Classroom/Individual

Learning Community (LC) faculty have been saying for 6 years that the main focus on the LC is to help students in future STEM courses.  Majoring in a STEM field is difficult; math is a barrier for most students.  Approximately 20% of community college students start as a STEM major with 69% of them changing it to non-STEM.  The LC course is designed to help students be successful STEM students and truly understand how math and physics are intertwined.  So, student grades were analyzed from fall 2010 - spring 2016.  Students that went through the LC vs.

Osmosis and the movement of water is a common theme in biology courses.  Students first learn the concept in General Biology (Bio181/Bio156), then students have to apply it to human physiology in Anatomy and Physiology (Bio 201/202).  Students have a difficult time understanding this concept as evidenced by only 39% correctly answering a question about osmosis in the kidney on the unit exam.