A weekly e-newsletter from CNM's Organizational Learning Division with training and development ideas and opportunities for all employees

September 25 Issue: Table of Contents

• New learnshops, times, days, and new delivery options added to the Fall 2006 Calendar of Events

• Life Skills Workshop helps Student Services staff and instructors teach students how to manage their time and money

• At-your-desk learning: Learn-to-type tutorials

• Active learning in the classroom: "How about a quick one?"

• Preview Sept. 25-30 training events and learnshops

• Preview Oct. 2-7 training events and learnshops

 New learnshops and new delivery options added to the Fall 2006 Calendar of Events
New learnshops and training events are being continually added to the Fall 2006 Calendar of Events, so keep checking it at http://planet.cnm.edu/orglearn/Institute/2006Fall/calendar_registration.htm.  Even better, add this webpage to your web browser's Favorites list to make it easy to find on the web.

Here's how according to Internet Explorer Help:  "To add a page to your list of favorite pages: (1) Go to the page that you want to add to your Favorites list. (2) On the Favorites menu, click Add to Favorites. (3) Type a new name for the page if you want to.

You'll find some Saturdays and late weekday afternoon events as well as some online learnshops that you can take from your office or home computer.  Hybrid delivery--partly in the classroom and partly online--is another option for certain learnshops.  If you've never taken an online or hybrid workshop, you might give one a try to see if this kind of learning is for you.

Life Skills Workshop helps Student Services staff and instructors teach students how to manage their time and money
Organizational Learning is bringing the USA Funds Life Skills^® workshop to CNM from 8:30am-2:30pm, Wednesday, October 4, in Room 139, Workforce Training Center (WTC). This workshop is a flexible educational program for Student Services personnel and instructors designed to equip them to teach their students to manage their time and money wisely while they are on campus and after graduation.

To learn more about this workshop, view this webpage:
http://planet.cnm.edu/orglearn/Institute/TransformLearn/life_skills.htm
To register, select the Life Skills Workshop under Special Events near the top of the calendar webpage:
http://planet.cnm.edu/orglearn/Institute/2006Fall/calendar_registration.htm

 At-your-desk learning:  Learn-to-type tutorials

Lots of people working at CNM have never taken a keyboarding class and use the two-finger method instead.  Some are real whizzes!  Still, the two-finger method is naturally slower than the ten-finger method.

If you'd like to start learning how to key faster--or if you're an instructor who'd like to give your students a link to a keyboarding tutorial, here are a couple to try:

• "Dance Mat Typing":  This BBC tutorial is "an introduction to touch typing for children aged 7-11 years."  For this reason--and because it's well done and visually interesting--it's a fun, stress-free way to learn about the home row and fingering on the keyboard.  This tutorial includes four levels, which are divided into three stages.
• "Touch Typing":  Senselang.com offers this free online tutorial to help adults learn touch typing.  Its strength is the practice lessons provided--15 in all--that users can access online with or without the built-in "speed indicator."

 Active learning in the classroom:  "What They Don't Know Can Hurt Them: The Role of Prior Knowledge in Learning"
Have you ever asked a computer geek to help you with a computer problem?  And did s/he start talking to you about stuff that left you scratching your head or nodding it to hide that fact that you had no idea what s/he was talking about?  That's the reaction some students might be having in your classroom if they don't have the prior knowledge about the topic that you may have assumed they brought with them.

This paper, written by Marilla Svinicki of the University of Texas and published on the University of Minnesota Teaching and Learning Center website, explains why tapping into students' prior knowledge is so important for learning and offers ways to do this with techniques such as these:

• Use pretests to find out what students know already

• Review before introducing new information and concepts

• Use examples and analogies that explain a new concept or skill in terms of ordinary or previously learned concepts and skills

• Present new information and concepts in relationship to what students already know

To read the full article, click on this link:
http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/resources/guides/dontknow.html

Preview September 25-30 training events and learnshops
The following events are scheduled for the week of Sept. 25-30. View complete details and register for these events on this webpage: http://planet.cnm.edu/orglearn/Institute/2006Fall/calendar_registration.htm

 Tuesday, Sept. 26

• Ergonomic Training
• Effective Time Management

Preview October 2-7 training events and learnshops

 Friday, Oct. 6

• FrontPage Basics (online learnshop)
• Supervisory Training
• Access Intermediate
• Curriculum Design
• AQIP Intro
• Advanced Teaching Strategies

If you need help to register or find out more about Organizational Learning events, contact Jean Montaño at 224-4400 or by email: jmontano@cnm.edu.