Renton Technical CollegeDecember 2002
Office of Instructional Improvement Volume 9 No. 4
RTC All USA Team Finalists
RTC has nominated two outstanding students to the 2003 All USA Team, based on their scholarship and community activities. Vicki Koch maintains a 4.0 average in the Para educator Program, and has chaired the campus food drives. She plans to earn a Masters degree and become a Special Education teacher. Her instructor nominator, Wendy O’Reilly praises Vicki’s ability to integrate theory into practice.
Yuriy Senchenko was nominated by two of his Computer Science instructors Karen Braunstein-Post and Tim Culler. In addition to maintaining a 3.76 GPA, Yuiry is a work-study student in the Information Services Department. Originally from Far East Russia, he oversees the work of nine missionaries and three construction projects in that region. Thanks to Bonnie Bennedsen, Susie Navone and Eric Palo who served as judges for the program.
Gameshow Pro
RTC faculty has found creative ways to use Gameshow Pro in their classes.
Sally McDonald will use Gameshow as a review for her final exam. The categories match to the topics on the exam. Sally plans to take full advantage of the Gameshow technology by incorporating images and video clips into her answer screens. Kinsey Fobes is having his students help with the Gameshow Pro set up. The students are responsible for writing game questions Kinsey will use. Two groups will exchange questions, to avoid any easy-answers. Way to delegate, Kinsey!
Gail Dugan has also found a timesaving development trick. She is modifying a Halloween PowerPoint and Microsoft Word game created last year to use with Jeopardy. Gail provided the questions, answers and graphics from her flashcards, and Instructional Improvement will create Jeopardy questions for her game. How can we help you? Let us know your ideas for Gameshow Pro.
Peer Tutor Program
Well the quarter is almost over, and it will be the beginning of a brand new year. It’s time for some reflection. I’m sure that many of us have a couple of students that are just making it this quarter. You might already be thinking, “This person is going to struggle next quarter.” If a person(s) came to your mind as you read this, that person might be an ideal candidate for the Peer Tutor Program.
The Peer Tutor Program is designed to help students who are struggling and are at risk of not finishing your program. But like with most things in life, the earlier an intervention like tutoring is used, the better the chances are of retaining the student. I’d encourage you to reflect on your students’ abilities. How ready are they for next quarter’s challenges? Could the Peer Tutor Program be of assistance to you and your students? If you have any doubt, call x 5514 or email to set an appointment to discuss the options available to you.
Student Writing Self-Assessment
Having difficulty explaining to students how their written work is graded? Martin Paquette passes along a hint from his wife Judith who attended a professional development workshop offered by John Bean from Seattle University. His idea is to grade the assignments but not mark them; then go over with the class what made good and bad papers and let the students figure out why they got the grade they did. You could build on the activity by giving the students an opportunity to re-do the assignment. To Contact John Bean about this concept.
Are students having difficulty reading your textbooks?
As you get ready to order textbooks you might want to consider the readability level. FORCAST is a simple formula that was designed especially to measure the readability level of technical materials. There are three easy steps which can be used t analyze a single 150 word passage, a group of passages or a random series of selections from an entire book. Please click here for the simple 3-step formula.
Looking for a free source of Math exercises?
A recent edition of THENews reports that the XanEdu website has expert CoursePack Development Services helping faculty to create digital and print custom CoursePacks. There are also online authoring tools plus copyright-cleared materials to create assignments. The agreement lets you sign in and once registered retrieve materials. There is only a cost if you duplicate these materials directly to hand out to your class. There is no cost of a copy for your personal reference use to develop other materials. For more information Click here
Skill Standards Website
Skill standards are a great aid in determining how to measure competencies in student performance. Finding these standards documents for many fields can be challenging. The National Dissemination Center for Career and Technical Education (NCCTE) has developed an on-line repository of standards that you can search by kind (Academic, skill or employability), source (national or specific state) cluster (Construction, Manufacturing, etc), or by a custom word search. Click through to the Repository of Standards.
Free and Open Courseware Posted By MIT
One year ago, MIT's President announced that they were planning to put the course materials for most of the MIT courses online for free public access. On October 7, the first twenty courses were available. These are not on-line courses. They are the class notes, activities, graphics, reading collections and agendas from the courses. You might find them helpful as resources or students might take the resources and use them as part of a self-directed learning project. Check out the MIT courseware site
Report: "Building A Career Pathways System"
The Workforce Strategy Center, released a major Community College Report, "Building a Career Pathways System" this month. The report details through examples in nine states (one is Washington) how community colleges can form the backbone of workforce improvements across the nation. Several regional and national publications have written stories about the report and the importance of college workforce strategies. And traffic to the website has increased tenfold. The report was funded by the Ford and Irvine foundations and analyzes barriers to career paths for the unemployed and working poor and describes colleges that have overcome them. The report and a Chronicle of Higher Education article on the report are available by clicking here.
Break it up
Educators at all levels find that a break from lecture helps students to focus, and they are increasingly using innovative and non-traditional means to get students’ attention, according to this recent Washington Post article. Click here to read more.
Quotable
Excellence can be attained if you care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical, and expect more than others think is possible. ~ Unknown
The mission of the Office of Instructional Improvement is to advance educational strategies, seek to improve the quality of learning environments, and support RTC staff as they prepare a diverse student population for work.