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Keep some online hours even after we return to campus

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Keep some online hours even after we return to campus

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Provides more flexibility for our students and they don't need to come to campus (take the bus, pay for parking, find child care, etc.),

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See each other as humans first.

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I think also sharing your own challenges can be helpful. Sharing your level of comfort, of course.

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I do an activity at the beginning of the semester where students have to answer the following questions: "If only Madame knew that I..." I tell them it is just for me. I learned a lot and it helped me to guide them effectively.

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Each student shares one positive and one negative thing whether in groups or al together.

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Lead the students through a 1-min mindfulness activity. They feel more calm while they are in class.

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Do check ins at the beginning of each week. Make sure that students know that I care and that they can talk to me.

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Have a discussion in our departments. Can use the sticky notes.

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Spirit guide
Monday Motivator
Tech Help
Assign students to those roles.

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How about a template in Canvas for the Basic Needs info? We can all add a Basic Needs module.

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I think it might be useful to work on coreqs that have embedded basic needs support

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Discuss opportunities identified by RIE with your department.

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Discuss opportunities identified by RIE with your department.

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See opportunities #1-#3 on page 3 of RIE's infographic.

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COVID19 MtSAC Student Survey Infographic (4)

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Activity for Fall Flex or Community of Practice

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Activity for Fall Flex or Community of Practice

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Have a basic needs related topic as the focus of the department's Fall Flex Day activity or included in a community of practice event.

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Is your department open to adding Open Educational Resources (OER) as one of your sample textbooks to your CORs?

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Skip to main content

It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

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Research Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): About OER

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Skip to main content It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

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More information about the Mountie Fresh Food Pantry and CalFresh are in the "resources" menu (gray navigation toward the top).

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California Community Colleges #RealCollege Survey
In March 2019, The Hope Center released is results from their largest annual assessment of basic needs security which indicated that 50% of respondents were food insecure in the prior 30 days and 19% of respondents were homeless in the previous year. Logo of the hope center.

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California Community Colleges #RealCollege Survey In March 2019, The Hope Center released is results from their largest annual assessment of basic needs security which indicated that 50% of respondents were food insecure in the prior 30 days and 19% of respondents were homeless in the previous year. Logo of the hope center.

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Summary of the national #RealCollege study.

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National #RealCollege report.

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Mt. SAC's #RealCollege institution level report.

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Chronicle of Higher Ed article on the importance of tone on the syllabus - to share with faculty.

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That's the key finding of a recent study conducted by Regan A. R. Gurung, a professor in the School of Psychological Science at Oregon State University, and Noelle R. Galardi, an undergraduate at the university, published in Teaching of Psychology.

Gurung, who is also the interim executive director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State, has a research interest in first impressions. Historically, he noted, professors made their first impression on students in person, on the first day of class.

But that has changed - and not only because of remote instruction during the pandemic. Students often have access to their syllabi before the first day of class, Gurung noted. That raises the stakes for the way professors present themselves in writing, before the student has anything else to go on. As a result, he said, the syllabus is "a major tool for the first impression."

The study is based on an experiment in which 257 student volunteers taking introductory psychology courses at the university read one of four sample syllabi - using a warm or cold tone, with or without a statement explicitly encouraging students to reach out for help - and ranked their likelihood of asking for help in five different scenarios.

Students who read the warm-tone version indicated they were more likely to reach out for help in three of the five scenarios. Those who read the explicit reach-out statement were more likely to ask for help in just one scenario, which concerned having personal issues with friends or family.

Reach-out statements have become a popular way for instructors to signal their support to students. So why was including one less effective than using a warm tone?

There are a few possibilities, Gurung said. First, the reach-out statement was included at the end of the syllabus, and it's possible that by the time students got that far, they were skimming more than reading. It was also near the "rules and procedures" part of the syllabus, Gurung added - a section students are inclined to skip. Finally, the statement Gurung used is the same one the university uses in real courses, meaning that the students in the study had probably seen it before. It would be interesting, he added, to test the reach-out statement at a different institution, where it would be novel.

Increasingly, Gurung said, colleges and departments are encouraging instructors to use a template to design their syllabi. It's good to ensure everyone shares the right information, he said. The problem? In many cases, templates "are cold; they are dry; they are boring." Instructors, he said, can hit all the notes in the template without copying its institutional tone.

Tone, of course, is just one aspect of syllabus design. How have you reimagined your syllabi to set the stage for your courses? Share your example with me at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com and it may appear in a future newsletter.

What Changes Are Worth Keeping?

The pandemic has forced all kinds of changes in college teaching. Some of them may no longer be needed whenever the pandemic is over, but others are worth sustaining.

We'd like to hear from you: Which pandemic-inspired teaching changes should colleges keep? Your ideas don't have to be classroom specific. We're interested in responses about academic support, technology, and curricula, too. Use this form to share your thoughts. Thanks!

ICYMI

Fall grades at a number of colleges that offered mostly remote instruction held steady. But that encouraging news is only part of the picture, as Beth explains in her latest story.

Several recent cases of professors caught on tape disparaging their students raise questions around venting. My latest story explores why it's rarely a good idea.

Why did Boise State University suspend its required diversity course? Our colleague Nell Gluckman has .

Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com or beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.

- Beckie
Learn more about our Teaching newsletter, including how to contact us, at the Te aching newsletter archive page.

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Teaching: How Your Syllabus Can Encourage Students to Ask for Help

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That's the key finding of a recent study conducted by Regan A. R. Gurung, a professor in the School of Psychological Science at Oregon State University, and Noelle R. Galardi, an undergraduate at the university, published in Teaching of Psychology.

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Share info about syllabus statements and welcome surveys

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Share info about syllabus statements and welcome surveys

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See the guide from the Hope Center.

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December 2020

Sharing information about supports for students' basic needs on course syllabi is an inexpensive, efficient, and effective way to raise awareness among both students and faculty. While syllabi are famously dense documents filled with course information, they are also communication devices that convey information about the institution's values and policies. In addition to the syllabus statement, professors can help establish a culture of care in their classroom by inviting students to share a little information about themselves with a "welcome survey." A welcome survey is a simple, yet powerful way to immediately start building a culture of care between the professor and students.

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Spreading the Word- Supporting Students' Basic Needs with a Syllabus Statement and a Welcome Survey

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December 2020 Sharing information about supports for students' basic needs on course syllabi is an inexpensive, efficient, and effective way to raise awareness among both students and faculty. While syllabi are famously dense documents filled with course information, they are also communication devices that convey information about the institution's values and policies.