Face to Face

This syllabus research project is an example of assessing learning practices to enhance learning environments at the classroom, program, and college level. I learned from student success literature that often, underrepresented students will not ask for exceptions to syllabus policies while their counterparts will, thus creating unintentional equity gaps with class syllabus policies. I studied various course syllabi from EMCC classes to see how my policies compare. I then surveyed EMCC faculty and students about the course syllabus.

Using discussion protocols in a live online learning format promotes independent student collaboration and engagement in group discussions through quality instruction and student support. In conjunction with the use of Google documents and live online breakout rooms (Zoom, Webex, or Google Meets), protocols drive independent student discussion and collaboration using a set of guidelines that include student roles and responsibilities. Discussion protocols also allow for fostering student-to-student relationships and for providing immediate real-time feedback by faculty.

Hypothesis: Learning modality change is related to a decline in student success as measured by scores for BIO205 prerequisite gene expression knowledge.

This assessment assesses the CLO of "Students will pick the most appropriate tool/technique to solving a problem" as well as the ILO of written communication. 

Update (1 week after CATS was originally submitted): After submitting this CATS, students began learning about Power Series (which is one reason to learn Convergence/Divergence of series discussed in this CATS).  WIth the scaffolding handout, they were able to come up with how to deteremine convergence/divergence of Power Series on their own!  Again, I typically have to do a lot more lecture, but I didn't.  The scaffolding handouts layed the ground work for this next section, and the students were highly engaged, talking, collaborating, and coming up with concepts on their own.

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. 

The LS division instituted the use of embedded tutors in our nursing track courses, BIO 156, 181, and 201. We compared grades between our courses with the embedded tutors to our previous courses without an embedded tutor. The results are mixed. There seems to be little change in successful course completion however there were larger differences in average scores. The timing of this intervention must also be mentioned as it coincides with the great online migration.

Peer Lead Focus and Learning Review

Monitoring student engagement and learning during class & providing feedback is tough due to lack of time. One way to do this is Peer lead learning review; it monitors engagement and provides feedback.

The class was divided into six groups of four students; one student acted as a peer leader. The peer leaders were rotated after 3 weeks, allowing each group member to act as a peer leader.

As a Communications instructor I stress the importance of public speaking skills in many of my courses.  To aid students in optimizing their speech presentations, I include class time for small group rehearsal.  After a dozen semesters teaching communications I have observed that many students do not engage in the rehearsal activity or they use the dedicated time ineffectively.  To optimize the process and motivate students to practice their speeches, I changed the lesson plan in two ways: 1) conduct more than one rehearsal activity for shorter periods of time and 2) break down the componen