Student Engagement

I wanted to see what motivated students to respond to general questions in the 7am Introductory to Psychology class.  Was it consumables or extra credits?

Group presentations have always been a part of my classroom, but after watching numerous presentations where students aren’t prepared to present or engaged while viewing the presentation, I realized I needed to make a change.  My hope is that by having students present in smaller groups and present the entire slideshow, students will have a better understanding of the material they are presenting and their classmates will pay closer attention to the presentation.

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Through conversations with the tutors, a desire was discovered to be better.  The tutors know their material very well but wanted to see if there was a way to improve on their delivery style and customer service.  I introduced the concept of continuous quality improvement (CQI) which is a culture of never-ending improvement.  The assumption is that unless we learn something about what we are doing, we are unlikely to know how to improve it.

Assessment Practitioner was offered through the CTL this Spring 2020 semester for interested faculty and staff that wanted to continue their professional growth.  This hybrid Canvas course is designed to equip our faculty and staff with the information to understand the goals and practices of assessment in our Learning College culture.  This course has given the opportunity to model the true essense of a Learning College, by faciliating the natural relationship between teaching, learning, and assessment through weekly face-to-face sessions, weekly assignments, and colleague discus

Knowledge retention and transfer are at the core of what we do. It is evident that all students learn in different ways. However, if students are asked to DO something in the process of learning they will not only retain the information but rather be able to comprehend how it is applied to the real world. In addition, as the students start to report out to the class the instructor can listen to the responses and clarify or demonstrate the material to ensure long term retention success. For more information not included in this write up, please attachments.

The STEM program has grown over the past two years, and has caused an increase in tutoring support for Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology courses. With the implementation of the STEM journal, students are able sufficiently prepare for their courses. The STEM tutors of the Academic Success Center are able to share helpful information and insight, for they went through the same courses and instructors as our current students.

Update: In Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, I continued to use the scaffolding handout that addressed conceptual understanding of limits at infinity (as described in this CATS). This handout addresses EMCC's ILO of critical thinking along with the CLO of choosing the most appropriate tool/technique to solve a problem. In both Fall and Spring semesters, I had similar results with roughly 75% of students (both semesters) answering the limits at infinity question correctly on the final.

The Academic Success Center (ASC) provides drop-in person tutoring services for mathematics courses at Estrella. On occassion, the ASC holds study sessions for students in nearby classrooms for a more focused, enclosed tutoring session to support students with rigorous topics or upcoming exam reviews. Starting this semester, the sections of College Algebra decided to conduct two major exams and a final based on the course curriculum of MAT151. To help support this endeavor, the tutors of the ASC were prepared to assist students with these major exams. 

The Academic Success Center provides in-person tutoring for STEM courses which includes Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Due the discontinuation of Developmental Education courses, there has been a shift in tutoring demand for Gatekeeper and STEM courses in semester Fall 2019. With the collaboration with STEM faculty, the ASC is developing and experimenting new intiatives on how to support the increase in demand of tutoring for these subjects. 

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The program was held during a five week summer session. Twelve students met Monday through Thursday for Math 151 College Algebra/Functions, followed by one hour of tutoring. Students also met Monday through Wednesday for CPD115, Creating College Success in STEM. Every Thursday, students had the opportunity to partake in hands-on STEM workshops and programs, meet current and/or former STEM students, meet with different community professionals to explore the different careers in STEM, and learn about the different supportive programs, such as undergraduate internships.

Helping students find success is the goal of teaching. By adding a short preview assignment allowing students to focus on upcoming larger essay assignments in Canvas, they learn the importance of taking the time to review assignment instructions before starting in, they think about what they're being asked to do, what challenges they might face while working on the asisgnment, what resources they can access for help, and ask specific questions of their instructor. Instructors can immediately respond and clarify or realign student preceptions setting students up for success.

One of the student learning outcomes of this class is to discuss current industry events. It is difficult to assess discussing events and generally the whole class doesn't participate in discussions equally. By creating a writing assignment to discuss and analyze events I gained a strong means to measure an SLO and both writing and critical thinking. The assignment was a good way to start off the class and to get student engagement for the day.

The allied-health/biology course sequence includes BIO56/181, BIO201, BIO202, and BIO205.  A significant portions of students in these courses have the EMCC Nursing Program as their goal. Data have shown that only approximately 10% of pre-nursing students succeed in getting into the highly competitive EMCC nursing program. The fate of the remaining 90% of allied health students is unclear.