Grant Makers Event

Allison and I attended the grant makers event this past Tuesday. It was a wonderful opportunity to see that even though we sit in our meetings feeling like we are in our own little bubble there are people who are watching us and hoping that we succeed. It was wonderful to see and meet people who are interested (or are already) supporting us!

do students like technology?

http://www.onlineeducation.net/students-love-tech

Science and quant reasoning - simple rubric...

http://generaleducation.appstate.edu/sites/default/files/Draft-ScienceInquiry2Frubric.pdf

Does this work now? Maybe?

Almost all on board

Hi Folks,

I think we are starting to figure this blog thing out. let's work it and see what other bugs we can uncover...

I'm in!

I missed last Friday's meeting and am trying to catch up on everything since I've come to this project late. I'm very excited to be working on this since I really believe in a writing across the curriculum & learning community approaches.

I wanted to share my ideas for the research essay that I will have students do. Since we seem to have a focus on the environment, I wondered about having student research & write about what it means to live a sustainable lifestyle. I think we often educate students about environmental issues, but we don't always get at what they, personally, can do about it. I wonder about bringing some Native American mythology/literature/stories into this topic or perhaps look even more broadly at other mythology that deals with the environment. I think something like that might tie in nicely with dicussions of the good vs. bad myths about science, and it contributes also to discussions of sustainability.

I have finally joined!
Good news the district was interested in our project and contacted our VPs for more information, they would like to highlight the effort in some sort of way LA times was mentioned.
ELAC grant office is working with CSULA grant office - nothing finalized.

Air Quality

In preparation for this week's meeting I looked around on the web whether we can find some data that relates to air quality to analyze in the stats course. I went to the AQMD site and found this set of data on the number of days that ozone levels were above federal standards. Not quite sure what to do with it, but I would be interested in seeing whether this data fits into the chemistry set-up. Here is the data. There is also a daily measurement of several items that I do not know (chemical abbreviations). An interesting project/HMWK assignment might be to collect the daily readings for several areas and then to see whether there are significant differences between them, and what might be the cause of it.

Finally....

I have joined!!!

Mona

Moodling

Yesterday I started to familiarize myself with Moodle and so far it has been quite good. I used the CSULA training video that is about half an hour long and which gives enough info to get started. I also looked at the more lengthy video training purchased by the Chancelor's office. For that one one needs to bring some time - so far I have watched the intro segment. I will upload the file with all kinds of Moodle Resources that Cheryl Ney sent out to box net. One important part of that file is the CSULA ITS Moodle page.

Here are some thoughts on technology with regard to the stats course. I plan to use Excel and the textbook gives instructions for Excel, Minitab as well as graphing calculators. My choice of Excel is because I think learning to use Excel is something that is useful for students beyond the stats course, and they may actually know it already a little. At CSULA we have always had the problem with requiring graphing calculators due to cost. Renting them out would be a cheaper alternative, but the logistics seemed daunting. We even asked ASI whether they would be willing to take over some class room sets of calculators that we got through an Innovative Instruction Award for renting out to students, and they were not interested. Have not tried to contact the bookstore.

At ELAC on the other hand, they do rent out calculators and also textbooks. Students registration is put on hold if they do not return the items. (That also seemed to be a difficult thing to institute at CSULA.) The logistics are done via their computer lab (something we also do not have). In addition, ELAC requires their students in the stats course to do 10 hours (Mona please correct me if my memory is wrong) in the computer lab, while we have to deal with students learning the technology via the course or textbook instructions. We might do some of it in the associated math workshop.

I think this is one of the beneficial aspects of this project - finding out how things are done at other institutions (in this case ELAC, which has the same student population), and we might be able to move a few things here by pointing out that they are done at ELAC. I hope that the ELAC team also finds things they can bring back to their departments/institution to make things better for our students.

Silvia

Hi all,

greetings from Germany! Just to let you know that I too can blog.

Silvia

Testing one, two, three...

Hey everyone! Please post a comment to this post so I can be sure everyone CAN post a comment....

compass II the ground work

chemistry comments as we start to get to the nitty gritty- topics timing and outcomes