Jefferson College promotes a student centered approach to teaching and learning. The student centered approach asserts that course content is best learned when instructors relate course content to students’ prior knowledge and experiences, and provide learning experiences where students are active in their learning, both inside the classroom and outside the classroom. Jefferson College encourages instructors to present course content in ways that provide opportunities for students to develop their critical thinking skills, social skills, and self regulation skills. The Center for Teaching and Learning provides specific information to instructors as they apply theory to the classroom.

The Adjunct Faculty Handbook provides information to support adjunct faculty.

What makes great teachers great? Consider reading What Makes Great Teachers Great?  

The First Day of the Semester   
The first day of class sets the tone for the entire semester, so it is critical to establish a strong framework for student success, beginning on day one. Consider reading this list of 9 tips: How to Engage Your Students from the First Day of Class.

Video Segments Available to Enrich Your Courses: Jefferson College has an institutional subscription to the Intelecom Online Resources video repository.  This “library” of video segments makes it easier than ever for faculty members to include video segments in their online courses and in PowerPoint and lectures in face-to-face classes.
The video segments are organized by academic discipline and by course, or you can search by keyword. The User's Guide provides detailed information.

To find video segments for your courses, please go to http://www.intelecomonline.net/ and login (For login username and password, please contact Sandy Frey at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or ext. 348 or Amy McKenna Jones at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or ext. 141.) 

Service Learning and Retention 
How can retention rates of students be increased? According to an article in the January 5, 2007 Community College Times, service-learning pedagogy may be the answer. Gail Robinson’s article, “Service Learning Starts to Make Inroads in Retention,” reports data that indicates service-learning not only “increase[s] retention rates among student participants,” it also results in higher grade point averages for participating students. To read the article, visit the CTL, room 201 in the Jefferson College Library.

Service Learning Video Portraits  
Several courses at Jefferson College include a service-learning component. The projects are a “win-win” because the real world application helps college students understand course content and the community is provided with needed services. Please click on the following links to view video segments of students, faculty members and a community partner reflecting on the benefits of Service Learning.

What is JiTT? 
Are you looking for a way to ensure students will prepare for class? JiTT is a teaching and learning strategy that utilizes web-based study assignments to ensure students are prepared to participate in class activities.

Minilectures 
Diane Zorn, an instructor at York University has adopted a new lecture style she calls "Minilectures." She has utilized minilectures in the face-to-face classroom, alternating them with exercises students complete in teams. In online courses, she mixes the 20 minute lectures with hands-on activities. To learn more about the minilecture style of teaching, read Short and Sweet: Technology Shrinks the Lecture.  

Pre-Reading Throwdown:
How can I get students to do the reading? Consider using the Pre-Reading Throwdown technique developed by Dick Harrington, Faculty, English (Emeritus), Piedmont Virginia Community College (VA).  

What does your syllabus say to students? 
Do you plan to revise your syllabus for next semester? Consider reading the 2007 Chronicle of Higher Education article "If Your Syllabus Could Talk" by by Monica D'Antonio. She believes "developing a creative and comprehensive syllabus is not about being a softy, about coddling students, or about trying to be the "cool" teacher who gets the good ratings on Ratemyprofessors.com. It's about being a human being, one who was also an undergraduate at some point." Also consider the ideas suggested in the College Teaching article, Preparing an Effective Syllabus.  

Make your lectures interactive without the effort of developing new material: Learn about Peer Instruction and ConcepTests. "Peer Instruction is easy to implement in almost any subject and class. It doesn't require retooling of entire courses or curricula, or significant expenditures of time or money" (Harvard MAZUR Group website).

What's the difference between a Teaching-Centered and a Learning-Centered Approach? Which do you currently use in your teaching? Evaluate your approach with this table comparing Teaching-Centered and Learning-Centered Approaches.

Best Practices for Undergraduate Education:
Do you agree with Chickering and Gamson's Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education? Click on the link to to explore ways to improve the learning of your students.  

Need strategies for working with Generation NeXt? Mark Byington suggests checking out Mark Taylor's website.

Memorization in Higher Education
What is the role of memorization in college courses? Learn 10 Principles of Course Design.

Attendance Issues
How do I get students to attend class? Learn 4 strategies, taken from the research of Brewer and Burgess.

Learning in Higher Education
Authentic tasks motivate students because “they can see the utility of the skill” and concrete examples are more easily understood than abstractions (Svinikki, 2004).  Cognitive Apprenticeship, can be effectively used for intellectual learning. To learn how cognitive apprenticeship is being used in college science courses, read “A Cognitive-Apprenticeship-Inspired Instructional Approach for Teaching Scientific Writing and Reading.” For a description of the six steps in the cognitive apprenticeship model, applicable to all disciplines, read Chapter 4: Helping Students Develop Skills, Including Intellectual Skills, in the book, Learning and Motivation in the Postsecondary Classroom, by Marilla D. Svinicki.

Lecture as Active Learning 
With small changes, instructors can transform the lecture format into an active learning experience for students. Read Lecture as Active Learning to discover simple strategies to transform your lecture from a passive learning experience to an active learning experience.  The University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning has great suggestions for promoting student engagement during lecture. To view their tutorial, please click on the following link: Active Learning with PowerPoint.  

For more active learning strategies which can be easily integrated into lectures, read Chapter 18: Teaching Methods to Use with Lectures, in the book, What's the Use of Lectures? by Donald A. Bligh. Chapter 19: Some Combinations of Teaching Methods, provides examples of various combinations of lecture and other methods. For example, the Buzz Groups-Lecture combination is a strategy that quickly accomplishes the objective of promoting critical thinking on the part of students. The book is available in the Center for Teaching and Learning, Library room 201.

Redesign of Large-Enrollment, Introductory Courses
Is it possible to increase student learning while reducing costs? The National Center for Academic Transformation works to do just that by identifying several redesign models "which adhere to the principle that students need more than just traditional lectures." Read about course redesign in the article, "Introductory Course Makeovers." For more information, explore the National Center for Academic Transformation website.

Role-Play and Simulations in Undergraduate Education:
Are we ready "to extend our repertoire of teaching talents, and hopefully, more effectively engage the student in a process of active learning?" Students in courses taught by Christy Cornelius, Ken Boning and Dedric Lee recently had the opportunity to participate in a Poverty Simulation.

Through participation in the simulation, students gained valuable insight into the daily struggles of people living in poverty. After receiving feedback from students, Dr. Ken Boning said that student "comments about the simulation reflected the fact that it was much more informative than the alternative of reading about the issue out of a textbook or hearing a professor talk about it." To learn more about using role-play and simulations, read "Using Role-Play to Teach Undergraduate Business Students: Challenging the Teacher, Supporting the Learner," by Mark Sutcliffe.

Have you considered podcasting?
To learn about the positives and negatives of podcasting, read "Lectures on the Go." Did you know the Jefferson College ISAC now has available an easy to use audio recorder, with good audio quality? This device provides instructors with a means to record class lectures and make them available to students online. The recorded lectures can be selectively released to students who missed class due to college-related responsibilities, such as travel to away games by athletes. The ISAC will assist you in making your lectures available on the web. If you are interested, please call Jim Bianco at ext. 165.

"Stupid" Questions:
Do students’ “stupid” questions give you insight into their prior knowledge? Is there such a thing as a stupid question? Read “There Is Such a Thing as a Stupid Question” to learn how to “help students make their questions more intelligent.”

Student Misconceptions 
Building on students' prior knowledge is important, but sometimes students have incorrect information about course content. How can instructors help students overcome misperceptions about course content? Learn six strategies to use in the classroom.

Global Education
The Jefferson College Mission statement promotes teaching that fosters the personal and social growth of students. Including elements of global education in day-to-day classroom activities is one way to facilitate the growth of sudents. For specific ways to integrate global education into your discipline, please click on the Discipline Specific tab above. For general information, check out the Global Community College website.