Linda Nilson has come and gone but the effects of her visit will continue to ignite conversations across the LU campus for a while. She brought research-backed knowledge to her sessions. She was engaging and modeled active learning methods throughout the two days of workshops. The faculty in attendance were learning and it was quite evident from the conversations, some of which had to be stopped in the interest of time. But fear not, we will continue the discussions at the follow-up Lunch+Learn set for Wednesday, October 5 at noon in the private dining room of the Dining Hall. We are requesting that those who participated in any of Dr. Nilson's three sessions come armed with their notes and memories. If you were unable to attend, we want you to participate as well. We will have copies of the handouts from the sessions, which along with the conversation, will allow you to fully participate in the discussion. The room will open at 11:30 AM so that you can grab lunch and then join the discussion beginning at noon. Educational Leadership faculty member Nancy Adams, who attended the Top Ten session, said, "Nilson offered good, concrete strategies that can be immediately transferred in the classroom." Finance and Economics faculty member Karyn Newhauser, who attended the Student Peer and Self-Assessment session, said, "The peer review forms [provided by Nilson] that provide information to the writer and are non-threatening to the reviewer is something I will implement." English and Modern Languages faculty member and ACES Fellow Julie Wilhelm felt that Nilson delivered a "very specific, practical presentation that showed me how to implement the scholarship." Kami Makki (Computer Science) and Weihang Zhu (Industrial Engineering) both liked Nilson's idea of having students write a letter to future students about the class they have just completed. ACES Fellow Jeremy Shelton (Psychology), "liked that [Nilson] gave us many references so that we can further explore and implement these ideas later." As we dropped Dr. Nilson at the airport, she commented on how much she enjoyed visiting LU and was impressed with the level of engagement at each session. Next Tuesday (October 4) you have the opportunity to learn a little more about our accrediting organization commonly known as SACS. Register now for the free webinar "Do You Know What SACS Accreditors Really Expect in Assessment?" Provost Steve Doblin thinks it is important that we all understand how the process works and encourages participation as well. Richard M. Felder and Rebecca Brent extol the virtues of student-centered instruction (SCI) in their article Navigating the Bumpy Road to Student-Centered Instruction. SCI is a broad approach that includes such techniques as substituting active learning experiences for lectures, holding students responsible for material that has not been explicitly discussed in class, assigning open-ended problems and problems requiring critical or creative thinking that cannot be solved by following text examples, involving students in simulations and role-plays, assigning a variety of unconventional writing exercises, and using self-paced and/or cooperative (team-based) learning.They conclude that "instructors who set out to try student-centered instruction in a class for the first time are often unpleasantly surprised by the fierce negativity of some responses. Many who don't anticipate such reactions get discouraged when they encounter them, give up, and go back to more comfortable but less effective methods.To minimize resistance to any student-centered method, try to persuade the students from the outset that you are neither playing a game nor performing an experiment, but teaching in a way known to help students learn more and understand better."