Cooperative/Collaborative Learning

Will a peer sample motivate growth?

Submitted by Christina Van on

In the 3rd week of PSY 101 students have to complete an assignment critical to college success (locating a research article in an academic journal on a specific topic and providing a summary, APA style reference, & informed opinion).  Recognizing that this task is usually just beyond the students' current abilities, I use extensive scaffolding to support their acquisition of these important skills. Nonetheless, grades on this assignment remain low and approximately 60 % of students are unable to successfully complete the full task.

An Exam by any other name

Submitted by Jennifer Shannon on

My students always seem to be intimidated by the word exam. I wanted to see what and why this happens. I gave the students a "practice problem" on graphing functions based on algebra and calculus ideas. They were not allowed to work on it together, however I did not call it an exam. I wanted to see how they did knowing it was not an exam. The students performance on the "practice" was outstanding. There were small errors in the algebra but the overall concept was near perfect. Out of two sections, a total of 53 students, everyone scored 90% or better.

Communal Corrections: Facilitating Class-Led Peer Revisions in College Composition Courses

Submitted by Brittney Sifford on

After several years of teaching writing, it is clear that revision is the most important and most difficult part of the writing process.  I have stopped the traditional process of partnering student up, trading papers, and having them make random corrections.  Now, we correct papers as a class, we have substantive discussions about decisions in writing, and my students are actually learning how to be better writers.  I have used this in my ENG101 and ENG102 courses at EMCC, but this can easily be used in any course that incorporates writing.  I think this would be extrem

"I love statistics": How mastery learning changed students' learning

Submitted by display_name_fallback on

Statistics elicit overall student angst, which affects grades, attitude, attrition and learning. Although students attended tutoring, were allowed to re-do homework and engaged in interactive classroom experiences, PSY 230 course retention rate remained at 25%. I used a different pedagogical technique this semester - Mastery Learning - which was used successfully in K-12 grades. Rather than a traditional letter grade or percentage on assignments, students received "not yet" grades and instructor feedback. Resubmissions were accepted as many times as necessary to reach mastery.

Question of the Day: What does this have to do with math?

Submitted by Michelle Breaux on

For the last 2 years, I have been using a question of the day to start my classes as part of a cooperative learning strategy learned from taking the Johnson & Johnson Cooperative Learning workshop.  After doing this for a a year, I wanted to get feedback from students, so I included items about the questions of the day (along with other cooperative activities) on my end of course evaluation.

Practice Practical for BIO 160 Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology

Submitted by Rebecca Currey on

At the end of the semester, students in BIO160 take a cumulative lab practical.  A practical exam is set up in stations, the students physically move from station to station and has a “set up” from a lab.  There are 2-3 questions for each station; the exam is timed.  The first semester giving the practical, the scores were very low.  In an attempt to improve the scores, I gave the students a review and the grades improved slightly.  This has been the routine for a few semesters.  At the end Fall16, I tried a practice practical.  After an informal survey, I

Trigonometry: Teaching concepts "out of order" and contextualizing content

Submitted by Becky Baranowski on

A prerequisite to physics is MAT182.  Students need to know law of sine/cosine, and vector concepts from trig to be successful in physics.  In the past, I would spend a lot of time classify triangles (SSS, ASA, etc) to help students know which "law" to use, and this was done at the end of the semester.  I did not spend time using law of sine/cosine with vector applications .  Students typically scored a low B on law of sine/cosine problems.   In F17, I taught the "laws" and incorporated vectors in week 4 to show students real life applications.

Utilizing Canvas Outside of the Classroom

Submitted by Jake Ormond on

Participants registered and attended the face-to-face workshop that was presented using Canvas. Individuals registered for the course using a provided link. Participants completed a pre-assessment to measure their understanding of utilizing Canvas outside of the classroom according to the learning objectives. After the pre-assessment the workshop included topics on the purposes of using a LMS (according to eLearning Industry), connecting benefits of a LMS to out-of-class activities, and discussing how EMCC can move forward with these ideas in mind.

Comparing Final Exam Scores

Submitted by Becky Baranowski on

Every semester, students perfrom poorly on the final exam for calculus I (MAT22X); the average is typically a D/F.  Students are given an indepth review guide of all topics in the course along with the answer key that includes detailed steps on how to do each problem.  I often make changes to my pedagogy, handouts, activities, exams, homework, and other assessments every semester. In Spring 17, two main things changed in my MAT221 course.  

Destroying the Box: Learning to Unleash Creativity Learner Inquiry Group

Submitted by Erin Blomstrand on

We specifically investigated how we can integrate creativity more effectively in the classroom for the benefit of both students and faculty. Our investigation included: reading Creative Confidence, learning more about Design Thinking challenges, locating and sharing creativity resources, using creativity to personally address one teaching challenge, and implementing at least one actitivty/lesson/strategy that we deveop using creativity to at least one class this semester.

Increasing Student Participation...with some chocolate

Submitted by Dori Navarette-Lynch on

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:

Counseling Division Mini-Retreat

Submitted by Catherine Cochran on

During the Spring 2017 semester, our Counseling Division held a retreat with all our residential and adjunct faculty.  At our retreat, we provided a catered lunch and shared best practices from our CPD 150 courses.  We discussed our OER Canvas curriculum for our CPD 150 classes.  We have five modules in Canvas for our CPD 150 courses:  College Resources, Time and Planning, Personal Development, Study Skills, and College and Careers.  We divided our division faculty into five groups, and assigned each group a module from Canvas.  Each group evaluated their modul

Using Prezi to Make Research Writing Projects More Successful

Submitted by Jill Santy on

For both students and instructors, major writing research projects are problematic:  they're especially difficult for students who lack strong writing skills, and they difficult for instructors in the time it takes to grade the projects.  After several semesters grading a major APA-style career research 5-7 page paper for CPD 150, I was disappointed in student scores (especially in grammar), and I never looked forward to the amount of time I knew it would take me to grade all of the papers.  It was time to "build a better mousetrap"!

PHY131/MAT231 LC Integration

Submitted by Dwain Desbien on

In our first run of the PHY131/MAT231 learning community (LC) in Fall 16, we tried a format of seting up a physics problem on an exam, and then use the resulting integral to be solved on the math portion of the exam. We would like to do this for each of the 5 exams in Fall 17. This would allow/require us to focus on intgrals from day one and reorder material in both classes. Some reordering was done in Fall 16, but after our first time around, we realize that more needs to be changed.