Group/Teams

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.

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.

In Fall 2015, of my Introduction to Psychology classes, I had an honors class required to do a research project. As such, I decided to have my honors class students research, design, run and analyze their own projects (for examples of their projects, feel free to email me!).

At the end of the semester I gave a common final to all of my introductory courses. To explore if actively doing research methods helps learning, I pulled questions from the final having to do with research methods and analyzed performance on those particular questions compared to the test as a whole.

In the flipped classroom, we spend the majority of class time working in groups at the boards.  I typically only change groups a couple of times in the semester.  My goal for Spring 2016 is to change groups at least twice each class session, meaning that students will work in at least 3 different groups each time the class meets.  Since this hybrid class meets 13 times (excluding 2 days for Midterm and FInal), this means that the students will work with at least 26 different groups.  This will force the students to work with nearly everyone (if not everyone) in the class

For over three years, I have collaborated with peer mentors from the peer mentoring program in my developmental reading classes including rdg 081, 091, 095, and CRE 101 when the group looped up from RDG 091.  There has been a dramatic increase in student retention, course completion and completion of the next round of courses at the 100 level and above as compared to those sections without a peer mentor.  

This assessment is to help with the concerns of the students overall learning objectives, test scores, application in the nursing clinical setting, and critical thinking knowledge. We attacked the problem by doing a classroom assessment of all 29 students. The outcome of the assessment showed that learning and testing was on a roller coaster ride. So we became innovated and created voice threads with power points to be done at home, and the classroom became the s environment for active learning.

To get the best image quality from a digital camera, you need to shoot in camera raw (.dng).  Raw files contain more detail compared to a jpg file.  I'd shown before and after images to my Photoshop class, and demonstrated how to use Camera Raw but students tended to accept the image basically as it stood.  

The EDU students at EMCC strive to become future preK-12th grade teachers.  I strive to prepare my students for the reality of teaching by teaching the students to lesson plan, to provide effective instruction,  and in maintaining strong classroom management.   For the past 3 years, my students have learned the foundational skills in each area through in-class lesson plan writing and teaching their lessons to peers.  While this is valuable practice,  it is not the same as actually teaching children.   In or

Observation is the heart and soul of cultural anthropolgy. For ASB 214, an Intro to Comparative Religion, I assigned the class to view a video explaining the basics of ethnrographic research. For the next class, I paired them up and assigned each pair to observe a specific "culture area" on campus, i.e. the studuent union, the bookstore, etc. They had to develop a research question (Which do students use more often for purchases? Cash or debit?), observe their area for 20 mins and take observation notes, then analyze their findings. Were they able to answer their research question?

Most chemistry labs are of the "cookbook" style, the labs are a series of steps to perform in the alloted time and not much thought goes into the performance.  The other option is to give students a problem to solve and then give them free reign to design a lab.  Many of the students have no idea where to begin the design phase of a lab and end up just looking up a cookbook lab and trying to make it work.  The other problem with the free reign option is safety and logistics with the laboratory prep.  Is it a safe lab?

At the beginning of each class I post 3-4 questions on the board to review the previous day's information.  This also allows time for me to take attendance and set up the classroom for the days activity. I would allow about 10 min. for this activity and then have students present their solution.  I did not collect the papers.  There was not much accountability and some student's would purposefully come in late to avoid the work.  

The "I Am Human" Campaign focuses on choosing language that creates an inclusive culture demonstrating social awareness. Students watched the "I Am Human" video in addition to reading about the campaign on the EMCC website. Students participated in a pre/post survey and discussion board directly connected to the campaign. Their weekly video reflection and final journal entry are typical assignments in the Sociology courses. The students mentioned the campaign in both assignments as examples of what impacted them in the course. Please see the attached document on the results.

A key to fully appreciate art is understanding the creative journey and the underlying creative critical thinking which leads to the “message and meaning” of the piece.

Honors students are given the option of completing an individual or small group creative project to fulfill their honors enrichment plan.

Every anthropology class starts with an explanation of anthropology and the fact that there are four main sub-fields in anthropology (i.e. Archaeology, Cultural, Linguistics, Physical.)  Each anthropologist specializes in one of these fields.  At the beginning of the semester each field is discussed, explained, and students are encouraged to think of examples of each.  After understanding the fields, they are asked which of the fields they think they would like best.