Online

All too often, online courses require essay after essay and quiz after quiz. This CATS spices up the curriculum by including a variety of innovative, technology-driven assignments that are sure to engage students while also providing solid checks for content mastery. Student created videos, interactive discussions using video media, PowerPoints, Prezys, STAR quality magazine tutorials, visually-appealing brochures, and more are included as alternative assessments that are sure to spice up the class and the content!

While attending the League for Innovation Learning Summit, I was struck by a keynote address by Rachel Fulcher-Dawson of Notre Dame & Corinne Weaver of Catholic Charities in Fort Worth, Texas. They shared the results of a partnership entitled "Stay the Course" in Fort Worth at Tarrant County Community College. The program is a planned intervention for low-income students. In structuring the study four main reasons for student drop-out were:

In EED 280 - Standards, Observation, and Assessment of Typical/Atypical Behaviors of Young Children Birth to Age Eight, in Module 5 of the course, students create and present a 5-8 slide PowerPoint presentation based on their analysis of the Module's readings which include articles and other texts.

Cross cultural psychology (Psy 132), is an introductory course which examines human diversity in behavior and culture using examples from a variety of contexts within western and global societies. This is a popular course among non-psychology majors, based primarily on its “Big 3”General Education designation: Cultural Diversity, Global Awareness, and Social and Behavioral Sciences.

For this CATS I explored how a Kahoot could help students be successful in studying for exams. I gave a traditional review session for Exam 2 (give students terms and tell them to define the terms and give examples for each of the terms in groups), and then for Exam 3 I did a Kahoot review session. Kahoot is an online polling tool where students can compete with one another to answer review questions and get to follow along with their progress as they go through the review session.

For this CATS, I wanted to look at if there is any difference in test scores between students who quickly complete an online study tool prior to the exam and students who take hours or days to complete the same study tool. I gave my introductory Psychology students over a week to complete the online study tool (a Collaborate Learning Unit or “CLU,” name courtesy of Dr. Coleman) for each exam (data from 3 exams included in this analysis) and categorized them based on if they took less than an hour, from an hour to a day or more than one day to complete the study tool.

Beginning Spring 2016, new E-Learning courses require students to submit the ELSO E-Learning Student Orientation badge. Previous courses have linked to the "Learner Responsibilities Orientation." The same online survey (quiz) used in the MAT182 Hybrid will be used to measure if students "understand" the Getting Started assignments in the MAT212 Hybrid (new) versus the MAT182 Hybrid (old). The survey asks students to “check” the competencies they understood before the module, and to “check” the competencies they understood after the module.

In ENH235: Survey of Gothic Literature I utilized gamification as a method for offering modified assignments (prizes) and extra credit. For each week, I created a "Scream Challenge" that was optional for students to complete. These were typically short critical thinking writing assignments. There were three levels of Scream Challenges: Monster Head (3 points), Mad Scientists (5 points), and Nightmares (10 points).

I'm very sold on the idea of using OERs (Open Educational Resources) -- they save students money, and they allow all students to have immediate access to course materials.  The downside is that some students seem less engaged with these types of course materials; I think this is because they have been conditioned to the ideas of a textbook.

Taking organized notes while learning both drafting and a software program, AutoCAD, helps with retention.  Notes will also be an integral part of the way we will communicate.  Students will use Google Docs. They will add notes of important drafting and drawing tips to remember later.  Usually as learning takes place, questions arise.  They can ask questions with a note or add a reminder to ask something later.  During Grade Checks this semester, students will share their notes with the instructor.

A key component of Anthropology classes is group discussion.  Students need to learn to respect other cultures but also their own, it is harder to connect & haver respect for people when they are faceless.  Having this discourse is hard in online classes where students get very little interaction other than in writing.

Assement: Early Childhood Education Lesson Plan on Creative and Cognitive Play incorproating components from all 6 Modules of the course. I want students to include and apply the following components within their lesson plan: ​1) Early Childhood Standards; 2) creative activities; 3) safetey considerations; 4) types of play; 5) creative art; 6) creative music and movement; and 7) materials and manipulatives using one of the provided lesson plan templates.

One of the biggest factors to student success is whether students are able to manage their time efficiently.  Canvas offers a fantastic way to sync personal calendars in i-cal and Google with Canvas assignments. To asses and encourage students use of this function, I compared a PSY 101 F:F course in which students were not provided instruction or calendar sync assignmet, to a SWU 102 course in which students were assigned a calendar sync assignment with instructions.

The beginning of the course is dedicated to helping students become familiar with the Canvas system, and the specific requirements for submitting online assignments for the class. The requirements for submitting online assignments for this class may be different from other online classes students have had. Especially since MyMathLab isn’t used. In-class and out-of-class practice will prepare students to submit online assignments and check their grade. An online survey (quiz) will measure if students "understand" the Getting Started assignments.

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.