Student Engagement

Students will be able to analyze recent research relating brain-based learning and healthy lifestyle choices in order to optimize student learning and academic performance.  WITC is a system of linking engagement in healthy habits to assignments in academic classes to encourage engagement in healthy habits.  Students are assigned articles to read followed by class discussion on setting SMART goals in one of five areas; exercise, nutrition, sleep, resiliency, or substance abuse.  Students then set goals and track completion over a period of weeks.  K

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.

Learning Community (LC) faculty have been saying for 6 years that the main focus on the LC is to help students in future STEM courses.  Majoring in a STEM field is difficult; math is a barrier for most students.  Approximately 20% of community college students start as a STEM major with 69% of them changing it to non-STEM.  The LC course is designed to help students be successful STEM students and truly understand how math and physics are intertwined.  So, student grades were analyzed from fall 2010 - spring 2016.  Students that went through the LC vs.

Each module for my HIS 102 Online class has a section for student feedback.  I would like to see how much feedback I receive from students and the quality of feedback for each lesson.  Currently, the conclusion section has a few online videos that students can watch so they can learn more about the subject covered and a section where students can ask questions regarding the material (what they understood, what they are confused on, etc.).  I would like to see how many students provide feedback even though it is not required.

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.

After discussing the positive effects of exercise on student learning with EMCC's fitness and wellness director, Lyle Bartlett, I employed a rigorous walking schedule for a minimum of 15 minutes at the beginning of class in one of my statistics courses while another section served as the control group where no class exercise took place. Less than 15% of students in both groups self-reported exercising more than two times per week making groups comparable. I used an independent samples t-test to compare mean quiz scores from the treatment (e.g., those who walked) and control groups.

For the last couple of years I have noticed that students tend to forget what they have learned even after scoring well in the exams.
Once students learn a new module/chapter, most of them seem to completely forget about the previous chapters which is not a very good sign especially for a mathematics student.

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.

In calculus I, summation notation is introduced for finding area under a curve using an infinite number of rectangles. From Fall 04 to Spring 15, I utilized a Power Point to introduce the concept. A lecture would be given with interactive moments throughout the lesson. Students would try problems on their own and in teams. The scores on the exam averaged a mid to high D. Approximately 40% of the class would show little to no work on summation problems. Each semester, the lesson would be updated. Yet, exam scores stayed at a D average with no improvement on summations.

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.

I observe many students frantically cramming before quizzes, stressing themselves out and potentially reducing their academic peformance due to test anxiety. Research shows test anxiety could diminish academic performance.  To test if anxiety reducing activities lead to better test performance, I randomly led a anxiety reduction activity with two of my sections (stretching exercises, spontaneous laughter) and did not with three of the others, and compared results (see spreadsheet).

Every semester my students start class (both face to face and online) with the Getting Started Module.  One of the assignments is the "Meet Your Class" assignment.  This assignment is standard in Canvas and requires that students embed a picture into their discussion post.  Embedding a picture in Canvas is not the simple cut and paste or upload that the students are used to.  When I first started using this assignment (Spring  2013) the average score on this assignment was 16.44/20 due to an unsuccefully embedded photo.

In ENH202: World Literature after the Renaissance I utilized Literature Circles as a method for creating stronger community in online classes, deepening the engagement between students, and practicing group work in prep for the course final. Students were in 3 groups for 4 weeks at a time, each group given additional readings to read, analyze and report out using the Literature Circles roles. The student in the Connector role would collect the student’s work and post it in Canvas for grading and students would switch roles on their own each week.

Since rolling-out a new accounting textbook in Fall of 2015, covering three courses, ACC111, ACC230, & ACC240, the decision was made to move chapter 6, Inventory Valuation, from ACC111 to ACC230, effective Spring 2016.