BGSU Celebrates its Virtual Campus/Earth Day

The Bowling Green State University virtual campus in Second Life is celebrating its first birthday in conjunction with an Earth Day celebration in the virtual world on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 - 8:30pm EST.

The festivities will include poetry readings, art exhibition openings, live music by BGSU student DJs, with the evening culminating with a "Save the Virtual Island" scavenger hunt. The event will take place on the Bowling Green State virtual campus in Second Life and simultaneously presented in the lobby of the Bowen Thompson Student Union.

The Birth/Earth day celebration will begin with an Open Mic poetry reading at the BGSU Writing Center in Second Life. Students, faculty and staff are invited to "step up to the mic" at the Bowen-Thompson Student Union, where their words will be broadcast into Second Life. The BGSU Virtual Campus is also proud to host an amazing art installation by Jeff Lovett from Ohio University.

A special Earth Day scavenger hunt on the BGSU Virtual Campus will also accompany the festivities, beginning promptly at 7:30pm EST. Avatars will compete in a quest to find information on how to help combat global climate change. The first three avatars to find all the clues will be awarded prizes in Linden dollars. Participants will face simulated elements of climate change and environmental disaster that will be both challenging and thought provoking.

To visit BGSU Virtual Campus, click here.

To find out more about how to get a free Second Life avatar, visit Second Life

Writing Effective Questions

As exam time nears, some pointers on writing good or effective questions might be helpful. Here are some tips to consider:

Twelve Tips for Writing Good Questions (from Questionmark)

"Writing effective questions takes time and practice. Whether your goal is to measure knowledge and skills, survey opinions and attitudes, or enhance a learning experience, poorly worded questions can adversely affect the quality of the results. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you write and review questions:

1. Keep stems and statements as short as possible and use clear, concise language.
2. Use questions whenever possible (What, Who, When, Where, Why and How).
3. Maintain grammatical consistency to avoid cueing
4. List choices in a logical order.
5. Avoid negatives, especially double negatives.
6. Avoid unnecessary modifiers, especially absolutes (e.g. always, never, etc.).
7. Avoid "All of the above" and use of "None of the above" with caution.
8. Avoid vague pronouns (e.g. it, they).
9. Avoid conflicting alternatives.
10. Avoid syllogistic reasoning choices (e.g. "both a and b are correct") unless absolutely necessary.
11. Avoid providing cues to correct answer in the stem.
12. Avoid providing clues to the answer of one question in another question."

Writing Effective Questions to Promote Learning (Penn State)
This detailed website provides "easy-to-follow, quick-to-read guidance for creating questions of varied types: 1-minute essay, short essay, short-answer, check-all-that-apply, matching, along with the traditional multiple-choice and true-false."

Each question type has three sections: an overview (description & samples), construction (how to write them effectively), and check yourself (how to spot faults in your own questions).

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What other sites give good suggestions about writing effective questions?... Click on the COMMENTS link below to share your thoughts!

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Call for Presenters from the Office of Service-Learning Fall '08 Faculty Focus Workshop Series

The Office of Service Learning is beginning to plan for the Fall '08 Faculty Focus Workshop series. "If you have taught, are teaching, or are planning on teaching a service-learning course, we would like to have you participate in our series."

Here is a description of the Faculty Focus Workshop series offered each semester:

Faculty Focus Series

These discussion-based workshops feature faculty members talking about their service-learning courses and experiences working with all aspects of service-learning and civic engagement. If you would like to present in a workshop or know of someone who you think would be beneficial to hear from, please let us know!

Please email the Office of Service-Learning to volunteer to be a presenter or to make a recommendation -- Call 419-372-9287, email slbgsu@bgsu.edu or visit them online at http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/service-learning/

10-year Plan for Higher Education in Ohio

Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut presented a 10-year strategic plan for higher education to Governor Ted Strickland and the Ohio General Assembly that details strategies to meet the governor's goal of enrolling 230,000 more students while keeping more graduates in Ohio and attracting more talent to the state.

Click here to be redirected to Governor Stickland and Chancellor Fingerhut's video presentation.

The plan promises to raise the overall educational attainment of the state of Ohio.

"This report builds upon the principles I put forth last year in creating the University System of Ohio," Strickland said. "This 10-year plan for Ohio's institutions of higher education will ensure not only that we dramatically expand educational opportunities for Ohioans but that we do so in a way that makes our state a world-class economic competitor."

If you are interested in reading the strategic plan, the executive summary can be found here. Or if you are more interested in the full report, follow this link.

Call For Papers: Insight Journal

This is a final reminder concerning the upcoming submission deadline for Insight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching. Insight focuses each edition on a specific topic or theme relevant to current trends in higher education; the theme of the third issue is scholarship of teaching and learning.

Submission details are as follows:

• STYLE - All manuscripts must be formatted in either APA or MLA style.
• LENGTH - Manuscript should be no more than 10 pages (not including abstract, references or appendices). Authors are encouraged to include appendices that promote application and integration of materials (i.e., assignments, rubrics, examples, etc.).
• ABSTRACT - Each manuscript must be summarized in an abstract of 50 to 100 words.
• AUTHOR - Each author should provide his/her full name, title and departmental affiliation, campus address, telephone number, and email address. Each author must also include a brief biography (no more than 50 words per author).
• FORMAT - All manuscripts must be submitted via email as attachments in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format. Do not include personal identifiers within the manuscript. Include contact information only on a separate cover sheet. Each manuscript will be assigned a unique identifier for blind review processes. Send submissions to cetl@park.edu.
• DEADLINE - All submissions must be received by 4:00pm on April 7, 2008 (CST).

If you need additional information, please review the Call for Papers and Quick Tips located at http://www.park.edu/cetl/Insight.aspx or contact CETL at cetl@park.edu.