Musings

Lifelong Learning

/ Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

One thing I hope to instill in my students is a love of learning, something that continues long after the semester is over, the year ended or the degree conferred. The drive to do this comes, even after almost 30 years of teaching, from my own love of being the student, not the teacher.

Right now, I am enjoying a  course through the state’s professional development system called “Technology Bootcamp II.” I wasn’t privileged to take the first six-week course, but now, in the third week of this second course, I have already learned some exciting new technologies to add spice to my seated and online classes. Here are some new things I’m learning as well as some older things I’m learning anew:

Blackboard–I used to teach using Blackboard until our college moved to Moodle. Although I am so used to Moodle now and happy with that learning platform, it’s gratifying to see that I have gotten back into the swing of things pretty easily. The interfaces are similar enough that I have easily adapted. I am glad, however, to learn the differences, so I can better prepare students who might transfer and encounter Blackboard or those who come to me more familiar with Blackboard than Moodle.

Prezi–I have used Prezi for several years now and prefer it to some other presentation software. In this course, however, I have learned to use some of the bells and whistles that I didn’t know and discovered some templates that I hadn’t seen before. I like Prezi’s dynamic animation that makes presentations almost cinematic. It is user friendly and easy for students to learn. Here is a link to the Prezi I created to introduce myself to the class. Educational accounts are free.

Prezi Introduction

Tagul–This easy-to-use program was new to me, and it is fun!  I can see many uses for it in my classes because I think students will have fun with it too. Tagul allows you to easily produce Word Cloud Art just by uploading web content or adding your own text. Here is one of the first word clouds I created using words from my Study Skills class syllabus.

student-success

I was able to view a short tutorial, and then after a little trial and error, created this word tree that highlights some of the main ideas of the course. Word Cloud exercises could be used for vocabulary-building, learning key concepts and terms, for review purposes and a myriad of other uses. And, like Prezi, it’s free!

Here is a link to the animated version of the word cloud I created:  https://tagul.com/oo05cu2qlre9/student-success

Jing–Although I have used other screencast programs, Jing will be extremely useful for making short how to videos, five minutes or shorter. User friendly with helpful tutorial videos (I should hope so), Jing didn’t take long to get  the hang of and before I knew it, I had created a short tutorial video on how to use Tagul! Here’s a link to the video if you would like to see my first effort at using Jing! Free!

Jing Screencast

LiveBinders–This application helps instructors and students create digital three-ring binders. I haven’t finished working on this project yet, but so far I am quite impressed with LiveBinders. I’m able to download and organize websites, photos, videos, files, etc. that pertain to a particular topic, making them accessible for classroom use. Students can create a free account to create portfolios for class or keep all of their class project files together and easy to share, especially when working on group projects. Very useful.

I will also be learning classroom and online applications of Google Earth this week. Looking forward to it, and I will give you all an update on more useful education applications as I learn them.

I love being a lifelong learner!

Speaking of being a lifelong learner: Just a reminder that my literary e-zine, Teach. Write.,is open for submissions of short fiction, poetry and essays now through July 1, 2017. Anyone who has taught English composition is welcome to submit. See the guidelines  at this link for more information: Teach. Write Submission Guidelines. I would love to see your work!

December 1 still the deadline

/ Katie Winkler / Leave a comment
mid

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe Theater, London 2015

I haven’t written this blog for almost two months. I’m sure you can guess why, so I won’t go into it. Maybe I will some day, but not today. Today is the end of a restful and contemplative Thanksgiving season, the first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of comfort. Today, I am thankful and comforted that I still have something to give to this world.

And yet.

It’s been a long two months, y’all. I have been hopeful, elated, disheartened and even depressed, but none of these feelings are going to get me anywhere. They certainly won’t make me a better teacher, a better writer, a better person. So, I have rested and recuperated, found myself again, the quiet and peaceful me, the me who has a confidence she rarely shows the world, who rests in the certainty that the Apostle Paul was right when he wrote: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

But what tools does such an insignificant person like me have to do good? The question is absurd. I am a writing teacher. My position affords me tremendous opportunities to do good, and I am so grateful to have these chances to help people pursue the most important achievement of  all, becoming better. Certainly I can help students make their writing better, help them to discover ways to strengthen sentence structure and word usage to better communicate. But teaching writing, because it is so intimate, because students will write things they could never say, forms a bond that few other people can have with a relative stranger–a person who sits and listens and learns for only a few weeks and then is gone.

However, I am not only a writing teacher dedicated to helping my students become better, I have other tools to do good. I am a writer–a true writer.  I write because writing is a part of who I am. One reason I have come to prefer teaching online to teaching in a classroom is that I’m a better writer than a speaker. When I write I can go back and revise, find better words, create better sentences, more effective structures, even different punctuation, until I’m satisfied, or more likely, have run out of time. Being a writer forces me to re-evaluate my words and the way I say them, allows me to instruct more clearly, more permanently, offers me opportunities to express myself with groanings I can not utter, gives me the chance to communicate the joy and sorrow of my life, bringing comfort and cheer to others.

And then there is this one tool that I can’t quite figure out how to use–the one that gets me into so much trouble–my anger. It exhausts me, being angry all the time. Oh, I understand it, even like it at times. It burns inside of me and makes me feel alive. Mostly, it is a righteous flame. At times it fuels me to do good–to speak for those who cannot, to protect like Mother Bear. But these past couple of months, the anger has flamed and threatened to overtake me like the wildfires around my mountain home, sparked by two long months of drought and by small minds who care little about anything other than their immediate ill-conceived pleasure.

But the rains are coming. The showers are already here.

I got this package in the mail the other day. I didn’t think it was for me because I hadn’t ordered anything, but no one else in the household had either, so I opened it up, right before we got the first rainfall that we’ve had since September. Here’s a picture of it:

001

As you probably know, it’s from Midsummer’s Night Dream. Helena says it to Hermia when they are fighting over something stupid. Isn’t it funny that these few little words came to me, I still don’t know by whom, at such a low point, the driest part of the season, like raindrops? These words, originally meant to be an insult, hurled at Helena’s vertically challenged rival in a moment of pique, came to me as precious moisture to help dampen the fire of my anger, to redirect it into positive action.

It was just a little rain that day. Just a little. It didn’t really change anything, but it gave me hope. You remember hope.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all -”  –Emily Dickinson

I am little, oh so little, but I am fierce,  never stopping -at all.

***

And……Still plan to roll out my literary e-zine on December 1, so watch for details and submission guidelines for TEACH. WRITE. in the coming days.

 

Good News!

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Super busy with, well, teaching and writing, but had to stop to post this because it is GOOD NEWS FOR LIBERAL ARTS!!! Rare indeed. And not just liberal arts but for English majors!

Woot!

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the article: “‘College shouldn’t prepare you for your first job, but for the rest of your life,” says John Kroger, president of Reed College in Oregon, the liberal-arts school that famously served as a starting point for Steve Jobs.”

Good News, Liberal Arts Majors!

I’ll be back soon with information about my Teach. Write. literary e-zine project. (I know I keep saying that, but I mean it this time!)

Teach. Write. Not Yet.

/ Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

frankenclassicI know I said that my next post would be about my new endeavor into the literary e-zine world, but I am super busy with getting my stage adaptation of Frankenstein ready for auditions in August, so I haven’t had time to work on it.

Just a little advertisement: if you live in the Asheville area, please consider making Blue Ridge Community College’s production of Frankenstein: A Faithful Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Classic Novel a part of your Halloween weekend. The play runs October 26-31. We had our second read through (my 6th draft) of the play this past Monday with about 20 student and community actors coming out for the reading, and many of them will be auditioning. I could not have been more pleased.

I will keep you apprised of developments!!

But until I have time to work more on the e-zine, here is another great article from one of my favorite educational bloggers, Bernard Bull. The topic is humanizing educational policy. A great read.

Policies Don’t Care about People

Teach. Write.

/ Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

Queens Univ_CharlotteA couple of weeks ago, I attended a wonderful four-day writing workshop at Queens University in Charlotte, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network (NCWN), of which I am a member. I came away humbled but also encouraged, with new confidence in my work and with my writing spirit renewed. This long weekend convinced me that teachers of writing need to not only practice their own writing, but also put it out there! Go to workshops and critique groups, present at readings and literary open mic events. Teachers who write and open that writing up to criticism can come back into the classroom with a renewed sense of what it’s like to be a student. At least, that’s what happened to me.

Dinner at Fenwicks

Shrimp and Grits at Fenwick’s

The workshop began on Thursday afternoon. I arrived and was the first one to sign up for the open mic night. After I got settled, I had time to explore that area of Charlotte,  with many stately old homes and the impressive Queens University campus. Then, I found a nice little restaurant called Fenwick’s and had some scrumptious shrimp and grits with a nice chardonnay to start things off right. That evening Ed Southern, director of NCWN led us in a fun exercise to help us get to know one another followed by  a fascinating presentation on The Wall Poems of Charlotte, a grass roots public art project, which highlights the work of North Carolina poets. I think our college should consider a similar public art project at our college or in our town. Perhaps I will propose it.

One of the best things about the trip was that I was able to remember what it is like to be a student again–always good for a teacher to experience, especially if she’s been at it as long as I have.

At my age, I never thought to again be sharing the bathroom and showers in the dorm, seeking  out a friend in the dining hall at lunch or walking with some fellow students down to one of the local hangouts, but that’s what I did! The closeness and camaraderie I developed with the eight other fiction writers in the workshop as well as the other writers in the poetry and non-fiction workshops, helped take away the initial uncomfortable feelings I had at moving out of my middle-aged comfort zone and made it easier to accept the constructive criticism offered by the instructor and my fellow students.

Our marvelous instructor Sarah Creech, who teaches at Queens University, also helped us feel more comfortable by  doing some simple exercises that encouraged us to get to know one another better, but it wasn’t long before we were seriously critiquing the work that we had shared with each other in the weeks before the workshop began.

For some ungodly reason, I signed up to be the first person (again) to be critiqued, but Sarah facilitated the group with such finesse and my fellow writers were so kind and supportive, that it wasn’t hard to accept the criticism. In fact, I found it affirming and encouraging because most of the areas that needed improvement were areas that I myself targeted for revision. It sure didn’t hurt to hear the positive comments either.

In front of Chapel

It was pretty hot, but in the morning and evening, I enjoyed walking around the beautiful campus or writing in one of the common areas.

We repeated the process of critiquing, beginning with what is working and what could use revision, for the other eight attendees. What I found especially interesting was the better I got to know the other people in my group, the more I wanted to offer truly helpful words of advice and not just give some throw away comments. I also found myself going back and re-reading their work, so I could give more in depth comments. In addition, my confidence grew in my own work. Here were other serious writers, good writers, but my work was on a par with theirs.

After the first day of critiquing each others’ work, Sarah concentrated on lecture and exercises to help bolster the class’s weaker areas that had been revealed from the critiques the day before. We emphasized character development and motivation, sensory details and setting, among other issues. The lectures were always targeted and blessedly short, followed by periods of writing. That evening we enjoyed our literary open mic event, which was a wonderful time to hear the work of writers in my own group as well as poets and non-fiction writers from the other group. a pizza party in the commons area of Sykes Learning Center ended the official events of the evening, but a few of us continued our discussion of the weekend at a local pub, just like in the old college days.

Sykes Learning Center

Sykes Learning Center

The last day we did more writing but also had time to share our work with the group, no critiquing this time–just enjoying each other as writers. As much as I missed my family and was glad to be going home, I truly was sad to say goodbye to my new writer friends but glad that I had a chance to meet them. I hope to continue sharing my work with them. It is amazing how quickly people can bond when they share a passion for storytelling.

It may be obvious what I learned and had affirmed about teaching composition during the workshop, but here is a list of a few things that come to mind:

  • spend time letting students get to know each other as people
  • build in time to socialize
  • celebrate your students’ writing
  • provide opportunities to share writing
  • keep any lecture relevant to the particular group of students you are teaching
  • keep lecture to a minimum
  • target areas that need work and tailor-make exercises to help improve weak areas
  • make exercises creative and fun
  • allow students to critique each other’s writing in small groups
  • begin with positive feedback but move on to areas that need improvement

Stay tuned for my next blog post when I present the details of my new project–an online literary magazine designed to showcase the work of those who teach writing.

The Art of Collaboration

/ Katie Winkler / 2 Comments
Cast Meets with Susan Burk

Cast meets via Skype with Susan Burk from the Matthew Shepard Foundation during rehearsals for The Laramie Project – photo by Vince LaMonica

Not soon after I started working at the community college where I teach, I was thrilled that a new degree was added–an Associates of Fine Arts in Drama. The young woman who led the program brought back to life my love of all aspects of theater production. I had dabbled in community theater as a publicist, properties manager, stage director and actor in several places where I lived, but raising a small child and teaching a heavy adjunct load meant little time for this passion.

 

The drama department at the college brought it all back to me. Furthermore, it offered me opportunities to get back onto the stage through small roles that didn’t require a great deal of rehearsal time. Jennifer, the director, always made it doable, and the more I became involved the more I wanted to do. Because her department is small, and she is the only full-time instructor, Jennifer and I, an English teacher, started finding more and more opportunities to work together, forming a cross-curriculum relationship that has, I think, greatly enhanced both departments for the advancement of our students and has sustained us both by allowing us the creative outlets that we crave.

It all started one day, long ago, over lunch at a Chinese buffet restaurant, when we were discussing the upcoming production. Jennifer had decided she wanted to do two one-act plays with her directing one and me the other as I had expressed the desire of getting my feet wet as a director. She had already decided on one of the plays–Blue Window by Craig Lucas, but she hadn’t been able to find a suitable play for me to direct.

Almost as a joke, I said, “Hey, guess what?”

“What?” she said.

“I wrote a play long years ago. It’s called Green Room. How about that, Blue Window, Green Room.” I was almost laughing. I really wasn’t serious at all or suggesting anything, I swear.

Then, she said, “Let’s do that one.”

“What?” I said.

“Let’s do your play.”

“But you haven’t even read it. You don’t know anything about it. It might suck. I mean, as far as I remember it does suck.”

“Here’s the beauty of it,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever we don’t like, we change.”

Thus began a truly productive collaboration between two instructors. I can’t tell you what it means as a writer and an educator to have this kind of partnership, which protects Jennifer and her department from isolation and offers me opportunities to stretch the creative side in me–the writer, the actor.

We did produce Blue Window and Green Room. I ended up handing the directing baton over to Jennifer when, two weeks before opening night, one of the leads quit, and I had to step in to act. In addition, Curtis, a student who played a lead role in the play, also composed original music for Green Room and has gone on to collaborate with me, and Jennifer,  on many projects even after he left school.

The next semester I directed my first full length play, Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. Was I crazy? Of course, I was, but of course, Jennifer was there to help me through the process, and without her expertise the show would have been a disaster. On the other hand, because of my knowledge of German (I double majored in English and German in undergraduate school), I was able to contribute direct translations from the original text when the British translations we were using didn’t work. Also, I have a particular interest in musicals, which Jennifer doesn’t share, so working again with Curtis, we composed original music for the play.

Over and over again, Jennifer and I, along with students like Curtis, as well as colleagues, have collaborated on productions. So many times our ideas came from just seeing plays together in the community or at conferences. Other times they simply sprang from casual conversation or out of a desire to find a special project for a special actor. Here are just a few examples of our working together (in no particular order):

  • A production of Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theatre Project’s Laramie Project with student-led talk back facilitated by the public speaking instructor at the college. In addition, Jennifer had frequent discussions with Susan Burk from the Matthew Shepard Foundation and cast members had a teleconference with Burk to prepare for their roles. I acted in the show and wrote two features about the production for the local newspaper. Follow these links to read the features: 1)  Pre-Production 2)  Production
  • BRCC’s participation in the 48 Hour Film Project, winning Asheville’s contest in 2008. See the film at this link: Serial Love
  • Tennessee Williams’ One-Act Play Festival–we had two separate stages, a southern-style picnic and a lecture on Williams by one of our English faculty
  • Pre-show lecture about Lord Byron and the Shelleys before the production of Howard Brenton’s Bloody Poetry
  • Pre-show lecture, scenes and short film (produced by drama department) before production of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.
  • Pre-show lecture by me and an adjunct English instructor before Shakespeare’s Macbeth (we both acted in the production as well)
  • World premiere of A Carolina Story, a musical based on the Book
    Carolina Story 029

    A Carolina Story, April 2012

    of Job, by me with music by Curtis (We produced it a second time as a fund-raiser for the student emergency grant and loan fund)

There have been so many other examples of how our collaboration has enhanced our teaching. Currently, we are collaborating on perhaps our most ambitious project yet, an original stage adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We are attempting to preserve the plot and style of the original while adding exciting multi-media effects to enhance the production.

Most theaters cannot sustain this kind of freedom and collaboration between writer and producer/director. It is educational theater, especially in higher education, that allows for this kind of risk-taking to take place. It is also this kind of educational theater that should be supported with proper funding and promotion because in the end, collaboration between faculty, staff, students, administration and community is what it takes for the arts in education to flourish, teaching us to work together for the betterment of all.

And hey, if you’re near Asheville the weekend before Halloween, come see Frankenstein!!

 

 

 

A Liberal Arts Education

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visitspartanburg.com

My husband and I attended our only child’s graduation on May 14. She graduated cum laude  with a bachelor’s degree in music from a small liberal arts college. People ask me, they ask my husband, they ask her, what is she going to do with that degree? It’s not very practical, is it? I suppose that depends on what value one puts on a solid liberal arts education.

I put great value on it, but I find that my standard explanation of the value of a college education — a liberal arts education teaches a person how to think — falls flat, even to my own ears. Therefore, I was delighted to encounter David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. The author of the modern classic Infinite Jest eloquently defends that old cliche and renewed confidence in my belief that what my daughter learned by earning her degree is so much more than training for a career–it has ushered her into a lifetime of thinking, and choosing, for herself.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the speech, followed by a link to a youtube video of it in its entirety (audio only). I encourage you to listen to the whole thing–well worth the 22 or so minutes and so relevant to our time.

“Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”

“I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.”

“…if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.”

“Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it. This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

“If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly….Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.”

“And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

“The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us….”

The complete speech

 

 

Chicago Follow Up

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cloud-gate_c

The Bean–Chicago (chicagotraveler.com)

Finally getting back to my blog after a busy, busy spring break and catching up with my classes. I wanted to take some time to talk about some of the great books, monographs, white papers and other materials I collected while I was in Chicago. Here’s just a few of the things I brought back for my colleagues and me:

  • Understanding Cultural Diversity in a Complex World by Dr. Leo Parvis. I went to Dr. Parvis’s session on cultural diversity and it was quite inspiring. Dr. Parvis shows what dedication and enthusiasm can do. He has built up the cultural diversity at his college–Dunwoody Community College in Minnesota–from practically nothing to its current healthy mix of cultures. His book examines some of his most successful ideas.
  • Toward a New Ecology of Student Success: Expanding and Transforming Learning Opportunities Throughout the Community College by Dr. Jim Rigg. I went to Dr. Rigg’s session mainly out of curiosity since I entered the monograph competition that I had applied for and he won. He sure deserved to! His monograph is a well-researched and persuasive argument for “The Emerging/Transformative Cognitive Frame” (9) approach to student learning that he claims will lead students “toward becoming life long learners” (10). On improving retention, Riggs says, “Numerous studies on improving persistence rates and increasing student success point out the importance of having a rigorous academic curriculum and an engaging and nurturing campus environment” (7). So much of what he says in the books echoes my own views and the views of many of my colleagues. It’s nice to have validation as well as numerous great ideas I hope to share with our president before too long.
  • Bread and Roses: Helping Students Make a Good Living and Live a Good Life by Dr. Terry O’Banion, President Emeritus of the League for Innovation in Community Colleges. This excellent monograph makes the case for what the author calls “Essential Education,” one that combines the best of Liberal Arts education (the rose) with Workforce education (the bread). He says, “We need a practical liberal arts and a liberal career education” (25). One of my favorite quotes in the book comes from Tyton Partners, an educational advisory firm in Boston, “Foundational, lifelong skills, such as critical thinking, teamwork and collaboration, and problem solving are climbing to the top of employers wish lists [….] Ultimately, integration in this area should bridge academic and applied education and skills expectations across institutions” (24). Excellent and informative reading with practical steps for implementing an Essential Education.
  • Numerous white papers, briefs and monographs from the Community College Research Center at Cornell University. A few of the titles are
    • “Using Technology to Reform Advising: Insights from Colleges” I met and talked to the young man who wrote this white paper, Jeffrey Fletcher.
    • Track Transfer: New Measures of Institutional and State Effectiveness in Helping Community College Students Attain Bachelor’s Degrees by Davis Jenkins and John Fink
    • “Improving Assessment and Placement at Your College: A Tool for Institutional Researchers” by Clive R. Belfield
    • “What We Know about Online Course Outcomes” by Shannon Smith Jaggers, et, al.
    • “Increasing Access to College-Level Math: Early Outcomes Using the Virginia Placement Test” by Olga Rodriguez
    • “What We Know About Guided Pathways” by Thomas Bailey, et al.

These are just a few of the materials I gathered on my recent trip to the League for Innovation in Community College’s Conference in Chicago. It was a great conference. I look forward to sharing this material with my colleagues when we all get a breather. Might not be until after grades are turned in.

Chicago–Day Two

/ Katie Winkler / 2 Comments

shedd

Shedd Aquarium (Chicagofree.com)

John spent the day at Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium while I went to meetings. It was gorgeous and not too cold, so I did get out and walk a little down the River Walk during a break. It was a long day of meetings, but again, it was good, and I gleaned a great deal from most of the sessions I went to and am eager to share what I’ve learned with my colleagues.

Here’s a break down of my day:

8:00-9:00–Library Instruction That Improves Self-Efficacy and Academic Achievement. Two librarians from a large Nevada Community College presented on library instruction. It was interesting and validated many of the things our librarians are doing in and for our classes, but I did get some new ideas that I want to take back and share with our librarians. I also liked that this session included an activity. It was the first session that did.

9:15-10:15–Faculty Voices on Student Success and Completion. Excellent information to take back and share with our Achieving the Dream Team, especially for my supervisor who heads up the team as well as my colleague who is the head of communications. She presented some good materials to use in faculty focus groups to help start meaningful discussion–free resources! And I have copies!

11:30-12:30–Use Technology to Engage Students and Raise the Learning Bar–After a coffee break (I went up to our room and worked on my presentation), I went to the most well-attended session so far. This couple, who are both accounting instructors introduced a myriad of low-cost or free apps that are useful for students and teachers. They had great attitudes about the technology too, repeating several times how technology is only a tool and that content is king. I agreed with their philosophy and learned a great deal. Their session was well-organized, interesting and focused with interesting graphics and short informative videos about the different technology. They have a blog I plan to find and follow.

Ate lunch in the hotel where John and I had breakfast. Excellent buffet that was ironically cheaper than the breakfast buffet had been. Weird.

1:00-2:00–Building Academic Tenacity–Although not really a true round table, this session did offer some validation that what I am doing in my classes meshes with the literature on student persistence and retention. I was a bit disappointed that the speaker took almost all the time going through her powerpoint that we couldn’t see because it was a roundtable session. Towards the end we finally began a discussion, but it was too late to really get into it.

3:15-4:15–Creativity+Innovation+Entrepreneurship=Making Arts Sustainable–This was another useful session and a true roundtable discussion. The presenter was engaging and informative with an obvious passion for the arts combined with a pragmatic attitude towards funding arts programs. Some things that she does at her large, urban school are not likely to happen at our school, but she and others in the group offered great suggestions for sustaining the arts programs and getting buy in from the administration. Can’t wait to share some of this info with my arts faculty colleagues.

4:30-?  –Keynote address–I didn’t stay for the whole thing because it really didn’t relate to me–much more geared to administrators. I was so tired after the long day and there were so many people there, I slipped out and went to the room.

After talking to my mother, who is in the hospital, and being encouraged by her continued improvement, John and I walked over a block to a restaurant we had seen the night before, Howells and Hood. It has New American cuisine and a nice view of the city from its sprawling dining area. It has a large beer menu, which is what attracted John, I think. He was pleased with his porter. His meal, a brisket sandwich and fries, was okay, he said. I’ve spoiled him with my cooking, I said. My fish tacos, on the other hand, were tasty and flavorful, recommended by our attentive server. My Chicago-brewed Pilsner was great as well.

The night was getting quite chilly as we walked back, so I was glad we didn’t have far to go.  We enjoyed just lounging around the rest of the evening. Tomorrow, we’re going to take a well-deserved break, sleep in and then walk to the Art Institute of Chicago to see the Van Gogh exhibit–the first time these particular paintings have been on exhibit in America. I will make it back for a couple of sessions in the afternoon.

That’s the plan anyway.