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Showing posts from May, 2019

Ethnobotanical Use observation field in iNaturalist

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iNaturalist has a mission of connecting people to wild nature in a social spirit of citizen science. The platform produces data of use to researchers in a variety of fields, but the primary intent is to encourage people to get outside and experience wild nature. Ocimum tenuiflorum in iNaturalist While the core functionality of the platform centers on making and identifying organisms, the observations support additional fields including Ethnobotanical Use, Common Name in Local Language, and Local language used for common name. These optional fields provide support for including ethnobotanical information in an observation. Observation fields on Ocimum tenuiflorum observation Observation fields can only be created and edited from the web interface, not from the smartphone apps. My own workflow is to upload images taken with my smartphone via the app and then edit the images on the desktop interface later, adding plant phenology notations, establishmentMeans, and, as a

Assessing Learning in Ethnobotany

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SC/SS 115 Ethnobotany proposes to serve four program learning outcomes through three course level outcomes. The course serves learning outcomes in general education, the Micronesian studies program, and the Agriculture and Natural Resources program. PLO SC/SS 115 CLO GE 3.4 Define and explain scientific concepts, principles, and theories of a field of science. 1. Identify local plants, their reproductive strategies, and morphology. GE 4.2 Demonstrate knowledge of the cultural issues of a person’s own culture and other cultures. MSP 2 Demonstrate proficiency in the geographical, historical, and cultural literacy of the Micronesian region. 2. Communicate and describe the cultural use of local plants for healing, as food, as raw materials, and in traditional social contexts. ANR 2 Demonstrate basic competencies in the management of land resources and food production. 3. Demonstrate basic field work competencies related to management of culturally useful plant reso

Assessing Learning in Physical Science

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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). This report assesses learning under the course level learning outcomes which in turn support program and institutional learning outcomes. Note that this course has a focus on "doing" science, on science as a process, a way of understanding the natural physical world and the mathematics that underlies many physical systems. The course does not focus on memorized facts. The course is centered on science as being that which can be measured, observed, evidenced. The course is intended as a counter to memorized science. Once one shifts to memorized facts as the basis of a science, then any set of memorized facts can be seen by the learner as equally valid. Somewhere down at the bottom of that slope are those who are convinced the earth is flat, climate change is not h

Assessing Learning in Introductory Statistics

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MS 150 Statistics is an introductory statistics course with a focus on statistical operations and methods. The course is guided by 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. A history of the evolution open data open data exploration exercises and associated presentations as authentic assessment in the course was covered in a May 2017 report . Maileen and Aziela present basic statistics on anonymous blood glucose levels  Three course level student learning outcomes currently guide MS 150 Introduction to Statistics: 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. Enga

From Schoology Institutional Mastery to Nuventive TracDat without manually counting the stars

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Assignments in my courses are linked to student learning outcomes in Schoology Institutional  using the  Learning Objectives capability .  At term end I export the Schoology gradebook to run analyses including gender splits in a spreadsheet. Into the exported spreadsheet I insert columns for gender and gender split calculations. These are calculations that take the overall course average and split the data by gender, allowing me to look at whether there are gender differentials in performance. The gender splitting functions have the form: = if ( C2 = "F" , D2 , "" ) = if ( C2 = "M" , D2 , "" ) where C holds the gender code and D the course average.  The first function is in column E (Fem) and the second function is in column F (Mal).  At the bottom of the E and F columns the AVERAGE function is inserted to calculate the average. Google Sheets is used to produce the analysis and charts.  I use the Mastery scre