Practice

Formative assessment & adaptive teaching with Kahoot!

Submitted by Cecilia Rosales on

Intervention background:

In my TTH hybrid class, students complete assignments every MWF. Some assignments include grammar video tutorials and questions based on the videos.  

In-class group work and HW scores told me students had mastered the use of double object pronouns.  However, students performed poorly (79.8% average) on the timed chapter exam (50 seconds per question).

Does incorporating a kinesthetic assignment improve student learning of a complex topic?

Submitted by Rachel Smith on

Gene expression is a complex multi-step process that students struggle to learn. There are many terms to memorize and then students need to remember the functions and roles of all the molecular players and the order in which each molecule participates in the overall process. I currently use lecture, diagrams, animations, a worksheet and websites to teach this topic and I have also incorporated a hands-on lab using manipulatives where the students create their own working model of gene expression using yarn, foam pieces, pasta, playdoh, post-its and other random junk (see attached pics).

Direction Fields

Submitted by Becky Baranowski on

Students struggle with using direction fields to solve a given problem.  In the 1st two semesters, lecture was primarily used with handouts and group work being utlized more in the last 3 semesters.  Students have continually received a C grade on the direction field exam question and a C/B average on homework questions.  In Fall 2014, the handout was modified, and students worked in groups with no guidance from the instructor.  Technology as incorporated as well (MATLAB) to graph the direction fields.

Bacterial Minicases

Submitted by Bronwen Steele on

Minicases provided to students contain info about the bacterium from the patient and the patient signs/symptoms. The objective for the students is to correctly ID which organism causes the infection and explain why to support their answer. Minicases provide info concerning both of the areas(bacteria & patient) in 2-4 sentences. I wanted to see if students could id these two areas cold turkey - no lecture from me, just reading the minicase. The majority of students just identified bacteria info as important - 70%. Only 25% identified both disease info and bacterial info.

Unit 3 ASL Practice: Places You Have Gone To

Submitted by display_name_fallback on

After learning some foundation of American Sign Language, students are expected to sign a short story.  On my video, I signed about three places I have gone to in the past, whom I went to, and what we did at these places.  Then I asked students to tell me the three places they have gone to, with whom, and what did they do.  There is no caption or translation on the video, and students are expected to understand what I am signing about.

In-class Metacognitive/Reflective Grade Check Activities

Submitted by Selina Schuh on

My courses require online grade checks in week 3, 6, 9 and 12; however, low scoring students were not taking significant action to change their study habits. So I implemented in-class metacognitive/reflective activities the day after the grade checks where due (see attached document).

Final grade comparison:

JRN 201, Spring 2014, 8 completing students:

4 As, 1 B, 3 Cs, 0 failing students

Compared to

JRN 201, Fall 2013, 7 completing students:

1 A, 2 Bs, 2 Cs, 1 D, 1 F

Practice Makes Perfect - skills and drills for metric conversions

Submitted by Rachel Smith on

Nursing students (those enrolled in BIO156) and STEM majors (those enrolled in BIO181) are often underprepared when it comes to math skills.  In BIO156/181 one of the places where this becomes evident is with conversion of measurements between units (e.g. milimeters to micrometers etc...).  We cover the metric system in one lab, take one quiz the following week and then move on.  Many students score badly on the quiz, and never really learn from it or improve.

Logs - Am I just a bump? Helping 151 students better understand logarithms

Submitted by Jennifer Shannon on

Every semester, logs seem to be the most difficult topic for our students. I have tried to tie in the ideas to real world, show students why and how we use logs, but still no success in them fully understanding the material. The students do numerous homework problems, workbook pages and examples in class. This semester I decided to try something different. The students had a workbook page they did for homework, I checked it after they had time to work. Two class periods later I gave them a worksheet to do in class in their groups. They were to try doing as much of it without using notes.

Trig Identities - How do I identify

Submitted by Jennifer Shannon on

During the past few years of teaching trig, I have always had students struggle significantly with the trig identity chapter. Every semester I try to tweak the way I teach the material and the practice the students receive but I still have students that just don't grasp the material. Fall 2013 I decided to try extending my lecture days by one class and moving the exam. In doing this I was hoping that more time would lead to better success. It still did not make a significant difference.  Thus, this semester I decided to make even bigger changes.

Teaching Online Etiquette & Avoiding Plagiarism Using Role Play

Submitted by Kelly Loucy on

After a student plagiarized a“how to paraphrase” assignment, I was dismayed with student correspondence that I received due its tone and the student’s continued misunderstanding of why it was plagiarism. Because students often avoid paraphrasing, and instead choose to repeatedly use direct quotations, I created a student-instructor role play assignment for ENG 102. See attached assignment for details.

Bringing Science into Beginning Algebra

Submitted by Becky Baranowski on

Science faculty are constantly hearing from their students, "This isn't math! I didn't learn this in my math class". Many students are not able to transfer what they learned in math into their science courses.  Most of the concepts in MAT091 are crucial to success in science.  Throughout the semester, I met with 6 science faculty to discuss HOW students see these topics in science classes.