Comprehensive Assessment Tracking System

Six Years of Data is In! I love my Calculus/Physics Learning Community.

Contributors: 
ERI2205217's picture
Erica Wager
ANGNX09261's picture
Angela McClure
DWAXT23951's picture
Dwain Desbien
HOLUH00001's picture
Holly Dison
Monday, August 2, 2010 to Friday, May 13, 2016
Abstract: 

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. those that did not did very well in university physics II and III (95% and 100% passing rates for both groups, respectively).  For calculus III, 81.5% non LC students passed the course the first time while 95.3% of the LC students passed.  A chi-square test of independence was used to test the relation between completing the LC and passing MAT241 at EMCC. We found that there is a significant relationship X^2 (1, N=215) = 7.42, p<.01. Those students who completed the LC were significantly more likely to pass MAT241 than students who did not take the LC. See attached for more detail.

Division/Department: 
Completed Full Cycle: 
Yes
Course Number: 
MAT221
PHY121
AttachmentSize
File lc-data.docx81.18 KB
Assessment of the Month: 
July, 2016

Comments

OLGYZ58951's picture
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Becky and all! Thank you for reminding us about the impact of learning communities. I hope we hear more about them on our campus and support the development of new ones. Thanks! Olga

PETAA00009's picture
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Great results validating LCs! I hope that you make our admin aware of these results. Suggestion: send them this CATS via email with a link!