Teaching CSUN's Freshmen: What's New, What's Ongoing
The Freshman Celebration: November 23, 2009
On Monday, November 23, 2009, Academic First Year Experiences is hosting The Freshman Celebration. Projects, posters, sculptures, research briefs, a live performance (at 11:45 a.m.), and other academic work by first-semester freshmen enrolled in University 100 and other Freshman Connection classes will be on display in the Grand Salon from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Got an extra jacket you don't need? Want to donate it? Bring it along. For more information: http://www.csun.edu/univ100/freshman-celebration.html
Five Semifinalists Selected for CSUN's 2010-2011 Freshman Common Reading
What will CSUN's freshman class be reading in 2010-11? The Common Reading Selection Committee has chosen five semifinalists, and will pick the winner in mid-January 2010. Read about the five semifinalists on the Nominated Titles webpage. Have an opinion you want to share? Submit it to the Common Reading blog.
Stretch Composition
Just in case you've been wondering: all five of the campus departments now offering freshman writing are working on a new model for the composition courses currently numbered 097, 098, and 155 (in the departments of AAS, CAS, CHS, ENGL, and PAS). Here's more information than you could ever hope to see about what's involved in the new "Stretch Compostion" experiment. Executive summary (by a non-executive): what if students got credit for freshman compostion but could take the class in one, or two, or possibly three semesters if they needed that much time to acquire university-level competence? What if all first-time freshmen could start working on writing FOR CREDIT in their first semester, instead of finding themselves relegated for one or two semesters to non-credit, pre-baccalaureate, it-doesn't-even-count work? (Those are rhetorical questions from outside the discipline of composition.) Go ahead. Read more about it.
The Toolbox: A Teaching and Learning Resource for Faculty
"The Toolbox is an online professional development newsletter offering innovative learner-centered strategies for empowering college students to achieve greater success. The newsletter is published six times a year, and the online subscription is free."
Recent issues have included topics such as "Organizing Teaching to Promote Learning," "Web-Based Assignment Venues," "If You Are Here, Raise Your Hand: The Attendance Dilemma," and "Going Retro--Teaching Techless" (among others).
Moodle and Other Aspects of Academic Technology
You've probably heard by now that for AY 2010-2011, we'll be using Moodle instead of WebCT for our course management system. Academic Technology continues to offer support for teaching and technology needs. You can find them in OV Rm. 5 (the "Garden Level"). Or call x3443 on campus. Here's a handy link to their list of technology tools (Moodle and many, many more).
Wordle? Wordle? What's Wordle, Anyway?
Wordle is a web-based Java program that lets a user create a word cloud. Pictured here is a wordle created from the text on this web page. 
"Why Students Lose Confidence": Posting from Tomorrow's Professor
This very brief article (as Tomorrow's Professor explains) "is a report on a study that looks at reasons why many freshman engineering students switch majors or drop out of college entirely. It has implications for many other disciplines as well. The article is by Mica A. Hutchison-Green." Tomorrow's Professor is a mailing list that offers "Desk-Top Faculty Development, One Hundred Times A Year." It is sponsored by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning.