Online

Programming assignments traditionally involve some problem analysis, algorithm design, and typing/testing code. While designing a new Level II course, I wanted to provide for a different way of thinking about problems and to integrate real-world context. I developed a two-part assignment on secure coding for database applications, specifically teaching students about SQL-injection attacks and how to defend against them. Instead of giving students a paragraph-long program description, I provided a couple of articles and links. 

After reading chapter 4, Introduction to Active Directory and Account Management, students will install Active Directory and Delegate controls through web-based labs.  The labs will walk them through multiple steps including installation, configuration and the administration of elements within Active Directory. 

One learning objective for Com 100 is to have students explain the essential elements of communication using representative communication models. In a F2F setting this can be demonstrated easily by putting the essential elements of a model on the whiteboard and  having students stand by the elements such as the “sender” and “receiver” element. They next model the  elements in an interactive process.  This semester, I assigned students the same assignment,  to diagram a recent conversation they had using a model of communication.

In another assessment, the gender issues survey incorporated in SOC 212 as a pre and post survey is discussed. The focus is on similarities and differences between the pre and post results. This assessment focuses on the post survey as a comparison between hybrid and online. A spreadsheet is attached with the results for Spring 2013. The similarities between the hybrid and online courses include 1. majority of students indicate that most of the listed gender issues are important and very important (higher end of scale) 2.

Faculty librarians from all of the Maricopa Community Colleges cooperatively staff a real-time instant messaging service called Ask-a-Librarian (Ask). Through the Ask service, these librarians assist students from all colleges with research during the day and contract with a cooperative of librarians for additional support 24/7/365. A district-wide committee of librarians oversees the service.

In order to compare the performance of those students who had placed directly into ENG101 (placers) with students who had completed ENG091 in order to get into ENG101 (completers), we completed an ENG101 common assignment and assessed an equal number of each group.  We used most of the EMCC Writing Rubric (Focus, Support, Organization, Language Use, and Mechanics--scale of 1 - 4.)  All nine residential ENG faculty took part in the assessment on January 7, 2013 -- we particiapted in norming and then scored papers.

Having taught MAT151 (College Algebra) in both Fall 2011 and Spring 2012, I noticed that a fair number of students were having difficulty understanding the concept of a function.  Many failed to recognize how a function's output value varies in a predictable way based on changes to its input value, and most had a hard time connecting the geometric, tabular, verbal and equation representations of a function. Developing this understanding is critical to student success in MAT151 and subsequent math classes.

In the past I have used a program call MyMathLab (or MathXL) to test students understanding of mathematical concepts.  One of the frustrations I always had was that students could use a "help me solve this" or "view an example" help tool to walk them through their assignments, but they never learned.  This resulted in very high homework scores, but not as good of scores on the exams.  For example, in Spring 2011, my students had a class average of 93.8% on the homework and 88% on the quizzes.  However, their midterm average was only 80.7% and the final exam average was o

One student outcome for this online Intercultural COM course is "Continue to move forward into and/or through the ethnorelative stages of intercultural communication competency." The assessment is a self-created profile survey based upon the Milton J. Bennett, Ph.D., Dev. Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Ethnocentric levels (ascending order) are 1 Defense, 2 Denial, 3 Minimization.

Using SAAC’s EMCC General Education Abilities Matrix the residential librarians assessed 4 key Information Literacy competencies; Framing the Research Question, Accessing Sources, Evaluation of Information Resources and Create Original Work.

The librarians created a rubric  which defined each of the 4 Information Literacy competencies and rated each on a clearly defined 3 level scale. Data was collected from 13 courses for a total of  24 sections.  346 students took part in the study. 

A general survey on gender issues was given at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester. There were two questions for each gender issue: (1) how important is the issue and (2) how much work needs to be done on the issue. The issues focused on the feminist movement, reproductive rights, economic justice, gender and violence, men and masculinity, lgbtq rights, gender and language, gender and the media, gender and politics, social activism and social change. A 5 point Likert scale (not important to very important) was used.

Gugel