Deb Poese with On Course facilitated a fantastic training session for the LMAR 1101 instructors yesterday. Skip Downing's program, that is being used by numerous institutions, provides an exciting and creative platform that will allow LU students to experience active and collaborative learning. The personal responsibility aspect resonated with many of the attendees. Deb modeled all of the various active learning methods and demonstrated how they can be used to create student-centered learning experiences. The next training session for instructors is June 13 beginning at 9:00 AM. Those interested in attending should contact Ashley Boone. There is still time to submit your ideas for Faculty Learning Communities for the 2012-13 academic year. The High School to College Transition FLC is working hard to gather data from incoming freshmen and high school students. In time, they will use this data to help the University Undergraduate Advising Center and the Center for Academic Success. In addition, several of the FLC members intend to present their findings at conferences and will submit papers for publication. If you are interested in accessing the data once it is available, contact Drs. Tanya Goldbeck or Paul Hemenway. The staff of the CT+LE will be attending the Texas Faculty Development Network's annual conference this coming Monday and Tuesday. This year's conference is being hosted by Lone Star College in Kingwood. Once we return, we will be turning the information we receive into tools to expand your toolbox. "Teaching in the early years of an undergraduate degree will gradually cease to be via lectures and will instead take the form of online presentations produced by professionally trained presenters backed up by teams of academics. This online content will be paralleled by peer tuition (or teaching by questioning) which, when done well, is clearly effective, and the associated growth of so-called learning analytics. Lectures may well become special occasions in which the best-known academics make their presence felt. Meanwhile, small group teaching will make a come-back in all years, especially in the best universities. In other words, a new hybrid will take the place of the old, one in which I suspect that face-to-face experience and other forms of direct experience (like international experience) will actually become more valued." That is the opinion of Nigel Thrift who has written an interesting op-ed piece on the future of undergraduate education. As a leader in online education, we at LU already know some of this to be true. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has selected an architect of the University of California's online learning strategy to lead its efforts in postsecondary education. Daniel Greenstein, vice provost for academic planning, programs and coordination at the University of California system, will become director of the postsecondary success strategy at Gates. Nate Kreuter, a regular blogger for Inside Higher Ed, writes, "Don't blow summer off. Effectively, you aren't being paid for the time, but scholarly work still needs to be done. It’s also a good time to get ahead of preparing classes for the upcoming academic year. You may be on a nine-month appointment, but you aren't really 'off' during the summer." CT+LE is here all summer for those of you looking for help. Feel free to contact a staff member to set up a convenient time to visit.