Incorporating Technology or new technologies

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

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"!

Need: While EDU students all do Field Experiences anywhere from 10 – 30 hours, sometimes their experiences don’t directly correlate to the competencies of the course they are taking.

Occasionally interpreter assistance is needed at the Library Desk but help isn’t always available. Identifying this opportunity, I designed a solution using Google Translate. I created a set of instructions with step-by-step directions for colleagues. Equipment purchased to support this solution were wireless mice & keyboards. This was necessary in order to facilitate sharing in the typing and browsing process. The outcome of the adoption of this approach to service has been successful.

In differential equations, a programming tool called MATLAB is required for the course.  MATLAB allows students to solve/estimate solutions to complex equations through coding.  The problems on the exams that require solving through coding are the number one reason why students do not pass the exam.   For example, every semester, for the last 5 years, students struggle with coding for two different estimation methods:  Euler and Runga-Kutta (rk4).  In past semesters, these two topics were taught separately with MATLAB done on different days.

To combat students being overly concerned with page length and the number of quotes/paraphrases when writing research papers, I decided to take the paper out of the equation. For this research project, students use the research process to determine how realistic the science/technology is in a selected Marvel film. By removing the paper, the students are able to focus on and practice the various steps in the research process, such as crafting a research proposal, annotated bibliography and outline.

This is the start of the CATS for the Learning Inquiry Group on Curricular Models for Sustainable Undergraduate Research. As the semester goes on this will be edited to include more of the details of our work. But in brief we will be creating a cross prefix class for undergraduate research. This will include course outline and comptenecies that can be put through the curriculum process for multiple prefixes (PHY, CHM...). Then next academic year we hope to offer at least one of these to complete cycle. 

This assessment is designed to review students final projects that they will construct during their e-commerce course. This project involves creating a simple storefront with a simple shopping cart as well as methods for utilizing social media to market the products.

ACC111, Accounting Principles I was new to the online format in the Spring of 2017.  This assessment measured student academic performance of those in the online course versus their counterparts in the face-to-face course of the following semester (I did not teach a F2F, 16-week session of this course in S2017).  Scores of the final course grades were compared to notate any difference in academic achievement/mastery.  

Results:

ONLINE, 16-Week, SP2017 - the class average of the final score was 82.68%

The SLPA program is somewhat unique given we are teaching clinical courses in an online format.  It can be difficult to demonstrate disorders and treatment without hands-on learning opportunities.  In order to address the need for examples of disorders and interventions to students, we have included a variety of videos and recorded lectures.  One of the speech sounds I cover in my SLP 214 course is the /r/.  The /r/ sound is one of the most common speech errors children see speech therapists for.

All too often, online courses require essay after essay and quiz after quiz. This CATS spices up the curriculum by including a variety of innovative, technology-driven assignments that are sure to engage students while also providing solid checks for content mastery. Student created videos, interactive discussions using video media, PowerPoints, Prezys, STAR quality magazine tutorials, visually-appealing brochures, and more are included as alternative assessments that are sure to spice up the class and the content!

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.

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.

For this CATS, I wanted to look at if there is any difference in test scores between students who quickly complete an online study tool prior to the exam and students who take hours or days to complete the same study tool. I gave my introductory Psychology students over a week to complete the online study tool (a Collaborate Learning Unit or “CLU,” name courtesy of Dr. Coleman) for each exam (data from 3 exams included in this analysis) and categorized them based on if they took less than an hour, from an hour to a day or more than one day to complete the study tool.

When I watch some of my students complete a 50 question multiple choice exam in 12 minutes, I wonder to myself, “that student can’t possibly be getting an A, can they?”