Feedback from Faculty and Staff

At the Fall 2010 Faculty and Staff meeting on Thursday, August 19th, the Teaching and Learning Center passed out a short survey asking people to think about what kinds of questions they would ask students to address a thorny issue in their work, recommend some workshops or presentation that could be done through the TLC, and, for faculty, explain what kinds of assessment tools they use in their classrooms.

Here are the results of the survey:  Fall 2010 TLC Survey

Open House Survey Results – Spring 2010

In Spring 2010, we surveyed staff and faculty during our open house these questions:

  1. As a teacher or staff member at BCC, what one thing do you do for students that would inspire or be helpful to your colleagues?
  2. What is one thing in your work that you would like to change or improve to better student success at BCC?
  3. How might the campus–colleagues, Title 3, the Teaching and Learning Center, etc.–provide the resources, support, and/or community to help you share your expertise and inspiration or help you improve your practice?

A few highlights:

On what they do to support students:

  • I listen! Listen to their concerns and trials of life and refer them to others as need be.
  • Try to get to know student goals — figure out where they want to go/what they want to do and encourage that.
  • Keep pointing out relevance to their personal lives (how an assignment in excel can help future business majors).

On what they would like to improve:

  • Even though it happens to a degree, I would like to see more connections between students and the variety of real world organizational cultures in which they may work. It will help them to understand why they are here from a variety of employers’ perspectives.
  • Have more time to meet with students in group settings to address some of their same questions or concerns.
  • Connect students to resources beyond the scope of my classroom.
  • How to motivate students (other than making the connection between subject and real life).
  • More activities, creative group discussions in class. More ways to scaffold assignments.

On what the campus can help make these improvements happen:

  • Encourage and support cross-disciplinary collaboration.
  • Regular workshops on classroom dynamics, cultural diversity, tips for teachers.
  • Hold informal get-togethers to exchange ideas — structure events by topics: error correction, group-writing, classroom management, etc.
  • Perhaps students, especially at the basic skills levels, take a class on how to succeed in college. for example, taking notes, doing homework, reading the book.

To see a full listing of how people answered the same questions during the TLC’s open house in May 2010, click here: TLC Survey Spring 2010.