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?”
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.
We struggle with student tardiness, especially in our early morning classes. We have tried everything from locking the door the minute class starts (which then prevents the student from learning the subject that day) to allowing a maximum number of classes to be tardy in (which we have to keep track of). None of these strategies, or other ones tried, have been successful in reducing tardiness. Plus, the burden is on the teacher to keep track, provide materials missed, etc., thereby increasing our load.
Since 2013, students in my Phy 101 have been creating video presentations relating physics concepts to real life situations. For several semesters I have had Kelly Loucy visit my classes and discuss citing sources and plagiarism. As a part of the final presentation score, students must submit a work cited page but they must have verification that their work cited page has been checked by the EMCC Writing Center. After many semesters of doing this I have found about 90% of the students submit a correct work cited page.
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.
For several years now, I have students write lab reports in calculus I, II and differential equations. The set of directions given to students on what to include in the lab report were ones that I created. Every semester, students would ask follow up questions on what to include in their document. Students constantly missed points for missing information/data or not being detailed enough. This past semester, I decided to see if chemistry faculty had a lab report template, and they do! So, Dr.
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).
Based on the evaluations of prior Assessment Happens (AH), the SAAC co-chairs (on advice of the committee) developed and facilitated the spring 2016 AH. Suggestions that were implemented were:
I wanted to find the most beneficial method for students to understand their writing revisions.
Based on their learning styles tendencies, I compared the their VAK Learning Styles Self-Assessment Questionnaire (Swinburne University of Technology) results with their method of submission (online or in-person) to the Writing Center.
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 Fall 2015, of my Introduction to Psychology classes, I had an honors class required to do a research project. As such, I decided to have my honors class students research, design, run and analyze their own projects (for examples of their projects, feel free to email me!).
At the end of the semester I gave a common final to all of my introductory courses. To explore if actively doing research methods helps learning, I pulled questions from the final having to do with research methods and analyzed performance on those particular questions compared to the test as a whole.
For the Career Research Paper, students had to submit their rough drafts to the Writing Center. Some students waited to submit to the Writing Center. As a result, 30% of students did not submit edited rough drafts with Writing Center documentation.
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.
For over three years, I have collaborated with peer mentors from the peer mentoring program in my developmental reading classes including rdg 081, 091, 095, and CRE 101 when the group looped up from RDG 091. There has been a dramatic increase in student retention, course completion and completion of the next round of courses at the 100 level and above as compared to those sections without a peer mentor.