Volume M10, Issue No. 17, May 13, 2013

Intercom is published regularly and serves to inform Vanier staff and teachers of notices and special events. It is posted on the Vanier College Website and distributed electronically. Submissions should be sent to intercom@vaniercollege.qc.ca. Submissions should be in WORD, and sent as an attachment. No formatting or bullets. Deadline: 4:00 p.m. on the Wednesday preceding publication.

Student Video Festival

The Communications: Art, Media, Theatre program would like to invite you to the year-end student video festival. It will be held on Tuesday, May 14th at 7pm in the Auditorium. Snacks and beverages will be served during intermission. An audience choice prize will be awarded to a deserving student and there will be door prizes for audience members. Admission is free.

Justine Litynski, Communications: Art, Media, Theatre

Reminder: Schedule Change For Regular Day Division

Please note that on Tuesday, May 14, 2013, last day of classes, students and faculty will follow their Friday class schedule.

Wanda Kalina, Office of the Academic Dean

Vanier College Educational Technology Week

The Vanier College Pedagogical Development Office (PDO) re-cently presented its first Educational Technology Week with the support of APOP, the Association for the Educational Application of Computer Technology at the Postsecondary Level. The focus of the Vanier College Educational Technology Week was to show-case some of the new and innovative ways that Vanier College teachers are using technology in their classes. Sessions were scheduled over the lunch hour, 12 to 1 p.m., each day. APOP

broadcast each session outside of Vanier College. This meant that individuals from Vanier and other colleges were able to attend in person, in the PDO Office, or online from locations outside of Vanier. The first Vanier College Educational Technology Week was a suc-cess, due to the enthusiasm of all of the Vanier teachers who agreed to present their use of technology in the classroom, and to the professional publicity and technical support offered by APOP. This joint endeavour illustrates the benefits of close col-laboration among many individuals. Below is the list of topics and presenters that were offered during the Vanier College Education Technology Week. Monday, April 22, 12:00-1:00 p.m. Skype and Videoconferencing in the Classroom Presenter: Nathan Loewen, Humanities Teacher Wednesday, April 24, 12:00-1:00 p.m. Flipped Classroom Technologies Presenters: Kevin Lenton (Physics), Edward Awad (Biology), and Rhys Adams (Physics) Teachers Thursday, April 25, 12:00-1:00 p.m. Teaching with Facebook Presenter: Caroline Chwojka, Humanities Teacher Friday, April 26, 12:00-1:00 p.m. Screen Sharing with the LiteShow III Presenter: Edward Awad, Biology Teacher The opportunity of teachers to share how they use technology in their classes, to help students learn, is an important pedagogical focus that needs to be encouraged throughout our colleges!

We, in the PDO, look forward to planning the second Educational Technology Week, using the same model of a close collaboration between the PDO, Vanier College teachers, and APOP. See you in the next 2013-2014 academic year!

Wilma Brown, and Jen Mitchell, Pedagogical Development Office

First-Time Donor’s Super Tax Credit

First-time donors (i.e. those who have not claimed the Charitable Donation Tax Credit in any of the five preceding tax years) are eligible for a supplement to the existing non-refundable tax credit for charitable donations made after March 20, 2013. The new credit adds 25% to the rates used in calculation of the CDTC (15% for donations of $200 or less and 29% for donations up to $1000). Here is an example of how the super tax credit would be applied. An eligible first-time donor claims $500 of charitable donations in 2013. All of the donations are donations of money. The first-time donor’s tax credit would be calculated as follows:

First $200 of charitable donations claimed: $200 x 15% =

$30

Charitable donations claimed in excess of $200:

$300 x 29% =

$87

First-Time Donor’s Super Credit: $500 x 25% =

$125

Total FDSC and CDTC: $242

If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity to reduce your income tax while supporting our students, click here for the Vanier College Foundation donation form. For more information contact Jonathan Goldman (x7098).

Jonathan Goldman, Vanier College Foundation

2013 Student Life Award

The Student Life Award recognizes those graduating students who deserve recognition for their commitment, integrity and per-severance in contributing to Vanier's student life. Aside from academic achievement, leadership, effort, and the ability to moti-vate and involve others are often the qualities exhibited by Stu-dent Life Award recipients. To consider information about a candidate's involvement in co-curricular activities, the Selection Committee invites recommen-dations from those persons familiar with the candidate's activities at Vanier College. Any student, faculty or staff member of Vanier College may nominate a candidate for the Student Life Award. Please print and complete the nomination form found on the web at http://vaniercollege.qc.ca/student-services/student-

development/student-life-awards.php and return it together with your letter of recommendation to the Student Life Award Selection Committee in Student Services, C-203, no later than May 14, 2013.

Donata Parisella, Student Services

Thank you to Vanier Authors and Artists

Dear Vanier Authors and Artists,

On behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to thank you for your participation in the first edition of Celebrating Vanier's authors and artists. Everyone truly appreciated the opportunity to see your creations and it was a wonderful evening. We would like to make this a yearly event and we hope that you will be attending our 2013-14 edition, as an author or artist or to support your colleagues who will be presenting their works. If you wish to collect your works, you can contact Susan Bis-sonnette at extension 8222.

Organizing Committee: Wanda Kalina, Zsofia Orszagh, Wilma Brown, Susan Bissonnette, Odette Côté,

Donata Parisella, Monique Magnan

Monique Magnan, Services for Students

PDO Teacher Workshops

The Pedagogical Development Office (PDO) is offering the follow-ing four teacher Workshops this week. Please register by email to the PDO at: PDO@vaniercollege.qc.ca Using Excel to Help your Students Excel Tuesday, May 21, 2013 10 a.m. to 12 noon, D-244

Animator: Antoinette Cocciolo, Nursing

In this workshop Antoinette Cocciolo will present an Excel based tool used by the Nursing Department to help assess their stu-dents’ strengths and weaknesses on short answer exams. Come join us to learn how you can use this tool to help you assess your student’s performance on their exams, identify specific weak-nesses, and then help them develop study strategies to target these weaknesses and improve their performance. LCAD Workshop: Communication & Connection Thursday, May 23, 2013 10 a.m. to 12 noon, D-244

Animators: Karen White, Psychology, and Maggie McDonnell, English

Did you know that over 30% of YOUR students think that reading and writing won’t be important in their future careers?

What is the role of communication and literacy in your discipline? How – and by whom – are these skills addressed in your pro-gram?

Karen White and Maggie McDonnell will share preliminary results of their LCAD (Literacy and Communication Across Disci-plines) student and teacher surveys and lead a discussion. Come share your ideas, concerns and practical tips!

Worksheets for Active Learning Tuesday, May 28, 2013 10 a.m. to 12 noon, D-244

Animator: Jen Mitchell, Pedagogical Development Office

Are you incorporating more individual, pair, or group activities in your classes, but find it hard to keep students on task? Are you giving students worksheets but finding they aren’t taken serious-ly? Join us for this workshop to learn some tips and tricks for pre-paring successful worksheets.

What Course Frameworks Can Do for You! Thursday, May 30, 2013 10 a.m. to 12 noon, D-244

Animators: Patti Kingsmill and Pit F. Lan-Chow-Wing, Institutional Development and Research

Are you interested in learning more about what course frame-works are and their role in your department or program? Are you creating a new course or rethinking an old one? Having trouble aligning your learning outcomes and competencies with your class activities and assessments?

Come join us for this workshop on using course frameworks to help you structure your courses so that students can attain its competencies. Please bring a recent course outline to use during the workshop. For further information about these May 2013 PDO Teacher Workshops, please refer to our PDO website at: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/pdo

Wilma Brown, Pedagogical Development Office (PDO)

Whisper: heartfelt and real

On April 26, 2013, the Office of the Academic Dean had the pleasure of seeing the debut performance of Whisper, an original Vanier student musical production, and mentored by Classical voice teacher, Tamara Vickerd. Music composed by Yao Wang, and written by Chelsea Pringle-Duchemin, was nothing short of a brilliant effort and held its own that evening. Yao and Chelsea were also recently honoured for their work on this production at the first annual Celebrating Vanier’s Authors and Artists, which took place April 15-19, 2013. The actors were real, honest, and performances heartfelt - even tugging at the audience's heartstrings at times - something that a performer strives to accomplish with every word, note, and look. The title song "Whisper" was introduced in the first act, eliciting the ten-der moment when love blooms for the first time between two people, heroines Ava and Sarah.

The song is repeated in the second act, reiterating the strength of their bond. Overall, the story features themes that young people can relate to - starting school in a totally new environment, the challenges of meeting new friends, making and breaking connec-tions, struggling with drug use, and of course, finding love. Many of the songs in Whisper, had those hooks that stay in your head, and are reminded of. I had the musical's final song, "I have a dream," come back to me later that night. This is what even the best of the musicals on Broadway aim to do! I truly believe that the students realized their dreams that night. Whisper is a Vanier production of which to be proud, and one that I hope will return to the College in future semesters to come. Bravo!

Christina Gudzio, Academic Dean's Office

Teaching Tip: The Grading Blues

It’s that time of year again, time to start grading moun-tains of final assignments and exams. There is nothing that can dampen your enthusiasm for teaching quite like grading. Before you let those grading blues get to you, try some of these tips to help keep your spirits up while you slog through that mountain of work. Organize the papers or exams before you grade Sometimes it helps to organize the assignments in a way that can motivate you through the pile. Some teachers put all the assign-ments by stronger students first so they are more motivated to get started. Other teachers put all the stronger students at the end so that they aren’t too harsh on the weaker ones. You can also place a few stronger assignments strategically in your pile to give you a boost when you are starting to get tired. Establish a grading method Determine how you will mark the exams or assignments. Will you mark Question 1 for all your students first, and then continue with marking Question 2 for everyone, then Question 3, etc.? Or will you mark the full exam or assignment, student by student? Have a Rubric Even a basic rubric can help you maintain equity and consistency in your grading. If you haven’t already done so, determine the maximum mark value that will be assigned for each question or component of the exam or assignment. Having a general plan before you start, or even after looking over a few assignments, will help you give a more accurate grade. This can help you avoid that moment when you give two students the same grade but know that one assignment is a little better. To help you prepare a basic rubric before you start grading, ask yourself “what’s the perfect paper?” or do your own exam and use that as your rubric.

Image courtesy of Michal Marcol/ Freedigitalphotos.net

Get comfortable Sit in a space where you feel comfortable and can work and con-centrate for a long time. If you like natural light, sit near a win-dow or set yourself up outside and enjoy the nice weather while you grade. If you work better in the morning start early; if you work better in the afternoon get your errands out of the way first and set the afternoon aside for grading. Plan Breaks We always criticize our students for procrastinating and cram-ming before exams. Try not to do the same thing with your grad-ing. Give yourself enough time to work on a few assignments a day, or in batches. Make sure you plan to take some breaks in between, whether they are 30 minute breaks or even a full day. If you have a lot of different assignments to grade try changing be-tween them just to get a change of pace. Plan ahead so you don’t have to cram all those exams into a one day grading marathon. See this and other Teaching Tips on the PDO web page

Jen Mitchell, Pedagogical Development Office

UPCOMING SCHOLARSHIPS

Please note that students interested in receiving scholarship in-formation or help with their applications can see Joshua Berman in The Learning Centre (B-205F). http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/scholarships/ The Gloria Di Murro Creativity Award RFCM Scholarship VCSA Community Involvement Scholarship

Joshua Berman, The Learning Centre

Vanier Gardening Initiative

I would like to thank everyone that has supported our cause. The Vanier Gardening Initiative is a small group of volunteers dedicat-ed to gardening at Vanier. Take a look around the H-building, sports complex and N-building and you can see the gardens that have been created. It’s a new season and I’d like to reach out to more gardeners. All are welcome, regardless of experience. We are always looking for donations of plants, tools, garden edg-ing and soil and it is my dream to get rain barrels for the N and H buildings. We require plants that are low maintenance and I would love some local species. This year I will attempt to add some vegetables and more herbs. If you are interested in becoming involved in the Gardening Initia-tive, or have anything to donate please email me at bar-tene@vaniercollege.qc.ca or call me at ext 7584.

Evelynne Barten, Environmental and Wildlife Management

Cibertronique 3.0 Workshop: All Welcome!

Dr Enrique Ruiz-Velasco Sánchez from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, will be at Vanier Col-lege on Friday, May 17

th to facilitate a hands-on workshop on

robotics. Dr. Ruiz-Velasco Sánchez is an international leader and researcher in the world of robotics and artificial Intelligence in education. This is a chance to be involved in active learning and to learn about a unique model of robotics developed by Dr. Sánchez where the robot is controlled at a distance by a cell-phone. Everyone is welcome: students, faculty and all members of the community. Please note this workshop will be presented in French with ques-tions and comments in English welcomed. Light refreshments will be served. When: Friday, May 17th from 12:00 to 13:30 Where: A-476 Please RSVP by Wednesday, May 15

th, 2013 to Marielle

Beauchemin, the organizer of this event: beauchem@vaniercollege.qc.ca or extension 7258.

Marielle Beauchemin O.S.T. Kevin Lenton Physics Rhys Adams Physics

Mathematics & Science Centre Science, on Tourne – Vanier at the Regionals!

On the weekend of May 3

rd to 5

th,

three Honours Science students: Justin Marchand, Marco Peixeiro, and Mrityunjaya Arjun Alapak-kam Govindaraj travelled to Cégep de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue near Val-d’Or to compete in the science, on tourne regionals after winning at the local final. Vanier’s lightweight and fully re-cyclable crane design performed perfectly, successfully raising a load from the ground up well within the one minute time limit. In addition, Marco delivered a well prepared oral presentation describing the device, the construction and the challenges faced throughout the endeavor. At the end of the day, Vanier ranked 13

th out of the 38 Cégeps that competed scoring a total of 642

points.

Congratulations! Haritos Kavallos, Math and Science Centre

Annual Employee Picnic

This year’s annual Employee Picnic will be held on Thursday, June 6, 2013 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. outside the Sports Complex. During the picnic the Employee Recognition Award winners will also be presented. A softball game will take place at Decelles Park at 11:00 a.m. If you are interested in playing, please indicate it on the registration form. Lunch and award presentations will begin at 12:30 p.m. In order to attend, you absolutely must register online. You may do so by clicking here: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/employee-picnic The deadline for registration is Monday, May 27, 2013.

Silvana Cannatelli, Director General's Office

Scholarship Winners

Congratulations to Ru Yi Gu, a Commerce student, who recently won a CPA scholarship worth $500. This scholarship is awarded for students interested in a management career who are involved in extracurricular activities while obtaining high grades in Cegep. Congratulations to two other Vanier students who won scho-larships from ETS - École de technologie supérieure- Fonds de développement. Building Systems Engineering Technology stu-dent, Giuseppe De Luca, won a $2,000 Enertak Scholarship and Architectural Technology student, Kar-Po Cora Cheung, won a $2,000 Translec Common TCI Scholarship.

Joshua Berman, The Learning Centre

Online Grade Submission For Winter 2013 Semester - Day Teachers

Please note that the deadline is FRIDAY, MAY 31, 2013, 12:00 MIDNIGHT. All grades must be submitted online. You will receive a memo summarizing the steps to follow in your OMNIVOX ac-count. If you need assistance using the Omnivox online system, please contact Pierina Primiano at 7109 or Olga Mardas at 7124. It is very important that all grades be submitted by the deadline as the Registrar’s Office cannot determine those students in poor academic standing nor graduate students until all the marks for the semester have been entered. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Thomas Ingerman, Registrar

A big thank you for Earth Week support from the AVCP

My apologies for forgetting to mention in the last Intercom, the support of the AVCP (Association of Vanier College Professionals) for the Earth Week contest. A huge thank you goes to our colleagues from the professionals union for your support of this endeavour.

Richard Dugas, Student Services

Special Care Counseling Students Participate in the Alz-heimer Walk for Memories

Date: Sunday, May 26, 2013

Time: 8:30 (Registration) to 13:00

Description:

Join the Vanier Team in the Alzheimer Walk for Memories… Established in 2006 by the Federation of Quebec Alzheimer Societies, the Walk for Memories is held simultaneously in several cities throughout the province. In Montreal, more than 33,000 families are touched by Alzheimer’s or related diseases. The Alzheimer Society of Montreal plays an important role in helping those families and those living with Alzheimer’s Disease. You can also help make a difference for people with Alzheimer’s and their families. Participate in the Walk for Memories

Link: www.alzheimer.ca/en/montreal

Location: Quays of the Old Port (at the bottom of Place Jacques-Cartier).

Audience: Current Students

Staff

Teachers

Alumni

Category:

Department: Special Care Counseling Department

Contact: Special Care Couselling teachers –) Susan Layne (514-744-7500 ext. 7970) Dayna Morrow (514-744-7500 ext. 7622) Rita Bonar (514-744- 7500- 7681