Students kept an Excavation Journal through the five weeks of ENH251: Mythology. They were advised to use their journal to record: observations, notes, questions, ideas, images, sketches, maps and artifacts in addition to the answers to the various Dig Sheets. Each Dig Sheet focuses on a particular area of world mythology, engaging the student in reflective thinking about assigned readings while also encouraging their use of creativity.
I had nine students who were disengaged in group discussions. They had not actively participated in our class discussions by: being active, speaking up, volunteering for activities, or asking or answering questions.
To help, I used nine small candy bars, and taped them to the bottom of these student's desk. Students discussed nine key points in small groups. This way every student was actively involved in the learning of the material. After, students had to reach under their desk, and if they had a chocolate bar they were the chosen ones to share.
I discovered:
I have required my introductory statistics students to meet with tutors in the student success center as part of course requirements for the past three academic years. However, without accountability, very few attend. To this end, I designed a passport for students that needed to be signed by the tutor with time logged as well as weekly comments that reflected their experience with course content. Students were required to spend at least 6 hours in tutoring during the semester with at least two hours completed during each third of the semester to avoid students using the 6
I have used the textbook for reviewing physics content. In the fall spring of 2015, I allowed students an option of doing small at home labs/demos, video themselves doing the activity and explaining the physics behind it. I found that the students who did these activities liked them and demonstated a deeper understanding of the material. In the fall of 2016, I decided to expand this idea and make the assignment a larger requirement of the overal grade. I also provided more opportunities to do these type of small projects.
Trying to visualize molecular processes for students can be very challenging. Neil Raymond and I decided to try 3-D printed objects to use in the classroom to teach these concepts in Biology. I used the database thingiverse to search for models, and Neil designed and printed his own working sarcomere through tinkercad. After using the models in class, I discovered that they can be powerful tools to aid in conceptualizing and visualizing processes, especially at the molecular level. The 3-D printing is a compliment to STEM curriculum and promotes problem solving skill
A straight lecture on cell structures is torture for students. To remedy this, I designed a system of flashcards where each organelle is represented by 3 types of cards: a picture card, a structure card, and a characteristic card. Cards have alignment hints for the other two cards. Each group of 4 students is given one set of 36 cards. They work together to align the 3 cards for each organelle. While groups are engaged in collaborative work to tease out details about each organelle, I can work more closely with each student as they learn to critically evaluate card content.
The problem: Some students have been misinterpreting my instructions for class assignments with multiple steps. With two multiple stepped assignments, on average 6 out of 31 students missed a concept.
The process: Peer groups consisted of 4 students. After groups were given instructions for the assignment, peers repeated the instructions to their group. Afterwards, each group (8 tables) had to summarize and rewrite the instructions on a mini white board.
*Not being one to explicitly tell students to place their electronic devices away, I wanted to see if I could not only do that (that is, have them put them away) but also assess their basal understanding of communication concepts within COM 225, public speaking.
Two of my hybrid EDU classes this semester were challenging me to actively engage my students, especially when involved in group tasks or assignments. Collaborative groups expert Spencer Kagan recommends, among a variety of strategies, the use of Talking Tokens. Each student is given 3 tokens (I use paper clips from a box in the middle of each table). As they talk, ask a question, give a suggestion, etc., they put a token back in the box. When they are out of tokens, they cannot talk until everyone else in their group is also out. Then, the process begins again.
Learning Community (LC) faculty have been saying for 6 years that the main focus on the LC is to help students in future STEM courses. Majoring in a STEM field is difficult; math is a barrier for most students. Approximately 20% of community college students start as a STEM major with 69% of them changing it to non-STEM. The LC course is designed to help students be successful STEM students and truly understand how math and physics are intertwined. So, student grades were analyzed from fall 2010 - spring 2016. Students that went through the LC vs.
Each module for my HIS 102 Online class has a section for student feedback. I would like to see how much feedback I receive from students and the quality of feedback for each lesson. Currently, the conclusion section has a few online videos that students can watch so they can learn more about the subject covered and a section where students can ask questions regarding the material (what they understood, what they are confused on, etc.). I would like to see how many students provide feedback even though it is not required.
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.
Graphing Linear Equations is one of the most difficult concepts for students enrolled in MAT 091. There are many different equations, formulas, and concepts that all build on each other. Every year my students struggle with this exam and no matter how I presented this information or interventions I made, nothing seemed to make it better. In previous years I had suggested to students to make note cards but I didn't give them any guidance on how to create them and I did not follow through to make sure they completed the note cards.
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.
In my RDG courses my students complete weekly Reading Response Journals (RRJ). Students are required to read anything they would like and fill out a template with required information about what they read. They are required to format the information in a specific way. I observed that students consistently struggled with the correctly formatting the document and making sure they included all the correct information, and were losing many points as a result. I had provided detailed instructions on how to format the document/information but students were still struggling.