WCC's new building makes learning easier

Sometimes the concept of operant conditioning isn't so clear to Waubonsee assistant psychology professor Heather LaCost's students.

But with a computer program in which they can teach a mouse to push a bar for food or to stop an electric shock, it gets easier.

Until she got her new classroom in Waubonsee's Academic and Professional Center, she didn't have the network access to use the program.

"I'm a happy camper," she said, explaining some of the class's lessons at the grand opening for the building on Friday.

The $13.2 million, 56,000- square-foot building will house the school's Social Sciences and Business departments. It was built with improved technology in mind.

Faculty members helped come up with the plans for the building, which includes rooms that accommodate class sizes from 15 to 96.

The entire building has wireless Internet, and there are either computers or computer hookups at every desk.

That makes class easier for assistant accounting professor Dan Gibbons, who requires students to use Excel for projects. For students who don't know how to use it, he can supervise their work.

"For accounting and business, it's absolutely essential," he said.

Psychology instructor Scott Hollenback will use his room equipped for iClicker technology.

The "audience response technology" allows the teacher to ask students a question and have them respond via remote-control devices. The teacher can then get the responses anonymously and instantly by computer.

"It's really difficult sometimes if you ask students a question and they smile and nod, but inside they have no idea what you're talking about," he said.

With students' answers in front of him, he can change lectures on the fly to focus on concepts students don't understand. That helps both him and the students, he said.

"We can see in real time whether they understand," he said.