Face to Face

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.  

All EDU courses require a Field Experience (where students go into a local K-12 classroom, under the tutelage of a certified teacher). Taking students through the process to ensure their success is always a challenge, since there are a variety of factors beyond our control (Fingerprint Clearance Card acquisition - FPC -, school placement, etc.). EDU teachers have incorporated a variety of documents and strategies to help achieve a higher success rate (see attachments).

Students confuse molecular processes concerning synthesis of macromolecules, particularly DNA, RNA and proteins. I have the students make separate lists of terms they need to know AND clues as to how to keep them separate.The students  come to the board and generate the list - they pass a marker to another student to keep adding to the list. We review as a group and determine if all the terms are lined up correctly. This semester I decided to increase the use of contrasting between the processes based on our lists.

Comparison of changing up information on a question that students have struggled with.   

About half of the points from my BIO181 class come from high stakes exams.  I feel this is necessary to prepare students for their STEM degrees, MCAT, PCAT etc. I split the course content into 5 units with an exam for each unit.  This means giving up 5 class meetings to exams, which for a TR class, is over 2 weeks of class time.   I tried dividing the content into 4 units, with 4 exams. The last 2 exams remained the same, but I took the content from the first 3 exams and split it between 2 exams instead.