Self

Update: In Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, I continued to use the scaffolding handout that addressed conceptual understanding of limits at infinity (as described in this CATS). This handout addresses EMCC's ILO of critical thinking along with the CLO of choosing the most appropriate tool/technique to solve a problem. In both Fall and Spring semesters, I had similar results with roughly 75% of students (both semesters) answering the limits at infinity question correctly on the final.

Students struggle with mastering concepts in microbiology. Journaling is a method that is documented to help students learn science courses. We implemented journaling recently and wanted to see if there is any significant impact after 3 semesters of collecting data.

Spoiler alert - nope, at least with the way we are implementing journaling currently. We are regrouping and will restructure the directions to hopefully guide students to be more successful in their journaling. 

The Academic Success Center provides in-person tutoring for STEM courses which includes Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Due the discontinuation of Developmental Education courses, there has been a shift in tutoring demand for Gatekeeper and STEM courses in semester Fall 2019. With the collaboration with STEM faculty, the ASC is developing and experimenting new intiatives on how to support the increase in demand of tutoring for these subjects. 

See attached. 

Helping students find success is the goal of teaching. By adding a short preview assignment allowing students to focus on upcoming larger essay assignments in Canvas, they learn the importance of taking the time to review assignment instructions before starting in, they think about what they're being asked to do, what challenges they might face while working on the asisgnment, what resources they can access for help, and ask specific questions of their instructor. Instructors can immediately respond and clarify or realign student preceptions setting students up for success.

One of the student learning outcomes of this class is to discuss current industry events. It is difficult to assess discussing events and generally the whole class doesn't participate in discussions equally. By creating a writing assignment to discuss and analyze events I gained a strong means to measure an SLO and both writing and critical thinking. The assignment was a good way to start off the class and to get student engagement for the day.

I am hoping that having this extra practice and group work in the long run strengthens not only their ability to do derivatives but also their algebra skills. Unfortuantely I do not have enough time in one semester to do this in every topic we cover, so I am hoping to come up with more creative ways to have them do this practice outside of class, that does not make them complain to me that I am giving them too much homework. 

One of the goals of the Academic Success Center is to provide quality tutoring in the content areas of mathematics. These review sessions will contribute to this goal by helping tutors identitfy the gaps in their mathematics content. In addition, the subject material is to be reflected in what is taught in the classroom. Through MOER, the tutors are able to review and refresh math topics throughout the semester. With the content training sessions, we are able to assist students more effectively because the material is fresh in our minds!

The purpose of this CATS is to really dive into one concept and try to figure out what students don't understand about basic integration.  Why is everything u-sub?  After each WU, I will use the information to write another WU to go further into the issues students are having.  The goal is to come up with a set of questions/problems that students have to do which "attack" a concept from multiple directions.  If I can cover the concept in many different ways and variations, I hope to fill any and most gaps students may have in their understanding of basic integration.

Please note:  From speaking with faculty in the prerequisite coureses, they are incorporating reviews of rules of exponents and fractions.  But, at what detail and how, I am unsure.  Hopefully with the creation of SLOs and having Guided Pathways, we can come up with some activities and best practices as a group to help students understand these two concepts better.  I am not happy with the idea of just accepting that students will not be able to integrate a fractional problem that requires rules of exponents.  There has to be something out there to help our students

EMCC has determined that communication is important and thus, included this skill on the EMCC General Education Abilities Matrix.  CIS105 has a module in which PowerPoint is taught, primarily focusing on the technological side of creating a presentation and how to incoporate the different technological aspects of the program.  Time was spent discussing not only the technology of presentations, but the delivery side as well incorporating the EMCC matric indicators.  Based upon the results of the mid-term presentation data, instruction/feedback will continue on the importance o

Great ideas can happen anytime, anywhere. To make it easy to keep track of ideas for course/ lesson planning improvement, I developed a “Course Edits Tracker” worksheet in Google Docs for each ot the courses I teach. This document can be accessed anywhere, anytime, online. The form includes a field to track why the change is needed or how the idea will improve the course/ activity/ lesson along with a field to enter student performance/ measure/ outcomes of the proposed edits/ enhancements.

Time from subject matter in class to attend the 2019 Spring Student Success Fair was worthwhile.

 

The effectiveness of concept mapping (CM) has been investigated in introductory chemistry students' achievement.  The researcher tested the hypothesis which stated that the implementation of concept mapping in teaching introductory chemistry will increase students’' performance.  The sample was two sections, experimental group and control group.  Both groups had taken a pretest.  The experimental group draw CM’s for the units taught.  The units included naming, moles, balancing equation, stoichiometry, and molarity.  At the end of the semester, the performance

We increased the acceptance rate at the Student Conference 2018 while increasing rigor by providing scaffolding and a revise/resubmit process with support structures.  Acceptance rates rose significantly from 28.7% in 2017 to 70% in 2018 with added rigor as expressed by MCCCD faculty who had attended previous conferences.  Additionally, for the first time, 9 out of 10 MCCCD colleges participated in the conferences.