Face to Face

Great ideas can happen anytime, anywhere. To make it easy to keep track of ideas for course/ lesson planning improvement, I developed a “Course Edits Tracker” worksheet in Google Docs for each ot the courses I teach. This document can be accessed anywhere, anytime, online. The form includes a field to track why the change is needed or how the idea will improve the course/ activity/ lesson along with a field to enter student performance/ measure/ outcomes of the proposed edits/ enhancements.

Time from subject matter in class to attend the 2019 Spring Student Success Fair was worthwhile.
 

The effectiveness of concept mapping will be investigated in introductory chemistry students' achievement.  The researcher will test the hypothesis which stated that the implementation of concept mapping in teaching introductory chemistry will increase students’' performance.  The sample will be two sections, one will be the experimental group and another group will be the control group.  Both groups had taken a pretest.  The experimental group will draw concept maps for the units taught and will be part of their journal.  The units will include naming, moles, balancing equation, stoichiome

Introductory Biology for Allied Health, Bio 156, is a course many students take for the nursing major.  This course teaches a number of concepts that are important and repeated throughout other biology prerequisite courses (Bio 201 Anatomy and Physiology I, Bio 202 Anatomy and Physiology II, and Bio 205 Microbiology), nursing block 1-4 courses, and the NCLEX, nursing certification exam.  The purpose of this CATS is to question whether the concepts we teach are retained through the courses. We decided to pick one topic and study this process.

Having now completed 3 semesters teaching BIO 182 - General Biology II for Science Majors, the area consistiently identified by student surveys as in need of improvement is the "Quality of the Textbook."  The book is expensive (>$100), and yet, I have observed that many/ most students do not read the supplemental chapters that align with lectures / activities / labs unless I assign end-of-chapter comprehension questions.  Following being awarded a FRACTYL grant last spring, I have been developing an OER, consisting of a series of engaging, supplemental videos that focus on case studies (

Chemistry students are required to think about the atomic nature of matter, while only being able to see the macroscopic level.  To help them, we use particle (atomic) level diagrams that rely on different colors, shapes and lines to represent different types of particles, phases, reactions, and temperatures.  These models are used throughout their chemistry courses particularly when systems become too complex to describe concisely in text or formulas.  A firm grasp of understanding and drawing these diagrams is important for success in the future.  However we never directly assess individu

In fall 2010, I wrote a workbook to replace the $250 textbook.  Please note:  I do not receive royalties from this workbook.  The workbook (wb) was used in the calculus/physics learning community as well as traditional calculus classes by me only.  Over the years, I have made modification to the wb.  As I became more comfortable with the flow of the course, changing my pedagogy and curriculum because of what I have learned from Dwain and Angela in the learning community,  and really starting to grasp where students struggle and why, I adjusted the workbook.

CPD 104 is a Career & Personal Development course. Students prepare for a Mock Interview event to learn how to acquire a career with a successful interview. A career portfolio is an assignment my students complete prior to the Mock Interview. Students would have their portfolios but use it only to give a copy of their resume.  Students would also reflect afterwards that they recalled an example they forgot to share when nervous. For fall 2018, I included a cheat sheet into the portfolio, a typed document that has examples for behavioral questions.

Applying course content to real world experience so students understand why they are learning an applicable skill. Although using desktop publishing programs such as Adobe InDesign is a critical skill expected in many graphic design occupations, few students understand what desktop publishing is or how important it is. I wanted my EMCC students to experience the "scratch and sniff" effects of producing and publishing print products. So, when I first taught Adobe InDesign in Fall 2016, I arranged for my students to create print products for the Career and Transfer Center.

Multiple Intelligences is a theory that students have "intelligence" in a variety of fields (artistic, mathmatic, kinestetic, verbal, etc). By allowing students to use their strengths applied in to context of the discipline (in my case Communication), students can hopefully feel more confident in their abilities and engage better with the content. This could be aplied to practically any project in any discipline.