Common Assignment/Final

Traditional grading practices often fail to measure learning in the way instructors intend, as they can be influenced by subjectivity and implicit bias. These systems frequently turn grades into a form of negotiation, creating an adversarial relationship between students and instructors rather than a collaborative one. As a result, traditional grading can heighten student stress and anxiety while discouraging creativity, critical thinking, and cooperative learning.

This assessment analyzed student mastery of three Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) across the sequential accounting courses (ACC111, ACC112, and ACC212) in the Associate of Business Administration (ABUS) program. Following new course designs and textbook adoption in Fall 2023, faculty embedded PLO assessments in Canvas to track learning progression.

Does additional prerequisite instructional time for the same instructional content have an effect up success in BIO201?  Do one of the four prerequisite options (BIO156 and BIO181 4 credit hours, BIO156XT and BIO181XT 5 credit hours) lead to better success in BIO201?  BIO, in conjunction with OPIE studied the results of student success when completing BIO201 and testing which of the four prerequisite options best prepared students for success.  The results of BIO201 were compared for students who successfully completed one of the four prerequisites.

The purpose of this assessment is to explore the potential benefits of reintroducing Lab Write-Ups in science courses at EMCC as a means to enhance students’ science literacy. Lab Write-Ups provide an opportunity for students to share their data collection experiences, interpret results, and engage in scientific reading and writing. They also allow students to incorporate findings into their understanding of the natural world.

The entire Life Sciences FT faculty and the LS Administrative Specialist Sr, Lynn Abrams Comtois contributed to this CATS.   (Not all names were available to be selected and added in the section below). 

I created a series of discussion assignments for my BIO201 courses titled Anatomy of a Superhero for the purpose of prompting students to think about human anatomy and physiology from a different perspective and to help reinforce the principles of normal human anatomy and physiology.

In AY19/20 Jeff Miller created a Life Sciences Assessment tool that uses 24 questions to measure understanding of general biology concepts along with critical thinking, reading comprehension and data analysis skills in a biological context.  The tool was used in multiple BIO course sections primarily taught by FT faculty and a CATS by Shannon Manuelito (Aug.

The ECN faculty were interested in assessing our students' writing skills as we assign reserach papers to them each semester using the standard writing rubric.  Students' essays were collected at the end of the fall 2020 semester for analysis in spring 2021. This began with an inter-rater reliability study to normalize our responses, followed by assessing for baseline data.

CATS purpose:  See if a statistically significant difference existed on final exam scores (common assessment) between a 16-week online course & an 8-week online course, based on different class lengths of GBS151-Introduction to Business.  Given the upcoming HLC visit and emphasis upon institutional learning objectives (ILO's) and class learning objectives(CLO's), I wanted to assess student learning in this top 40 class, where students use critical thinking skills to successfully pass the final exam.    

The Life Sciences Division created a divsion level assessment. Though some biology courses were not able to complete the assessment due to the COVID19 response, results show an increase in score from lower level biology courses to higher level courses. 

Update: In Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, I continued to use the scaffolding handout that addressed conceptual understanding of limits at infinity (as described in this CATS). This handout addresses EMCC's ILO of critical thinking along with the CLO of choosing the most appropriate tool/technique to solve a problem. In both Fall and Spring semesters, I had similar results with roughly 75% of students (both semesters) answering the limits at infinity question correctly on the final.

Not all faculty have the time or nor want to teach in the calculus/physics learning community.  So, how do we help faculty who teach stand alone calculus courses?  Also, stand alone calculus courses do not have another instructor present to help emphasize concepts.  So, Becky is teaching a stand alone calculus course in Fall 18 to see if she can cut down on some competencies, incorporate labs, and she will compare her course to other instructors who teach non-learning community calculus courses.  Did Becky's class perform the same, worse or better on the common final?