Providing student feedback

The Communication Abilities Rubric assesses areas of physical and vocal delivery.  Instructors and students have not fully understood the categories in the rubric. As an innovative approach, my Com230H section did a media project breaking down each element of the rubric into video. I allowed for flexibility with strict guidelines to ensure all disciplines and communication research was covered. Next, 18 students assessed themselves 3x for 3 group presentations.

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.

A prior CATS (Accounting Chapter 6 Re-Teach, March of 2016) measured what was learned in inventory valuation from one semester to another, after a teaching intervention (candy example) was included.  Although the grade/scores improved from the formative assessment, the first quiz, the class average for the second quiz was only 11 out of 20 or 55%, which is a failing grade.  Since this second quiz was not for a grade, but rather just a summative evaluation for research purposes, I decided to use the same quiz, but as a graded item for Fall of 2016 and Spring of 2017.

In fall 2017, I piloted the use of single-point rubrics for certain assignements in my online ENH 245 class. Typically, a single-point rubric provides the criteria for proficiency,  and then allows for feedback for how a student exceeded or failed to achieve proficiency in given areas, the goal being that the "undefined advanced column" places no limits on how students might stretch themselves" (Gonzalez, 2014).

In our Introduction to Education course, one of our major topics is ethical behavior by teachers. Materials covered include some reading materials on ethical behavior, the National Education Association teacher ethics, and a voice-over Ppt covering the topic. The follow up assessment is a series of situations, all of which have occurred in local K-12 education settings, to which the students must describe the correct ethical pathway to take. Scores on this assignment averaged at 77%. This was disappointing, especially considering the serious nature of the topic.

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.

Instructors are tasked with having to prepare EMT students for work in pre-hospital, in-hospital and now more recently, mobile integrated healthcare settings.  The use of simulation in the classroom helps prepare students for the workplace by exposing them to a broad variety of situations they may encounter by allowing them to apply knowledge and skills without endangering a live patient.  During the simulation the students are placed in an environment set to a standardized patient scenario with a variety of sensory distractors such as props, smells, patient actors with moulage (m

The problem:  Some students have been misinterpreting my instructions for class assignments with multiple steps.  With two multiple stepped assignments, on average 6 out of 31 students missed a concept. 

The process:  Peer groups consisted of 4 students.  After groups were given instructions for the assignment, peers repeated the instructions to their group. Afterwards, each group (8 tables) had to summarize and rewrite the instructions on a mini white board. 

*Not being one to explicitly tell students to place their electronic devices away, I wanted to see if I could not only do that (that is, have them put them away) but also assess their basal understanding of communication concepts within COM 225, public speaking.  

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:

Cross cultural psychology (Psy 132), is an introductory course which examines human diversity in behavior and culture using examples from a variety of contexts within western and global societies. This is a popular course among non-psychology majors, based primarily on its “Big 3”General Education designation: Cultural Diversity, Global Awareness, and Social and Behavioral Sciences.

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.

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.

In 2012 Service Learners in COM100 Honors Cohort prepared and presented Informative Speeches based upon their project and a related Social, Civil, or Global (SCGR) issue. As reported on my CATS submission, only 50% of the students included the issue aspects on the visual aid. In Fall 2015 regular COM100 students (not Honors or Service Learners), were given the opportunity to select a SCGR issue to research and present to class as their "Final Exam" Informative Speech.

Note: This CATS is being submitted by Rebecca Baranowski, Michelle Breaux, Teri Graham, Sarah Lockhart and Luvia Rivera. In summer 2015, these math faculty attended the Johnson & Johnson Cooperative Learning Institute at SMCC. One of the suggested activities for increasing cooperative learning is to put folders on the tables at the beginning of class. Inside of the folders is a warm up for students to work on together. The institute suggested having only 1-2 sheets of paper in the folder to "force" students to talk to each other about the documents in the folder.