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Volume III, Issue 5 April 2007 |
Quinsigamond
Community College |
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Staff Development Links
Staff
Development
Nancy Donohue-Berthiaume
Erica Merrill
Staff Development
Monday - Friday
Room
114 Ahlfors Hall
April's Events
Weight Watchers At-Work
"Inclusive
Teaching":
Instructional
Technology
Weight Watchers At-Work
Breakfast Club
Weight Watchers At-Work
Weight Watchers At-Work
Reading Roundtable
Administrative
Circles of
Innovation
QCC Book Club
Conversations
with Colleagues
Upcoming Events
QCC Annual
In accordance with the college's strategic initiative to optimize the use of technology for improved and cost-effective communication, this newsletter is being distributed via email as the best means for information-sharing with faculty and staff. |
Editor: Erica Merrill "American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges" by Virginia Asadoorian "Yankee Dental Congress" by Joyce Cooney
Letter from the Editor When I first saw the open call for the Quality Teams, I thought: Nice idea, but not for me; I’m content to just stay right here “in my own little corner in my own little space” and have as little physical interaction with others as possible. Then, Nancy told me that she “volunteered” me for one of the Q-Teams, specifically the Calendar Committee. In a nutshell, she said it would be good for me to “get out there”, learn to work well with others, and contribute to something worthwhile and meaningful. “Remember, we’re in the business of professional development for all staff members – of which you are one.” Simply staying “in my own little corner in my own little space” doesn’t allow me to meet new people or keep current with the issues affecting the college. Still a bit reluctant, I attended the all-day training back in February. I threw out any brainstorming ideas I could muster on little breakfast and only one cup of coffee (I’m trying to cut back). By mid-day, I was finding it funny that the Prioritization Matrix involved doing math, and I was joking that the Force Field Analysis sounded like something out of Star Trek. And by the end of the day, I was laughing off my initial “I’m a hostage” remark, adding that Stockholm Syndrome seemed to be setting in. Now, I look forward to my Q-Team meetings as a chance to get out of the office, get away from my computer, and contribute any new ideas, research or suggestions I may have. Our common goal has incited me to refurbish my own department’s online calendar to be more informative, more aesthetically-pleasing, and a bit more user-friendly. I’m looking forward to achieving our objective. In the meantime, I’m quietly enjoying the quest for quintessential quality at Quinsigamond Community College.
American
Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges Last November, Steve Zona and I had the opportunity to attend the 32nd Annual American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) Conference, which was held in Cincinnati, Ohio. We’ve attended many previous AMATYC conferences, and this one proved to be a good one and didn’t disappoint us. The first workshop that I attended on Thursday morning was called: “Mental Math, Estimation and Games in Basic Math and Pre-Algebra”. It was presented by faculty at Cerritos College, Norwalk, CA. Since Steve and I had attended a previous workshop by these presenters, we were looking forward to this one. The two-hour presentation gave us some unique ideas on topics such as place value using a deck of cards, prime numbers using a game board and a game called “Primo”. Two more games were on estimation and decimal placement. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and came away with activities that can be incorporated into other higher-level courses too. I then had a ticket for a second workshop entitled: “Creating Activities the EEEEEasy Way: Evaluate and Take-home Labs”. The 5 E’s are: engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate. It turns out that this workshop covered lab activities that I’ve seen before so I left and ended up in a session on “Humor in the Classroom: An Effective Teaching Tool”. The handout that was given at this session summarized research done on the reasons that humor is an effective tool but, to be honest, I found the presentation to be a little boring. A few math jokes and cartoons were shown at the end but I’ve seen most of them before. The next set of sessions on Thursday took place in the afternoon. During that time, I stopped in to visit a few of these workshops, trying to get handouts and listening to see if I could get some new tidbits of information. Finally, the day ended with the general session and the grand opening of the 2006 AMATYC Exhibits. Most of Friday was spent on participating in focus groups sponsored by Addison Wesley Publishing Co. On Friday morning, I was asked to participate in a two-hour meeting to discuss the pros and cons of a new textbook that is in the process of being published. I provided my two-cents worth here, but I also used the time to promote the ICTCM 2007 conference at the Westin-Copley Hotel in Boston from February 15th to the 18th. On Friday afternoon, I attended another focus group. Again, I was invited by Addison Wesley, who wanted faculty input on changes that are about to be made in MyMathLab, the computer component that accompanies our textbooks. The two major changes will occur in the “gradebook” section and in the “test” creations. The gradebook sections will allow for the creation of weighted, open-ended questions and the testing will allow the concept of “one test” for “one student”. Also, one will be able to choose different topics that can be randomly selected for one question. This will prevent students from memorizing particular answers to certain questions on a test. For example, question 1 might randomly pick from five different types of factoring instead of just one type. After participating in these two meetings, I decided to visit the exhibits in the Great Hall. There, I perused the various products and textbooks available. An added delight was that some publishers provided hot popcorn, beer, wine, and soda, and also coffee and pastries. The whole experience was thoroughly enjoyable! On Saturday, I spent most of the day focusing on workshops that promoted MyMathLab. First, Gwen Terwilliger, from the University of Toledo, pointed out some of the uses of the homework, testing, and grading components. She also talked about an MML Summer Camp for incoming students. This is a crash course to help students place into a higher-level math course. It is similar to our own “prep courses” that we offer through our Math Center. Next, she gave us ideas for people who are teaching or will teach an online course. An example is for the instructor to create announcement folders that students will see when they first log on to MML. The folder is entitled: “Please Open This!” Students will then open it and read the announcement instead of possibly skipping it because they don’t usually scroll down. Another idea is to have a bonus question under “announcements” for each class or for each week. These can be used as extra credit or to replace a low test score, etc. Gwen also provided more ideas on menu buttons and general ideas on implementation of an online course. Next, Dr. Robert Knight from Evergreen Valley College, San Jose, CA, spoke about his online statistics course. He has a commercial website (www.drrobertknight.com), which has some links that some might find interesting. One idea that impressed me was that in his online courses, he encourages students to do homework an unlimited number of times until they get a score of 100. The average of these homework scores counts 20% of a student’s final grade. He feels that this motivates the students to work harder. He also has made personal lecture videos of every lesson on every topic in the course; one can view these by checking out his website. One last
workshop was on the use of the TI-84 Graphing Calculator, which was
presented by Joe Fiedler of California State University, Bakersfield,
CA. Joe illustrated some “apps” that I wasn’t familiar with, such as
graphing systems of inequalities. I found it interesting, but trying to
recall all of the little buttons to push might be a tedious task to
remember.
Yankee Dental Congress I attended the Yankee Dental Congress 32nd session at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston on January 26th and January 27th. Along with attending a course on Medical Emergencies, I organized and hosted our annual Alumni reception at the Westin Hotel on Friday night and organized and attended the Yankee Dental Congress Dental Hygiene Table Clinics Competition on Saturday morning. Four second-year students represented Quinsigamond Community College in this competition by presenting two clinics, one on stem cell research and the impact on dentistry, and implants that can be placed on a patient in one hour. The Medical Emergencies lecture was very informative and interesting. The presenter, Mrs. Klieman, teaches Medical Emergencies at Arizona State University Dental School. She is very knowledgeable about the current standards of medical emergencies procedures in a dental practice. |