McGraw-Hill Education Joins Forces with Magna Publications to Launch the McGraw-Hill Learning Institute

To help educators respond effectively to these challenges, McGraw-Hill Education today announced the launch of McGraw-Hill Learning Institute, a professional development program created to keep institutions and instructors up-to-date on the latest education technologies and provide guidance in determining which emerging technologies and best practices are right for their needs. As part of the McGraw-Hill Learning Institute launch, McGraw-Hill Education and Magna Publications today announced a new agreement to jointly develop and offer professional development products and services to educators and institutions.

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Using the E-Portfolio to Validate Student Learning

Too often our students consider their work in the classroom as required assignments—not work that has anything to do with what they will be doing in the real world. Oh, maybe they are picking up some skills they might use in their future employment, but that’s about it. As teachers, how do we get students to understand that the work they do in our classes—such as team projects, community service, technical papers, and even research—is relevant to what they will be doing after they graduate? How do we encourage them to keep their materials and use them to validate their work as students? I think I have an answer. Teaching an e-portfolio capstone course for several years has given me a perspective that I believe should be the framework for validating student learning outcomes across all institutions of higher education.

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Engaging Students in a Habit of Gratitude

Many labels have been applied to the current generation of college students, many of them disparaging: lazy, distracted, aimless, needy, greedy, and self-absorbed. Some of the emerging adults who populate college classrooms earn these labels with their classroom behaviors and mediocre performance. However, within most men and women who are 18-22 years old, there is a capacity for greater things.

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ScreenChomp App Review: Recordable Whiteboard Provides Easy Way to Create, Explain and Share

ScreenChomp is a free, yet highly intuitive and powerful app that you and your students can quickly master. To use ScreenChomp you simply touch the record button; draw on the whiteboard using the available pen or markers; and provide a running narrative. ScreenChomp records your voice and drawing and then allows you to upload your creation to ScreenChomp.com. After uploading your project, you will be provided with a link which you can share via e-mail, Twitter, or on the clipboard. Nothing could be easier than that!

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Role Reversal: Learning from a Master Teacher

I had a most interesting experience last summer. I have taught college composition for many years, but I had not participated in a writing workshop as a writer for a long time. Of course, I had regularly run workshops in my classroom. But this time, I had written a short, 600-word essay, and it was workshopped (which to those of us in composition means reviewed and critiqued) by my peers as part of a larger in-service on curiosity and writing. When the workshop was finished, I turned to a fellow English professor and said, “So that’s how it’s supposed to be done!”

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A Data-Driven Approach to Student Retention and Success

Higher education institutions generate a wealth of data that can be used to improve student success, but often the volume of data and lack of analysis prevent this data from having the impact it could have. “I think it’s hard for the general faculty population or administrator population to really have a handle on the data that is really driving decisions,” says Margaret Martin, Title III director and sociology professor at Eastern Connecticut State University. “They don’t get a chance to see it or they just get very infrequent information about it. So there may be too much data, but it’s often not communicated effectively to people in ways that are both understandable and useful to them.”

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Tips for Online Instructors: Managing Files, Feedback, and Workload

Teaching online is a rewarding experience; but any instructor who makes the transition to online education, thinking it will be easier and less time-consuming than face-to-face classroom teaching, is in for a big surprise! Establishing a regular presence in the online classroom, grading assignments and discussions, and maintaining records and notes from term to term are all time consuming – but essential – tasks. Learning to take care of the details of online teaching more efficiently makes it possible to be more effective in your teaching. The following is an abbreviated version of guidance I provide to new instructors about ways to keep their course files organized, students engaged, and workload manageable.

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Adapt Courseware Delivers New Social Learning Tools to Improve Student Engagement

Adapt Courseware, the provider of comprehensive adaptive online curriculum resources that individualize each student’s learning experience, has released new social learning tools as part of its courseware offerings. The tools promote increased online collaboration among students and with instructors. The goal of Adapt Courseware’s approach to community-based learning is to deliver a more engaging educational experience where each student can benefit from a high level of support and interaction.

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Humor in the Classroom: 40 Years of Research

You have to admire scholars willing to look at 40 years of research on any topic, and this particular review is useful to faculty interested in understanding the role of humor in education. It starts with definitions, functions, and theories of humor. It identifies a wide range of different types of humor. It reviews empirical findings, including the all-important question of whether using humor helps students learn. And finally, this 30-page review concludes with concrete advice and suggestions for future research. It’s one of those articles that belong in even modest instructional libraries—imagine having to track down the better-than-100 references in the bibliography.

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