Student Engagement

The Career Skills Challenge, hosted by the Career and Transfer Center during the 25-26 academic year, is a low-budget, high-impact workshop series designed to teach NACE competencies through gamification. The program engaged 56 students in scenarios ranging from survival councils to office simulations. The assessment shows a 100% peer-recommendation rate and high skill-connection scores, proving that innovative storytelling and campus partnerships can be equally vital to student engagement than high-cost programming.

Choice matters! I responded to student feedback that they wished we had more time for certain niche topics in a large survey course. I replaced two of my personal niche topics with the chance for them to explore topics that interested them. This improved submission rates, the overall quality of the assignments, and student satisfaction without compromising the overall learning objectives. 

Introductory biology courses serve as a foundation for upper-division coursework and are expected to develop not only content knowledge but also essential skills such as note-taking, organization, and conceptual understanding. A persistent challenge in BIO156 is that students struggle to identify key information, organize their notes, and connect concepts, often relying on memorization of isolated facts. This limitation affects their ability to apply knowledge and create effective study tools, such as exam cheat sheets.

This assessment evaluates the effectiveness of the 2026 Earth Forward Event, hosted at Estrella Mountain Community College, in supporting student learning related to environmental literacy, sustainability, and engagement with career pathways in life sciences and conservation.

Prelicensure nursing students often have limited hands-on exposure to pediatric learning, which leads to gaps in confidence and clinical skill application. This initiative aims to increase students’ psychological safety while caring for pediatric patients by improving communication, assessment skills, atraumatic care, and medication safety. A needs assessment using faculty and student feedback identified deficits in growth and development, communication, atraumatic interventions, medication math, and overall student confidence.

Grad‑App‑Alooza (Transfer and Job Fair) is an annual event organized by Estrella Mountain Community College’s (EMCC) Career and Transfer Center (CTC), in coordination with Workforce and Experiential Learning (CWEL). The event is designed to support students as they transition to the next phase of their academic or professional journey by connecting them with representatives from over 50 universities, employers, and campus departments.

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.

This assessment evaluates changes implemented for the Spring 2026 Arizona Data Center Alliance event at EMCC. Based on feedback from the previous year, the event format was redesigned to reduce the number of panel discussions and expand networking opportunities between students and industry professionals. The updated structure featured two focused panels representing IT and technician career pathways and significantly increased networking time with industry partners.

This activity describes the implementation of a themed, experiential review day designed to reinforce nursing students’ knowledge and clinical skills prior to progression into the subsequent block of the nursing curriculum. Developed in response to student feedback, the review day was conducted in a laboratory setting and utilized a Harry Potter–themed framework to promote engagement, collaboration, and active learning.

The Fall 2025 Career & Transfer Fair, hosted by the Career and Transfer Center (CTC) and Center for Workforce and Experiential Learning (CWEL) demonstrated strong growth and exceptional satisfaction following strategic changes informed by the previous year’s feedback. With unduplicated attendance rising from 317 to 394 students – a 24% increase– the event successfully expanded its reach and impact.