December 2013

Madee Salehi, PhD 

This assignment is for the online version of STO/HUM292 that has not been launched yet.

This is a performance-based class, so students are required to perform a story for their final exam. Students will record themsevles and then upload for grading. There is a set rubric students are to follow in order to demonstrate effective storytelling techniques and best practices. 

This assignment is for the online version of HUM108 that has not been launched yet. 

After learning about murals, the students are to demonstrate what they learned by creating their own mural. The mural must mimic the murals we learned about in the unit; it should be aesthetically pleasing, colorful, crowded and have a political, religious and/or personal message to impart. This assignment will allow students to demonstrate and solidify what they have learned by doing a kinesthetic and personally meaningful activity. 

In Spring 2013 I taught a 5-week MAT142 class as the second half of a linked MAT121-MAT142.  In order to alleviate some of the students’ math anxiety associated with exams and to demonstrate practical applications, I switched from exam-based assessments to project-based assessments with promising results. 

MAT 142 focuses on real-world application problems for non-science/engineering students.  These students typically do not like math and struggle in understanding the concepts.

CIS263AA is an advanced Java programming class. It includes a review of concepts from the prerequisite course, covers many topics in much more depth, and introduces advanced topics. In lieu of a final exam, I wanted students to apply the program development process and create a substantial application. Since this is also the final course in the sequence, I wanted to squeeze in as much content as possible, especially in areas that apply to a student's major or interests--security, networking, simulation/modeling, business, etc.

Programming assignments traditionally involve some problem analysis, algorithm design, and typing/testing code. While designing a new Level II course, I wanted to provide for a different way of thinking about problems and to integrate real-world context. I developed a two-part assignment on secure coding for database applications, specifically teaching students about SQL-injection attacks and how to defend against them. Instead of giving students a paragraph-long program description, I provided a couple of articles and links. 

I have just finished my first teaching class of MAT082 at EMCC. It was a nice experience for me. But there is one thing I felt like proposing to the structure of the course. I think there should be a midterm at the middle of the semester that covers half the syllabus (at least) and the exam format should be the same as finals. There are couple of positives in this :

1. Students will be introduced with the exam format

2. If the load of chapters are being reduced by half in the final then the students will have better chance to do good in it.

In the Spring 2013 semester, five adjunct faculty mentees, four adjunct faculty mentors, and one residential faculty mentor completed the pilot of the innovative Adjunct Faculty Mentoring Program (AFMP). The AFMP is the research based Applied Integration component of the Adjunct Faculty Professional Development model that also includes Objective and Subjective Skills Development Workshops.

MAT082

This CATS is to discuss the difference between the final grade results on my traditional calculus I class vs. the one in a learning community with PHY121. 

After reading chapter 4, Introduction to Active Directory and Account Management, students will install Active Directory and Delegate controls through web-based labs.  The labs will walk them through multiple steps including installation, configuration and the administration of elements within Active Directory. 

Many people do learning communities (see MAT and CPD LC's) to try improve retention in classes.  However, the LC between PHY 121 and MAT 221 has been about trying to improve student understanding of the concepts of physics and calculus and how they fit together.  Retention and success in these coures have been fine which is reason for focus on understanding rather than retention.  From the attached file it can be seen that on the Force Concept Inventory the LC students did better than traditional class even though they had less math preparation for the course.

I ran MAT142 Online in F13, which is the first time our division has run an online course  Of the 31 who started the class, 20 will pass (with 1 depending on the final project score).  We had 5 written projects, and at the end of each project, I asked students to do a grade check which required them to give feedback on their progress and the course as a whole.  There were 3 common themes that I saw from the responses:

1)  Students felt projects did not reflect the learning they'd done in notes and homework.

For many years now, math instructors have made the claim that a students' prior knowledge in algebra impacts their success in calculus.  If a student struggles with their algebraic skills, can they still pass calculus?  To test this hypothesis, I ran data for 188 students which spans from Fall 2005 to Fall 2013 comparing students' 1st exam scores (review exam of algebra) to their final grade in the course.