Making history

Making history
Frau in Finland skypes German to CLC students
11/24/10

By Steve Waller, Public Information Specialist, Central Lakes College

At 5 p.m. Tuesday in Brainerd it is 1 a.m. Wednesday in Finland.
Time for class.
Frau Ann Toumi smiles and greets her Central Lakes College German students. She has had her chocolate mint ice cream, fuel for the graveyard shift from her part of the world, teaching German to beginners.
She sits aglow in laptop light from Joensuu, Finland.
Young and old alike in this Skype-based classroom have embraced global learning. As participants of a unique distance-learning experiment they are making history.
CLC has dozens of online courses, but this is the first to be taught via Skype software.
In room C237 at CLC in Brainerd, with their instructor on the flat-screen panel monitor, students ranging in age from teens to retirees await the final tweaks from a technical support person. Toumi wears a headset and looks a bit green. The picture and sound are real time.
After adjustments to the free Internet connection, the lengthy class session starts. It will go until 8:50 p.m. (4:50 a.m. in Finland) and take students well into conversational skills. The class starts with German language greetings, and spoken words are instantly viewed on the screen beneath Frau Toumi as she gently corrects any mistakes.
“She hears everything,” said Rhonda Carkhuff of Pequot Lakes, a non-traditional age student who said she feels “lucky to have her as a teacher” even if Toumi is thousands of miles away. “The delivery method works very well.”
Carkhuff and other students describe Toumi as not only proficient and patient but sincere. “She clearly cares about what she does. She cares about her students learning and having a positive experience in doing so.”
Toumi has been teaching since 1981 at places such as Bemidji State University, Pequot Lakes High School, and colleges in Finland. Having taught German and English for CLC, she is employed as a tenured, full-time English instructor at the University of Eastern Finland.
For CLC, she teaches 30 students, mostly beginners, but also works with three advanced students, including Larissa Anderson, 32, of Brainerd.
“When I restarted my studies at CLC two years ago German wasn’t offered,” Anderson said. “I swallowed my disappointment and worked on my general studies to attain my AA.”
Finding German back in the course list, Anderson renewed an interest started as a student at Pillager High School and sparked by imagination and “Indiana Jones” movies that feature German speaking parts. “The language became a part of who I am after hosting a German-speaking exchange student,” she said.
Anderson said Skype may not be the best way to learn a language. “It takes a lot of dedication . . . more challenging than an in-class setting. I couldn’t do it if not so interested in the language and without Frau Toumi.” She said the instructor is patient.
“If one style of learning doesn’t work, she has the innovation and know-how to try something else. I can’t praise her enough.”
Dr. Paul Carey arranged his work schedule with Brainerd Lakes Health to fit in three mid-day hours per week for Beginning German. Three decades after introductory studies in high school, Carey is doing something unforeseen. “I swore I would never set foot in a college classroom again.”
College is different, he said of the opportunity for enrichment rather than “logging hours to fulfill some prerequisite for my major.” Calling himself a WWII history nut, Carey said “I just really want to learn German . . . and catch a few more words as I watch ‘World at War’.”
As with others in the class expecting to one day visit Germany, Carey will be able to converse in German “rather than being the classic American tourist,” he said.
Instructor Toumi understands that motivation. She has led more than a dozen study tours to Germany and Austria, mostly during 21 years at Pequot Lakes but also while at CLC, when she created a course built on the Holocaust.
Some students enjoy German for the unique sounds associated with its usage, amused by the language with its accents and pronunciations. “The TV show ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ brought their hilarious accent to life,” said Stephanie Thompson of Merrifield, who had a year of German in high school.
“I am not amused in a derogatory way,” she added. “It is merely a hooked-on-phonics amusement.” Her German heritage, coupled with the intrigue of a culture and travel destination, motivate Thompson to tackle a course that comes with computer glitch.
When Frau Toumi’s face is frozen on the screen, class goes on with help from lab assistant Darin Flansburg and two German exchange students, Wolfgang Zollner and Barbara Felix. “They are experts and the students from Germany impart knowledge and culture,” said Thompson. “They don’t seem to mind when we make grammatical mistakes.”
She said Flansburg enables the class to master sentence structure and make the most of conversational German. The two young Germans “teach us some conversational slang, so we don’t sound like proper German robots when we speak their language.”
Flansburg is a CLC Media Center technician with 27 years of experience in the German language. He has lived in Germany, teaching English as a Second Language.
Several aides are available to handle any Internet and computer problems, including Flansburg, Justin DeZurik in tech support, and facilities coordinator Karen Mertes.
Toumi said experts at the university in Finland have also improved the distance learning technology that can be influenced by broadband “rush hour” as well as weather. The evening class seems to have a better signal that the day class, perhaps owing to the hours of the day with less Internet demand.
Patient and motivated students have enhanced this course for instructor Toumi, who received administrative support from Kelly McCalla, dean of liberal arts and sciences at CLC. “Without his enthusiasm and support, none of this would have been possible,” she said.
The support led to a decision by students such as Charlie Cook, 20, of Pequot Lakes to take another German class, one with consequences for potential deployment to Germany as a National Guard soldier. When he was a high school freshman, Cook said he “had a wonderful teacher” and is lucky to reconnect with her as he prepares for time overseas.
Cook’s non-traditional age classmate, Rhonda Carkhuff, has a son Braden who is a Concordia College student in Germany through a year-long exchange program. Like Cook, he studied German at Pequot Lakes. “I believe there might be a fair amount of travel there in the future for us,” said mother Carkhuff, noting that her son may wind up living in Germany after graduation.
“My interest is much the same as his – to learn about a place and culture that is different than our own, but one where I feel a connection,” she said.

Thinking it through

College engineering physics is for achievers
By Steve Waller, Public Information Specialist, Central Lakes College
Dan Macy, who attended Central Lakes College in 1997-98, returned to the Brainerd campus recently for a chance to work with first-semester engineering physics students.
Macy has a master’s degree and has industry experience from studies at Cal Poly and the University of Michigan. He was surprised to find the CLC students engaged in problem solving at a level beyond that one might expect from the community and technical college.
“They’re doing what some graduate programs would do,” said the Brainerd High School graduate who had taken several college classes while finishing at BHS.
The rigorous CLC studies examine real problem solving and active learning as the process toward prospective careers. Instructor John Saber, who earned a doctorate in his subject, purposefully implements the critical thinking philosophy.
“This is a style change from lecturing to use of thinking skills and team solutions,” said Saber, in his third year on the CLC faculty. Students take calculus concurrently, so the knowledge immediately blends to optimize relevance of the subject matter.
Colleague Jan Bedard, a 2010 state educational award winner, observed one class session and liked what she saw. “I saw John's students focus on an issue. They tried several solutions, and when one didn't work, instead of feeling defeated, they persisted by exploring other possible solutions.
“The interesting mix of big-picture thinkers and detail-oriented people allowed groups to look at the task from multiple viewpoints,” Bedard added. “Some students understood the physics, some understood the math, some understood the computer and graphics; each strength allowed others to become stronger in their more challenging areas.”
“Engineering physics is a calculus-based course, and these students may otherwise have no calculus background,” Saber said. “The students have responded well. I am not showing them how to do the problem.”
Stacy Ennenga Stricker of Pine River, a student, said the class structure and instructor’s teaching style have improved her critical thinking skills. “This class is different from others I've taken because we are guided through the problems, rather than lectured the information,” she said. I am retaining the information much better through this discovery process.”
To solve problems that are complex and that take several hours to solve, students start with Newton’s 2nd Law and derive the equations that describe the motion of the system presented in the problem statement. Rather than spend a lot of time with algebraic manipulations of the equations, students use Mathematica to do that work. This way, the students’ efforts are focused on critical thinking.
As Macy and Bedard witnessed, this is a new way to teach the subject. Saber said it comes out of a reform approach that began in 1986. Built on the concepts of hands-on vs. lecture, aided by technology, students now learn to explain their actions in the process of problem-solving.
“They have to say why a particular decision was a good idea,” Saber said. “They do this with the aid of self generated graphs and data sets. In every assignment they’re using four legs of a table – graphing, data, manipulation of the equations, and both written and oral explanations.”
Macy said in four years of engineering studies he was never offered such an approach. “It’s not plug and chug. The students are learning the approach, the method. It’s the process they would use as engineers.”
Saber believes in providing the challenge, giving students just enough guidance to harness their intuitive aptitudes. “The only equation I give them is Newton’s Second Law,” he said.
This is what gets students such as Sam Srock of Crosby are thriving on, the opportunity to obtain the greatest self-satisfaction as a problem gets solved. The home-schooled college freshman, one of three post-secondary enrolled students, has survived a number of dead-ends but managed to find answers.
“It had me stumped,” he said, after moving from the laptop computer to a drawing board where he more clearly could picture an equation. He celebrated completion of Part One of a three-part puzzler that consumed two days of lab time. The problem:
“A 200-pound bungee jumper jumps from a bridge 130 above a river. The bungee cord has an unstretched length of 60 feet and has a spring constant k=14 lb./ft.
A) How far above the river is the jumper when the cord brings him to a stop?
B) What maximum force does the cord exert on him?
C) How far up will the jumper rebound?”
Macy looked on as the team of Stacy Ennenga Stricker, Jonathan Hammer, and Rian Hutchison dug into the problem. He said he appreciate the practicality of the problem, as well as the aspect of working together for a solution. It compares admirably to the professional environment.
“This is a community of thinkers,” he observed. Saber told him how the students continue to communicate off-campus in efforts to solve such problems. “They’re working on them at night,” he said, noting that Skype allows them to move in real time toward solutions even when they’re apart.
Engineering physics is not for the unfocused. A few students have dropped out, citing difficulties with calculus, attention, and teamwork.
Saber said those who remain in class “love it.” They take pride in accomplishment.
“They’re the cream of the crop.”

German guests

German professionals at CLC seek temporary employment
By Steve Waller, Public Information Specialist, Central Lakes College
Two young professionals from Germany will seek temporary employment in the United States after a semester of classes at Central Lakes College.
Barbara Felix and Wolfgang Zollner are students at the Brainerd campus through the year-long exchange program, Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals. They are among 75 German scholarship recipients. CLC is one of 59 colleges in 32 states hosting the students.
During the fall term, Felix and Zollner are completing community service projects as required by the program, which also asks that they find internships in a career field.
Felix has education and experience in health insurance customer service, having worked as a social insurance clerk from September 2006 to July 2010.
Zollner worked for BMW Corp. as an industrial mechanic apprentice from September 2007 to February 2010. He attended a vocational school in Germany for advanced technical qualifications.
Both students are fluent in English, have competent computer skills, and have been tutoring German students at CLC. They are active in the college International Club and have helped organize community events and fundraisers at CLC as well as volunteering at the Brainerd area soup kitchen.
Felix is staying with Jeanette Rydberg, a child development instructor at CLC. Zollner is housed at the home of Jean Mershon, a customized training representative at CLC.
Felix recently was selected for a month-long Congressional internship in Washington, D.C., and after that she wants to work in the Brainerd area. “The people in the Brainerd area are so friendly,” she said. “And the landscape is so beautiful.”
Zollner, who has traveled to Spain and Ireland, is also eager to see more of the United States via an automobile he purchased after securing a driver’s license as stipulated by the exchange program. His skills include welding and servicing production equipment. He has been trained in milling and lathe operation and has taken courses in pneumatics, and control technologies.
The Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, in its 27th year, was designed to strengthen ties between the younger generation of the United States and Germany. Endorsed by members of the Congress and the German Parliament (Bundestag), the program has enabled over 3,500 young professionals to trade countries with their counterparts to live, study and work for a year in a foreign environment.
The program is financially supported by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs under the authority of the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, as well as the German Bundestag. CDS International, Inc. is designated to administer the program in the United States through a grant agreement with the U.S. State Department.
In Germany, the program is administered by CDS International’s partner organization, InWEnt gGmbH, in Bonn.

The Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange is currently seeking qualified American applicants for the 2011-2012 program year in Germany. For more information, contact Amy Stiegler, Program Assistant, at 212-497-3522 or astiegler@cdsintl.org
In addition to the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, CDS International also administers a variety of other internship programs. For more information on CDS International and its programs, including the Congress-Bundestag program, go to http://www.cdsintl.org

Videography production begins

Professional videographer leads CLC’s well-equipped new program

By Steve Waller, Public Information Specialist, Central Lakes College
Central Lakes College has a new educational degree program at the Staples campus: Videography.
Instructor Mark Ambroz, who worked as a staff photographer for KARE 11 TV, is an award-winning producer who knows all phases of the fast-growing profession. His professional expertise continues to be in demand through his business, One Guy Short Productions.
He is pleased to add “instructor” to his impressive resume’ and has begun to recruit students who share a passion for creativity using the best technology around.
Ambroz will demonstrate videography at the Nov. 21 open house on the Staples campus from 1 to 4 p.m.
“By the time I was seven, I knew I wanted to work in television,” he said in his office beside the new I Mac video editing lab at the Staples campus. “In high school and college, I focused on media arts. I jumped into my first real position in TV news the day before I graduated and have never left the production business.”
The Central Lakes College videography program offers state-of-the-art tools to go with the instructional expertise. From cameras, audio, and lights to editing software, the 22 students accepted to this program each year work with the best.
“We have the hottest JVC cameras out there,” he said of the $12,000 units at the center of a new studio, where students use assorted lighting and six flat-panel LEDs illuminate the set. “Our goal is to give students production packages to work in two-person crews.”
The packages include cameras, light kits, tripods, microphones, and the use of enhancements such as the crane-like “jib arms” for sweeping shots, specialty mini-cams, and steadicams.
These are all tools Ambroz uses to obtain the stunning imagery and sound that are trademarks of good videography. His quest for the best includes four years as a producer of the original “Minnesota Bound” with Ron Schara.
Ambroz’s work has also led to 72 awards in seven years as senior producer of “Good Fishing” and “Outdoor Secrets” with Babe Winkelman Productions.
He agrees with CLC President Larry Lundblad, who said, “Demand for graduates in many programs remains strong despite the lackluster economy.” Videography skills are involved in many positions among broadcast media and commercial facilities that create messages for clients around the world.
“We’re teaching how to produce commercials, web videos, industrials, and documentaries for careers in video, film, and television,” Ambroz said.
The college has invested $250,000 in new equipment to support the program because two-year community and technical colleges exist to serve their communities and respond to the needs of the area, said President Lundblad. “Videography is a fast growing career option.”
So, what do students get in this new program at CLC, whether they take the 60-credit Associate in Applied Science track or the 54-credit diploma route?
“Students will learn the proper techniques for shooting footage, capturing stories using digital media, organizing video clips and editing footage to develop a finished production,” Ambroz said. “They take courses in media production, lighting, sound and creative software suites, digital photography, scripting, producing and directing.”
They will develop the skills needed to professionally capture and manipulate video footage using audio sound rooms, video production studios, the latest creative software suites and high tech computer labs.
As graduates they will have job titles such as visual effects editor, videographer, producer, graphics designer, key grip, editor, director, cinematographer, broadcast designer, location manager, and writer.

Economic impact of CLC

Businesses, taxpayers benefit from student investment
By Steve Waller, Public Information Specialist, Central Lakes College
How do Brainerd Lakes Area and the state of Minnesota benefit from the presence of Central Lakes College?
A recent comprehensive study by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., Moscow, Idaho, offers data of the significant role CLC plays for not only graduates but taxpayers who benefit from a larger economy and lower social costs.
The study reports that the Brainerd Lakes Area receives approximately $27.1 million in net added income each year due to CLC operations and spending of non-local students.
The accumulated credits achieved by former CLC students over the past 30 years translate to $91.7 million in added regional income each year due to higher earnings of students and increased output of businesses.
“Benefits of higher education are most obvious from the student perspective,” said Dr. Suresh Tiwari, CLC vice president of academic and student affairs. “CLC students enjoy a 15.5 percent rate of return on their investment of time and money.
“This compares favorably with returns on other investments, such as long-term return on stocks and bonds,” Tiwari said of the data provided by the study.
According to the analysis of data acquired within the past two years, the corresponding benefit/cost ratio is 5.3. For every dollar students invest in CLC education, they receive a cumulative of $5.30 in higher future income over the course of their working careers.
This is a real return that accounts for any discounting that occurs during the entire period. The payback period is 9.7 years.
From the perspective of society as a whole, the benefits of education accrue to different publics. For example, CLC students expand the state’s economic base through their higher incomes, while the businesses that employ them also become more produc¬tive through the students’ added skills.
These benefits, together with the associated ripple effects, contribute an estimated $16.5 million in taxable income to the Minnesota economy each year.
As they achieve higher levels of education, CLC students are also less likely to smoke or abuse alcohol, draw welfare or unemployment benefits, or commit crimes. This translates into associated dollar savings (i.e., avoided costs) to the public equal to approximately $716,200 annually.
Taxpayers see a rate of return of 5.2 percent on their investment in CLC, the study reported. These are benefits that are incidental to the operations of CLC and accrue for years into the future, for as long as students remain active in the workforce.
Tiwari said the study shows that CLC affects the local economy in three ways:
1. Through its local purchases, including wages paid to faculty and staff;
2. Through the spending of students who come from outside the region;
3. Through the increase in the skill base of the local workforce.
The college creates income through the earnings of its faculty and staff, as well as through its own operating and capital expenditures.
“Adjusting for taxes and other monies withdrawn from the local economy in support of CLC,” Tiwari said, “the study estimates that the college’s service area economy receives a net of $22.4 million in added labor and non-labor income due to CLC operations each year.”
The report points out that students from outside the region spend money for room and board, transportation, entertainment, and other miscellaneous personal expenses.
“These expenditures create jobs and incomes for local businesses,” Tiwari said. “The off-campus spending of CLC’s non-local students gen¬erates approximately $4.8 million in added income in the CLC service area economy each year.”
Every year students leave CLC and join or rejoin the regional workforce. Their added skills translate to higher income and a more robust local economy.
“Based on CLC’s historical enrollment and credit production over a 30-year period,” Tiwari said, “it is estimated that the accumulated contribution of CLC instruction received by former students – both completers and non-completers – annually adds some $91.7 million in income to the CLC service area.”
According to the study, the average annual added income due to the activities of CLC and its former students equals $118.9 million. This is approximately equal to 2.3 percent of the total CLC service area economy.
The complete report can be found at www.clcmn.edu/general/
For more information about this study, contact Dr. Suresh Tiwari at stiwari@clcmn.edu