuable course content teaching time. Note: This session is not just for single ladies!

Session 2D: Introduction to On Course
Presenters: Tonya Greene, Department Head, First Year Academy, Wake Technical Community College, NC; Robin Middleton, Faculty Emerita, Student Development, Jamestown Community College, NY
Summary: New to On Course? Wondering what it’s all about? This session will provide an overview of the On Course approach to student success. Participants will learn 1) the success principles that are the foundation of On Course, 2) how On Course is different from most student success approaches, 3) data demonstrating the success of this method, and 4) On Course resources available to support your students’ academic success and retention.

Session 3: Midday Keynote: You Must Remember This: Why Memory is Important for Learning (Even in the Age of Google)
Presenter: Michelle Miller
Summary: Contemporary faculty are wary of over-emphasizing memory and memorization in their courses. This aversion to focusing on memory is traces back a wide variety of concerns, from the wish to nurture higher thinking skills, to resistance to a culture of over-testing in K-12 education, to repudiation of an outdated and hierarchical “banking” model of learning. These are all valid goals. However, neglecting or avoiding memory in our teaching creates missed opportunities to take advantage of new research on the importance of developing a knowledge base for becoming an expert in a discipline. It also sets students up to fail in situations where relying on the Internet for information is impractical. This interactive keynote challenges common myths and misconceptions about the role of memory for learning, reviews provocative new research linking memory and thinking skills, and offers techniques and technologies that help students develop a solid base of knowledge, without detracting from application or critical thinking.

Session 4A: Healthy Choices for Academic Success
Presenter: Robin Middleton, Faculty Emerita, Student Development, Jamestown Community College, NY
Summary: Data from the CDC have consistently shown that people between the ages of 18 and 29 have reported the highest rates of anxiety and depression of any age group. In response, the US Surgeon General called for action, noting “the challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate.” These studies confirm what most of us have observed: one of the outcomes of the pandemic has been an adverse effect on students’ choices regarding their health, leading some students to an increased reliance on drugs, alcohol and/or tobacco to deal with stress in its many manifestations. In this session you’ll explore how using the adaptive and effective Jigsaw strategy can help students make healthy, sound choices for their academic and personal success.

Session 4B: Happiness and Learning
Presenter: Jonathan Brennan, Faculty, English Department, Mission College, CA
Summary: “Happiness fuels success, not the other way around,” notes Harvard researcher, Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage. “When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive.” A meta-analysis of over 200 scientific happiness studies on 275,000 people across the world reveals that happiness leads to success in nearly every area: work, health, friendship, sociability, creativity and energy. Experiencing positive emotions increases levels of dopamine and serotonin, which improve our memory and ability to learn. Happier students benefit both in their role as learners and at the workplace. Employees trained in happiness strategies experienced reduced stress and higher levels of productivity, performance ratings and pay. They were less likely to take sick days, to quit, or to become burned out. Attend this session to learn more about the growing body of happiness research, and to experience specific strategies to raise your students’ happiness levels.

Session 4C: Equity Novice to Equity Practitioner- Does Your Talk Reflect Your Walk?
Presenter: Tonya Greene, Department Head, First Year Academy, Wake Technical Community College, NC
Summary: “Equity-mindedness does not come naturally. It requires a knowledge base, and it takes a lot of practice.” (McNair et al, 2020).  Establishing an equity-minded classroom community takes time and intentional reflection.  It’s not as simple as learning new instructional strategies.  Our beliefs as educators, as well are our values and lived experiences, serve as the foundation for our words, actions, and decisions as teachers.  As educators, we must invest time in learning what we have not been taught in order to become more proficient as race-conscious, equity- minded practitioners. During this session, we will explore some common myths about equity in the classroom as well as examine some common hesitancies instructors have with adopting equitable and inclusive classroom teaching practices. Participants will leave with learner-centered strategies and resources to support their journey on becoming an equity practitioner.

Session 4D: Magnificent Mistakes
Presenter: Deb Poese, Director, Teacher Education Partnerships/Faculty, Mathematics, Montgomery College, MD
Summary: As faculty and student service professionals, we often see students discouraged by their mistakes and perhaps even stymied by a fear of failure.  Are we contributing to those reactions, or are we helping students see how to learn from these mistakes?  In this session, participants will look at the issues of assessment, feedback, and lifelong learning through participating in classroom strategies and reflecting on their own practices.   Come and consider how to help students (and others) come to understand: “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” (Henry Ford)  

 

Session 5A: Teaching Change
Presenter: José Antonio Bowen
Summary: This is a practical and active intensive workshop for all faculty that distills the latest scholarship on how students learn into tested techniques and best practices that work. Decades of research have brought an explosion of knowledge about how human evolution has shaped the way we remember, process, and think. Better discussions and assignments require designing for the collaborative but socially conforming human brain. We will learn how to disrupt the social reasoning (what will my friend think) that alters how we see evidence, disrupts how we experience class discussion, and interrupts our ability to change.

Session 5B: Leveraging Psychology to Create Compelling Learning Experiences: Attention and Memory
Presenter: Michelle Miller
Summary: Educators are all in the business of changing minds: We build new memories, guide students in developing new skills, and promote the development of values and mindsets. Attention and memory are aspects of the mind that are particularly critical to learning. These are both areas where concepts from cognitive psychology can suggest effective and innovative approaches to teaching. In this highly interactive workshop, we will work together to explore the ways in which attention and memory shape learning. We will then apply those principles to challenges we face in designing learning activities, including face-to-face, hybrid, blended, and fully online environments.

Session 5C: On Course & Equity Practices
Presenters: Deb Poese and Jonathan Brennan
Summary: Addressing equity gaps in student outcomes is critical to the success of our students, and to the success of our institutions. On Course was originally developed in collaboration with students from a predominantly African American community college (Baltimore City). At Baltimore City, students who learned the On Course skills showed significantly higher retention and success rates in their Math, Reading and English courses. For example, measured as persistence over 3 semesters, these students were 348% more likely to have passed the transfer-level English course than the comparison student pool. The Achieving the Dream program defines equity as “ensuring that each student receives what they need to be successful through the intentional design of the college experience…dismantling the barriers facing underserved students.” What resources and tools does On Course offer students (and educators) that support underserved students in moving past barriers and achieving academic success? Are these tools effective in supporting a broad diversity of underserved students? Join us to explore these questions and many more, clarifying the On Course best practices for addressing equity gaps.

 

Session 6: Closing Keynote
Presenter: Dr. Jonathan Brennan
Summary:

The Poetics of Zoom 

Ah, Zoom.
The frail passage to our learners
(the bane of our existence). 

Pleading for life from the maddening little windows
Staring into the void.
Transported like cyberdust and reassembled
In the breakout room.
Hurling ourselves over the edge of the platform
Into the whims of everyone’s bandwidth. 

How much can I stand?
I can’t raise my hand.
Mute. Unmute. Mute. Unmute.
Why is everyone looking at me?
Why am I looking at me?
Mute. Unmute. Mute. Unmute. 

The small reprieves of a family visit
The trickling flow of a Chat stream…
Unartful group singing of happy birthday.
Looking at myself and cringing
Looking at you: frozen…still frozen…wait…no, still frozen. 

In this session Dr. Brennan will explore the construction of a Poetics of Zoom.
What have the last 2 years offered to us on the Zoom platform?
What have we experienced?
How shall we proceed? 

The topics for exploration include: 

Shared Learning Experiences
Harmony and Convergence
Zoom Poetry
A Sense of Fragmentation
The Experience of Belonging
Technology Disruption
Gendered Zoom Worlds
Zoom Beauty
Disruptive Learning

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Also, as is our tradition, this session will end with a raffle of some great prizes, including one full scholarship to the 2022 On Course National Conference and two 50% scholarships to any 2021 virtual On Course National Workshop.

Dr. Jonathan Brennan is a faculty member in the English Department at Mission College in Santa Clara, California. He is a researcher in best practices in student success, holds a BA and MA in English (UC Berkeley), an MA in Counseling Psychology (USM), a PhD in Comparative Ethnic Studies (UC Berkeley), and an EdD in Leadership and Change (Fielding University). He has chaired the Student Success Committee, English Department and Language Arts Division, and served as VP of the Academic Senate and on multiple distance learning committees.

He was voted Faculty of the Year at Mission College and awarded a NISOD Teaching Excellence Award in 2000. In 2005 he was awarded the Stanback-Stroud Diversity award from the California State Academic Senate, and in 2008 the California State Hayward Award for Excellence in Education. Since 2006, he has been Chair of the On Course National Conference, and is currently Editor of the On Course Student Success Newsletter which has 150,000 subscribers worldwide. He has facilitated workshops on improving student engagement and learning for over 6000 faculty from colleges and universities across North America.

Dr. Brennan’s books include Engaging Learners through Zoom (Wiley Jossey-Bass), On Course: Strategies for Success in College, Career, and Life (Cengage), Choosing a Good Road (a student success textbook for high school students), Mixed Race Literature (Stanford Press), and When Br’er Rabbit Meets Coyote: African-Native American Literature (University of Illinois Press). In the last 2 decades, he has focused his research on higher education leadership, best practices in non-cognitive learner competencies, effectiveness in distance learning, and the intersection between race, culture, equity and access to education.

Dr. Brennan has been teaching online courses since 2003, and was a member of the Academic Senate Committee on Distance Learning.  He has taught using multiple CMS platforms, including ETUDES, Blackboard, Angel and Canvas. He has assessed online courses for the demonstration of regular, effective student contact and engaged learning. He developed the On Course Online workshop and is the lead designer of the new, Engaging Learners through Zoom workshop. On Course workshops (www.oncourseworkshop.com) offer educators the opportunity to acquire new best practices in both supporting online learners in strengthening non-cognitive variables and in designing and implementing active online learning structures that improve learning outcomes, success rates and retention.