Formative Assessment

Traditional grading practices often fail to measure learning in the way instructors intend, as they can be influenced by subjectivity and implicit bias. These systems frequently turn grades into a form of negotiation, creating an adversarial relationship between students and instructors rather than a collaborative one. As a result, traditional grading can heighten student stress and anxiety while discouraging creativity, critical thinking, and cooperative learning.

Described is the use of a team-based healthcare case activity in BIO205 Microbiology to strengthen student diagnostic reasoning, communication, collaboration, and evidence-based decision-making. Working in randomly assigned groups, students were tasked with diagnosing a patient case while operating within a fixed budget and justifying each selected task or test to a simulated attending provider. The activity required students to interpret emerging evidence, revise their plans, and submit a final diagnosis supported by specific findings.

EMCC - OPIE in collaboration with the Shared Gov. Functional Council - POCE will implement a two-part assessment to evaluate how effectively the College is living its Core Values across the campus community. The first component, a Campus Pulse Survey, will measure community perceptions through both quantitative (Likert-scale) and qualitative (open-ended) responses to determine the extent to which the College demonstrates each Core Value.

This CATS presents an update on the implementation of Lab Write-Ups to foster and assess science literacy among lower-division chemistry students at EMCC. The Spring 2025 iteration aimed to provide structured, low-risk opportunities for students in CHM 130AA and 151AA to engage in discipline-specific writing, bridging foundational skills with expectations of upper-division coursework and professional life. Revisions included enhanced rubric criteria, clearer sentence starters aligned to learning outcomes, and refined peer review prompts.

Subjectively, it is believed students are more successful in MAT 151 ONLINE if they can process the information over 16 weeks versus 8 or 5 weeks.  After analyzing the data objectively, students enrolled in Bobbi Mohr's MAT 151 ONLINE courses from Spring 25 to Spring 24, using the same MOER course structure, yield the highest average success rates in 5 week courses.  The collective student success rate average for 5 week classes was 75.4%.

This CATs explores the use of a game-based learning activity, modeled after Taboo©, to boost student engagement, communication skills, and conceptual understanding across disciplines. Students worked in pairs to describe and guess course-specific terms without using certain "taboo" words, reinforcing complex concepts while improving verbal and listening abilities. Mixed-methods assessments revealed increased engagement, deeper understanding, and enhanced skills critical for STEM, healthcare, humanities, and social sciences.

I created a series of discussion assignments for my BIO201 courses titled Anatomy of a Superhero for the purpose of prompting students to think about human anatomy and physiology from a different perspective and to help reinforce the principles of normal human anatomy and physiology.

To improve student learning reflections through CATS and Program Review (Assessment Plan).

In conjunction with the 4DX campus initiative and the EMCC Super Goal #1, the math division developed the following WIG:  To contribute to closing the equity gap and improving a student’s sense of belonging, the Mathematics Division will increase the student’s response average on the twenty questions of the Classroom Community Survey (Rovai, 2002) from a 2.2 to 2.5 by December 2021.  Residential faculty reported what types of activities/practices were implemented in their classes to increase a student's sense of belonging.  Students reported an average

BIO 201, Human Anatomy & Physiology (A&P I), is a gateway course. Students learn about body structure (Anatomy) and function (Physiology) for the first time, covering enormous information. The human body is dynamic; when confronted with changes in its internal or external environments, the body systems collaborate (they don’t work in isolation) to keep its internal environment within stable working limits to maintain life.

Using discussion protocols in a live online learning format promotes independent student collaboration and engagement in group discussions through quality instruction and student support. In conjunction with the use of Google documents and live online breakout rooms (Zoom, Webex, or Google Meets), protocols drive independent student discussion and collaboration using a set of guidelines that include student roles and responsibilities. Discussion protocols also allow for fostering student-to-student relationships and for providing immediate real-time feedback by faculty.

Anatomy & Physiology is the foundational subject ; students learn about human body systems' structure and function. Structure and function complement each other if the structure changes it will affect the function and vise versa. The deeper understanding of the subject will help students understand the change and make connections among body systems; this is central to understand and treat the diseases. Case studies assignments help students link content knowledge to clinical application.

In Fall 20, math courses transitioned to a Live Online format versus traditional online. Faculty spent the summer frantically learning technologies and strategies through workshops, brainstorming sessions, and social media. Math faculty also trained one another on Zoom/Webex, NearPod, and Whiteboard.fi with a common goal -  to learn and implement new tools in the virtual environment to keep students engaged; increasing student success and persistence.

The Life Sciences Division created a divsion level assessment. Though some biology courses were not able to complete the assessment due to the COVID19 response, results show an increase in score from lower level biology courses to higher level courses. 

As a Communications instructor I stress the importance of public speaking skills in many of my courses.  To aid students in optimizing their speech presentations, I include class time for small group rehearsal.  After a dozen semesters teaching communications I have observed that many students do not engage in the rehearsal activity or they use the dedicated time ineffectively.  To optimize the process and motivate students to practice their speeches, I changed the lesson plan in two ways: 1) conduct more than one rehearsal activity for shorter periods of time and 2) break do