Wednesday, February 11, 2015





Rust College faculty members plan a mini-lesson as an exercise in Basic Math contextual teaching and learning.

Rust College Faculty Shifts Focus to 'Think Tanks' for QEP

Mrs. Chiquita Walls discusses
Math course pairing and linkage
for the contextual learning communities
February 10, 2015—The Rust College faculty met in Professional Development Morning for the second scheduled workshop focusing on the Quality Enhancement Plan, BCATS2 - “Building Communities Academically for Total Student Success: Improving First Year Basic Math Skills.” The meeting was held in the Heard Auditorium of the Business and Computer Science Building on campus. Under the leadership of Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Sandra C. Vaughn, the focus of the workshop was “Faculty Think Tanks,” which is a key concept of the QEP approved by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges last fall. Presenters were Director of the QEP/Chair of First Year Experience Dr. Kenneth E. Jones and Director of Student Support Services Mrs. Chiquita Walls. The presentation offered a theoretical framework for faculty think tanks as a form of faculty learning communities and spelled out the specifics of how think tanks are to inform the activities of the first year student contextual learning communities which will be implemented in the fall of 2015. The presentation provided structure for how Basic Math courses are to be paired with Intermediate Algebra for students identified for remedial support in Math and who will form the learning communities. Then, faculty members broke out into discussion groups (think tanks) and created 5-7 minute lessons addressing several of the Basic Math course competencies and based the lessons on"contextual learning" situations, including politics, cooking, finance, architecture, games, and health.

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