Developmental Education Strategies

Extremely Simple "One Minute Paper"

Submitted by Inhye Peterson on

I incorporated "One Minute Paper" classroom assessment technique by K. Patricia Cross (1993) into ENG091 classroom learning during the entire semester of Fall 2017.  By far, this class had the most diverse student population that was comprised of: Junior ACE (high school dual students), traditional first year underprepared students, Adult Re-entry students, and students with disability.

How can we narrow the holes in the sieve?

Submitted by Neil Raymond on

BIO 201 is considered a ‘sieve’ class, in that it often weeds out the students who are not ready to advance to more difficult classes, and it is not uncommon for 40-50% of the class to fail, making the holes in the sieve rather large.

High school biology is the only prerequisite to enroll in BIO201 and it seems that students who have taken a BIO 156/181 prior to 201 have performed better.  To evaluate this observation, an informal survey was given to students to gather information about their previous biology experience.  

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

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.

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:

Summer Success Institute - Round 1

Submitted by Melinda Sanchez on

Student Life (Herschel Jackson) created the Summer Success Institute (SSI) and collaborated with Student Success Programs/NSO (Daniel Meador & MElinda Sanchez) to provide intense workshops to prepare first semester students for Fall 2016.  The SSI provided first year students with a jumpstart to their college success through the energizing and dynamic experiences. Students learned how to navigate successfully the college environment. The institute consisted of four 3- hour workshops during the month of July.

Using a Syllabus Questions Document to Increase Student Use of Syllabus

Submitted by Benjamin Walton on

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Need: Students who make use of class/campus resources perform better academically. However, many rarely use their syllabi. As a result, students frequently ask instructors for things like due dates, class policies, or the # of assignments/points in a class. I've attached two docs: Syllabus Questions & a syllabus.

Flashcards and Critical Thinking

Submitted by Amy Weibel on

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.

Edible Book: Engaging Students for National Library Week

Submitted by Elisabeth Rodriguez on

Using National Library Week as a vehicle for outreach to students has been a continual goal for the Information Resources Department. The purpose of the promotion of this week is to engage students to connect and celebrate their library, in this case, Estrella’s library. Previous endeavors included free food and promotional giveaways, however, these activities did not really engage in a connection between the Library, research assistance, and services.

Does the early bird get the worm????

Submitted by Rachel Smith on

EMCC has recently instituted a "no late enrollment" policy, due to the understanding that "learning starts on Day One" and the idea that students who enroll after the first day of class generally are not as prepared, and therefore not as successful as their peers who were in the class from the beginning.  However, does this phenomenon reach back even further in time?  Do students who enroll early in a class do better than those that enroll at the last minute (even though they did enroll before the first day)?

Planning for Success

Submitted by Jamie Lopez on

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:

Screening and Assessment in Early Childhood Education

Submitted by Lisa Buccigrosse on

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.

Note cards in a math classroom

Submitted by Luvia Rivera on

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.

Tree Diagram...

Submitted by display_name_fallback on

For the last couple of years I have noticed that students tend to forget what they have learned even after scoring well in the exams.
Once students learn a new module/chapter, most of them seem to completely forget about the previous chapters which is not a very good sign especially for a mathematics student.