4 x 4 x 16 Challenge Articles

4x4x16 Writing Challenge:  Year 4

4x4x16 Writing Challenge: Year 4

Rocky, Rambo, Indiana Jones, and Jaws all had four sequels. The 4x4x16: Year 4 will be coming to a blog near you soon, and it will definitely be better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As in years past, those that would like to participate in...

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Reading Your Colleagues: The 4×4 Challenge

Reading Your Colleagues: The 4×4 Challenge

We have just wrapped up our third annual 4x4x16 Writing Challenge. We invited instructors at NMC to create 4 new pieces of writing for 4 straight weeks.  Each piece of writing was to be approximately 16 sentences in length and  focused on teaching and learning.  That...

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Will Reading Ever Be the Same?

Will Reading Ever Be the Same?

I was listenting to the podcast "Note to Self" the other day. I really like to download a whole bunch of different podcasts and listen while driving. So much so that I actually look forward to long car trips now. Anyway, enough about me... This episode was titled...

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The WRC: Providing Instructor Support

The WRC: Providing Instructor Support

Last week I presented to a biology class about their final project. I provided a lovely handout (if I do say so myself) that outlined the different sections of their project and how to best create their content. But there was one glaring issue: a typo. Of course I...

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Kon-Tiki Kind of Times

Kon-Tiki Kind of Times

    This weekend I watched the movie Kon-Tiki with my family.  Having never read it, I found the whole thing new, and wonderfully so. Thor Heyerdahl and his bride, Liv, are beginning their marriage on Fatu Hiva, near the Polynesian Islands.  The question...

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Paperless Grading

Paperless Grading

Moodle attendance feature. I do not use the attendance feature to take attendance, I use it to grade my students’ Prepare Activities. In Moodle, the instructor can set up the attendance feature however she wants. I have it set up with a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 scale. I set...

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The Students I’m Thankful For

I’m thankful for the students who are on-time and have all their work done, every time, because I can depend on them to help move a discussion along. I’m thankful for the students who are late and don’t have their work done, because at least they are making the effort...

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Stoking the Pipeline

Stoking the Pipeline

There are certain disciplines I have encountered on my life journey that have proved invaluable in framing challenges far outside the scope of their fields. Economics was one, with its emphasis on modeling interconnected systems using statistics and calculus in an...

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