Student Engagement

This assessment evaluates changes made to the Spring 2025 Data Center Alliance event at EMCC, hosted in collaboration with iMasons. Following the initial 2024 event, several enhancements were implemented, including expanded panel offerings, increased marketing efforts, the addition of industry tabling, and the incorporation of national best practices from Northern Virginia Community College. Attendance nearly doubled, student engagement significantly increased, and the event resulted in a $10,000 industry scholarship commitment for AIT technician students.

This study assesses the impact of an educational activity designed to enhance AI tool utilization among CHM151 students, with a focus on promoting ethical, effective use in academic work. Delivered as an in-class Canvas module, the activity aimed to educate students on AI operation, benefits, risks, and practical applications. The module also sought to improve students’ ability to identify inaccurate AI outputs and foster creative, responsible AI applications.

The "Let’s Get Ready Together" Open House at EMCC was a welcoming and informative event designed to prepare students and their support networks for the upcoming semester. With over 344 students and their support systems in attendance, the event featured faculty, staff, and representatives from multiple departments, offering guidance on academic, financial, and personal resources available on campus. Through lab tours, campus tours, and one-on-one interactions, attendees gained familiarity with campus facilities, course expectations, and support services.

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.

CAPS PLO assessment to measure CAPS student learning at the program level.  

Students teach peers how to schedule Spanish tutoring sessions to practice conversation via Cranium and Brainfuse.

Café Mariposa is an open pedagogy and experiential learning project. Students engage with the content and the campus community in a relaxed atmosphere where they can build Spanish vocabulary, and hone listening and interpersonal communication skills.

The ET (embedded tutoring) program was not sustained after the 22-23 academic school year.  Student surveys from Spring 22 report 62% of respondents say having an embedded tutor helped them feel comfortable asking for help; 60% of respondents report having an embedded tutor deepened their understanding of course topics and concepts; 49% of respondents report the embedded tutor improved their critical thinking skills.

When finding derivatives using the chain rule, a common student error is to "forget the chain".  By visually confirming the derivative equation they calculated matches the derivative graph generated by Desmos, students can confirm correct rule choice and correct application of rules.  If the graphs don't match, students can then make small changes to their equation until the derivatives match.

Providing a hands-on, active learning experience for online classes is difficult. BIO 201, Human Anatomy & Physiology, students prepare a Histology Atlas using tissue images supplied by the instructor. It was a passive learning process.

I searched and introduced Virtual Microscope, an Open Access technology. It allowed an active learning experience similar to using a microscope during in-person lab settings. The students could:

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.

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.