Behavioral Sciences

EMCC's ECN faculty have developed and implemented the common ECN211 (Macroeconomic Principles) final exam by first defining our discipline-wide Learning Objectives (LO) and then created multiple choice questions for the common final portion across all sections.  Instructors recorded each students' response for each question in an excel spreadsheet and sent to me, who aggregated and analyzed the results (See attached).  Overall results showed slight improvements in 4 LOs but 2 were worse than the previous semester.

Since Spring 2010, a common assignment has been incorporated into Sociology 101 (Introduction to Sociology). A group of faculty worked on the assignment and rubric with the SAAC co-chairs during Fall 2009. The assignment has been implemented at the end of each semester in the SOC 101 courses (learning outcomes, assignment, and rubric attached below). I have attached some of the comments and results from the instructors from each of the semesters (when information was provided).

The Social, Civic, Global Responsibility Common Assignment was implemented in SOC 130 (Human Sexuality). Students were given the topic of the AIDS epidemic as their focus for this assignment. The rubric was given at the same time as the assignment. Both were discussed and reviewed in class. The focus of the assignment tied in with the rest of the semester as the students organized the EMCC AIDS team, raised money for AIDS awareness, and created slides to be shown outside during the AIDS Day event. The average scores were as follows:



Question 1:  2.67(of 3)

During Week 1, students complete a journal entry in which they discuss their thoughts on current gender inequalities and what they think the course will include. The majority of students do not have the details of contemporary gender issues. Most of them state that gender inequalities are part of the past and/or that there are a few gender inequalities due to progress. During Week 16, students complete a journal entry asking them what they will walk away, what surprised them in the course, and how will they promote social change.

Student reflection is an integral aspect of effective Service Learning practices and should demonstrate both Academic and Affective learning. In the past I used student-self-directed reflection, with minimal guidance or structure. In order to better assess SCGR proficiency, I (1) provided the students the rubrics for this ability, (2) reviewed them carefully, and (3) required adherence to the criteria in the presentation of Informative Speeches, adding the SCGR criteria to the evaluation instrument as part of the content grade.

In Spring 2012 I participated in a district workshop on information literacy titled  "Research Assignment Handouts:  Essential Elements to Promote Student Success." I revised the handout for the group research & symposium assignment to better help students get started by suggesting resources, requiring help from a librarian, specifying which data bases to use, and providing more details about what consititutes plagiarism.  I also revised the rubric to better reflect these items.  I will qualitatively assess the quality of the student research and avoidance

One student outcome for this online Intercultural COM course is "Continue to move forward into and/or through the ethnorelative stages of intercultural communication competency." The assessment is a self-created profile survey based upon the Milton J. Bennett, Ph.D., Dev. Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Ethnocentric levels (ascending order) are 1 Defense, 2 Denial, 3 Minimization.

Starting in Fall 2009, EMCC's ECN faculty (adjunct and residential) have developed and implemented the common ECN212 (Microeconomic Principles) final exam.  We first started by collaboratively identifiying what we expected all of our students to be able to do as a result of completing our courses, our Learning Objectives (LO) (see attached).  We then created multiple choice questions related to each LO (attached), and we all included the questions as part of our independent final exams.

Starting in Fall 2009, EMCC's ECN faculty have developed and implemented the common ECN211 (Macroeconomic Principles) final exam.  We first started by defining our discpline-wide Learning Objectives (LO) (see attached).  We then created multiple choice questions related to each LO (attached), and we all included the questions as part of our independent final exams.  Instructors recorded each students' response for each question in an excel spreadsheet and sent to me, who aggregated and analzed the results (See attached).

One of the keys to success in college is becoming a better reader. One challenge facing the college student in her or his forst two years is making the shift from passive reading for pleasure to active reading for learning. Further, many students do not realize that they need to improve their reading technique, especially if they have not place into a developmental reading class. My experience is that even my best students could benefit from a new perspective on how to read better. The method is familiar:SPQ3R.

A general survey on gender issues was given at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester. There were two questions for each gender issue: (1) how important is the issue and (2) how much work needs to be done on the issue. The issues focused on the feminist movement, reproductive rights, economic justice, gender and violence, men and masculinity, lgbtq rights, gender and language, gender and the media, gender and politics, social activism and social change. A 5 point Likert scale (not important to very important) was used.

Starting in Fall 2009, EMCC's ECN faculty (adjunct and residential) have developed and implemented the common ECN212 (Microeconomic Principles) final exam.  We first started by collaboratively identifiying what we expected all of our students to be able to do as a result of completing our courses, our Learning Objectives (LO) (see attached).  We then created multiple choice questions related to each LO (attached), and we all included the questions as part of our independent final exams.

Starting in Fall 2009, EMCC's ECN faculty (adjunct and residential) have developed and implemented the common ECN211 (Macroeconomic Principles) final exam.  We first started by collaboratively identifiying what we expected all of our students to be able to do as a result of completing our courses, our Learning Objectives (LO) (see attached).  We then created multiple choice questions related to each LO (attached), and we all included the questions as part of our independent final exams.