August 2015

Teaching Psychology Statistics is daunting.  It is effectively an applied mathematics course focused a single topic, psychology.  The school's data has shown that when students come to EMCC underprepared, it is likely to be in mathematics.  Thus, student success in math often requires intense support- emotional and intellectual- by both peers and instructors: guided practice, and lots of immediate feedback on the process of turning a large set of numbers into a meaningful narrative.

Most chemistry labs are of the "cookbook" style, the labs are a series of steps to perform in the alloted time and not much thought goes into the performance.  The other option is to give students a problem to solve and then give them free reign to design a lab.  Many of the students have no idea where to begin the design phase of a lab and end up just looking up a cookbook lab and trying to make it work.  The other problem with the free reign option is safety and logistics with the laboratory prep.  Is it a safe lab?

This semester I am assigning students online homework problems using Sapling Learning. After the due date expires, I plan to analyze which questions were most frequently missed.  Then I will bring these back as part of a study session prior to the midterm 1.  Similar questions will be restested as part of their midterm, and an analysis conducted to see if students' scores improved as a result of the feedback and additional practice in these areas.

I will utilize Adobe Connect to build an online presence, increase engagement, and utilize expert guest speakers in the online environment. I will provide the option of reviewing the session archive and writing a one page summary to students who are unable to attend the live session. I propose to track which students consistently attend and participate in the live session and which students utilize the archives. I would like to see if there is a correlational connection betweeen success in the course and students who particiapte in live sessions.

Narrated instructional and demonstration videos were develped for online class CIS121AI - Macintosh Operating System. This CATS will make observations regarding the effectiveness of this apporach during the pilot semester of the online course and determine what improvements, if any, are necessary.

At the beginning of each class I post 3-4 questions on the board to review the previous day's information.  This also allows time for me to take attendance and set up the classroom for the days activity. I would allow about 10 min. for this activity and then have students present their solution.  I did not collect the papers.  There was not much accountability and some student's would purposefully come in late to avoid the work.  

The "I Am Human" Campaign focuses on choosing language that creates an inclusive culture demonstrating social awareness. Students watched the "I Am Human" video in addition to reading about the campaign on the EMCC website. Students participated in a pre/post survey and discussion board directly connected to the campaign. Their weekly video reflection and final journal entry are typical assignments in the Sociology courses. The students mentioned the campaign in both assignments as examples of what impacted them in the course. Please see the attached document on the results.

In ESL Grammar 2, I’ve offered a standard exercise final exam. The average 79% score was not acceptable. I developed a more authentic “end of the semester” way to bring together all the information offered in this grammar course. I assigned a guided autobiography.  At the class prior to the final exam, students were shown a presentation and given colored notecards.