Posts

Showing posts from July, 2016

Insights Assessment into Learning in Statistics

A Faculty Focus article titled  A New Twist on End-of-Semester Evaluations  originally provided the stimulus for the following assessment. The article suggests shifting from summative scalar evaluations such as are used at the college at present (Was the instructor on time most of the time, some of the time, rarely, never...) to exploring the course experience for the students. The evaluation produces a qualitative result rather than a quantitative result. Qualitative data does not reduce down to an average or median score, and the answers to instructional quality questions are embedded in the details of the individual answers. This takes more reading time than "Instructor Lee Ling has an average of 4.5 on the year end evaluation." Yet in the details are a richer and more nuanced view of the course, the material, the instructor, and the students. The seven prompts are listed below, the students answers were transcribed as written. The course being evaluated was MS 150 Stat

Assessing learning in physical science

Image
SC 130 Physical Science proposes to serve two institutional learning outcomes (ILO) through four general education program learning outcomes (GE PLO) addressed by four course level student learning outcomes (CLO). Not listed are proposed specific student learning outcomes that in turn serve the course level learning outcomes.  This report assesses learning under the proposed course level learning outcomes which in turn supports program and institutional learning outcomes. ILO 8 . Quantitative Reasoning: ability to reason and solve quantitative problems from a wide array of authentic contexts and everyday life situations; comprehends and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative evidence and can clearly communicate those arguments in a variety of formats. GE PLO SC 130 CLO 3.5 Perform experiments that use scientific methods as part of the inquiry process. 1. Explore physical science systems through experimentally based laboratories using scientifi

Assessing learning in introductory statistics

Image
MS 150 Introduction to Statistics has utilized an outline based in part on the 2007  Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) , the spring 2016 draft GAISE update , and the ongoing effort at the college to incorporate authentic assessment in courses. The three course level student learning outcomes currently guiding MS 150 Introduction to Statistics are: Perform basic statistical calculations for a single variable up to and including graphical analysis, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing against an expected value, and testing two samples for a difference of means. Perform basic statistical calculations for paired correlated variables. Engage in data exploration and analysis using appropriate statistical techniques including numeric calculations, graphical approaches, and tests. The first two outcomes involve basic calculation capabilities of the students and are assessed via an item analysis of the final examination  (original was a test in

Flying objects and mathematical models

Image
The weather permitted a laboratory fourteen in which I have the students explore for mathematical models underneath airborne objects. This term I included a princess ball in the mix, flying disks, flying rings, and an aerobie. I had the students report data back to the board and tasked the class with a four table, four graph report using the multigraph rubric available to me in Schoology. Laboratory fourteen data post-lab. Each pair only worked with a single object. The pooling of results is reminiscent of laboratory six and is being considered as a reworking for laboratory five on friction. Equipment included GPS units to measure distance, a radar gun to obtain launch speeds. All throws were to be horizontal. Preliminary results do not argue for any strongly nonlinear model. Thus one is left using a linear model for the four types of objects. The slopes appear to well reflect the expected distance performance for the objects. The Aerobie has a unique air foil to deli

Ohms law and floral litmus solutions

Image
Laboratory twelve is electricity lite, a laboratory that has been placed on my list of laboratories to be replaced. I have yet to decide which direction to take this laboratory, but I am certain that the time has arrived to replace the forty year old equipment being used. Although watching the students use the same equipment their parents used does carry a sense of a cycle coming back around full circle. Joemar and Preston try to coax reliable readings out of equipment that was old on the day they were born. Mayleen, Hansha, Neika, Marmelyn, Marlinda, Joemar, and Marsha try to pull readings from a decade resistance box for which only certain resistances are still functional. Hansha noted that one of her parents had attended CCM, perhaps they had seen this equipment too. I experimented with the atomic lecture, having the class be protons, electrons, and neutrons. The class is gender unbalanced. Men were assigned proton duty, women took on electron and neutron duty.