April 2016

For this CATS I explored how a Kahoot could help students be successful in studying for exams. I gave a traditional review session for Exam 2 (give students terms and tell them to define the terms and give examples for each of the terms in groups), and then for Exam 3 I did a Kahoot review session. Kahoot is an online polling tool where students can compete with one another to answer review questions and get to follow along with their progress as they go through the review session.

Students continually ask if they can use notes on an exam. My answer is always the same, NO! Notes do not help, they will cause more harm than good because students take longer trying to find the solution or how to do the problem. I decided on the 4th exam in my statistics class I was going to allow them to use notes to see if the notes truly do help them. The exam was over hypothesis tests and everything from forming the test to deciding which test is best and calculating the statistic, getting a p-value and forming a conclusion. There is quite a lot on the exam.

In my Introduction to Physics class in spring 2016, I integrated a series of mini-lectures, hands-on activities, and conceptual questions for topics relating to internal energy into a single worksheet of questions that students complete as groups. I occasionally interrupted to have students discuss certain questions and so I could help motivate the answers to a few others. It seemed that students in past semesters were getting bored with perhaps the timing of or maybe the linear way we went through the series.

Graphing Linear Equations is one of the most difficult concepts for students enrolled in MAT 091. There are many different equations, formulas, and concepts that all build on each other. Every year my students struggle with this exam and no matter how I presented this information or interventions I made, nothing seemed to make it better. In previous years I had suggested to students to make note cards but I didn't give them any guidance on how to create them and I did not follow through to make sure they completed the note cards.

After discussing the positive effects of exercise on student learning with EMCC's fitness and wellness director, Lyle Bartlett, I employed a rigorous walking schedule for a minimum of 15 minutes at the beginning of class in one of my statistics courses while another section served as the control group where no class exercise took place. Less than 15% of students in both groups self-reported exercising more than two times per week making groups comparable. I used an independent samples t-test to compare mean quiz scores from the treatment (e.g., those who walked) and control groups.

For the last couple of years I have noticed that students tend to forget what they have learned even after scoring well in the exams.
Once students learn a new module/chapter, most of them seem to completely forget about the previous chapters which is not a very good sign especially for a mathematics student.

For this CATS, I wanted to look at if there is any difference in test scores between students who quickly complete an online study tool prior to the exam and students who take hours or days to complete the same study tool. I gave my introductory Psychology students over a week to complete the online study tool (a Collaborate Learning Unit or “CLU,” name courtesy of Dr. Coleman) for each exam (data from 3 exams included in this analysis) and categorized them based on if they took less than an hour, from an hour to a day or more than one day to complete the study tool.

To take Acid Base Physiology from the classroom to the application level, analysis of clinical scenarios and lab values data is an essential part of learning in BIO202. In order to achieve this objective, we have used the format of lecture and practice problems. At times, I felt the students were having difficulty in grasping the basic concept and then applying it to analyze the given problem to reach diagnosis and predict compensation. Studies have shown that graphic representation of complex clinical data assist in its interpretation.

The economics faculty at EMCC collaboratively assessed our students' quantitative reasoning abilities in fall 2015, aligned with EMCC’s Quantitative Reasoning rubric. The assessment required students to place themselves in the hypothetical role of a leader of a task force appointment by the new President of the United States to recommend a strategy for eliminating the US Budget deficit within a year To complete this successfully, students needed to address all areas of the quantitative reasoning rubric.

In my RDG courses my students complete weekly Reading Response Journals (RRJ). Students are required to read anything they would like and fill out a template with required information about what they read. They are required to format the information in a specific way. I observed that students consistently struggled with the correctly formatting the document and making sure they included all the correct information, and were losing many points as a result. I had provided detailed instructions on how to format the document/information but students were still struggling.

When I watch some of my students complete a 50 question multiple choice exam in 12 minutes, I wonder to myself, “that student can’t possibly be getting an A, can they?”

As reported on the 2014 CATS "All-USA Scholarship Selection Process," a "6-Trait Writing Rubric" replaced the EMCC Writing Rubric for scoring the 2015 essays. 2014 scorers reported displeasure with the EMCC Writing Rubric, especially regarding content. The 2015 rubric was customized to weight heavily "Ideas & Content," and the semi-finalist judging score sheet was adjusted accordingly. 2015 scorers reported the new rubric was more effective in judging the value of the experiences and accomplishments in the essays.

In 2012 Service Learners in COM100 Honors Cohort prepared and presented Informative Speeches based upon their project and a related Social, Civil, or Global (SCGR) issue. As reported on my CATS submission, only 50% of the students included the issue aspects on the visual aid. In Fall 2015 regular COM100 students (not Honors or Service Learners), were given the opportunity to select a SCGR issue to research and present to class as their "Final Exam" Informative Speech.

We struggle with student tardiness, especially in our early morning classes. We have tried everything from locking the door the minute class starts (which then prevents the student from learning the subject that day) to allowing a maximum number of classes to be tardy in (which we have to keep track of). None of these strategies, or other ones tried, have been successful in reducing tardiness. Plus, the burden is on the teacher to keep track, provide materials missed, etc., thereby increasing our load.

Since 2013, students in my Phy 101 have been creating video presentations relating physics concepts to real life situations. For several semesters I have had Kelly Loucy visit my classes and discuss citing sources and plagiarism. As a part of the final presentation score, students must submit a work cited page but they must have verification that their work cited page has been checked by the EMCC Writing Center. After many semesters of doing this I have found about 90% of the students submit a correct work cited page.

In calculus I, summation notation is introduced for finding area under a curve using an infinite number of rectangles. From Fall 04 to Spring 15, I utilized a Power Point to introduce the concept. A lecture would be given with interactive moments throughout the lesson. Students would try problems on their own and in teams. The scores on the exam averaged a mid to high D. Approximately 40% of the class would show little to no work on summation problems. Each semester, the lesson would be updated. Yet, exam scores stayed at a D average with no improvement on summations.

Note: This CATS is being submitted by Rebecca Baranowski, Michelle Breaux, Teri Graham, Sarah Lockhart and Luvia Rivera. In summer 2015, these math faculty attended the Johnson & Johnson Cooperative Learning Institute at SMCC. One of the suggested activities for increasing cooperative learning is to put folders on the tables at the beginning of class. Inside of the folders is a warm up for students to work on together. The institute suggested having only 1-2 sheets of paper in the folder to "force" students to talk to each other about the documents in the folder.

For several years now, I have students write lab reports in calculus I, II and differential equations. The set of directions given to students on what to include in the lab report were ones that I created. Every semester, students would ask follow up questions on what to include in their document. Students constantly missed points for missing information/data or not being detailed enough. This past semester, I decided to see if chemistry faculty had a lab report template, and they do! So, Dr.

I observe many students frantically cramming before quizzes, stressing themselves out and potentially reducing their academic peformance due to test anxiety. Research shows test anxiety could diminish academic performance.  To test if anxiety reducing activities lead to better test performance, I randomly led a anxiety reduction activity with two of my sections (stretching exercises, spontaneous laughter) and did not with three of the others, and compared results (see spreadsheet).

Based on the evaluations of prior Assessment Happens (AH), the SAAC co-chairs (on advice of the committee) developed and facilitated the spring 2016 AH. Suggestions that were implemented were: