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F IPP Interns 2003-2004 Updates
Rosemary Acosta-De Anda
Chandler-Gilbert Community College
Rosemary was hired at Chandler Gilbert to pilot the first MAT082/CPD150ab learning community. The idea was to deal with negative attitudes and fears toward math by teaching the student key study skills such as: relaxation techniques, positive self talk techniques, test taking techniques, time management, goal setting, studying techniques, note taking techniques, and finally, the importance of math in everyday life. Since the inception of the program the retention rate has gone from 65% to 92%. This is a 42% gain. The majority of the students in our first learning community class will be finishing college algebra this spring 2004 semester.
Dr. Patricia Cardenas-Adame
Mesa Community College
Pattie serves as Tri-Chair of Criterion Three (Student Learning and Effective Teaching) along with Harold Cranswick, Chair, Social Sciences, and Naomi Story, Faculty Director Center for Teaching and Learning. This MCC committee is one of five preparing for the comprehensive accreditation visit by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association which will take place in March 2005.
The Criterion Three committee is reviewing how Mesa Community College meets the requirements for criteria three and specifically:
- Goals for student learning outcomes
- Support of effective teaching
- Effective learning environments and
- Learning and support services which foster student learning and teaching.
The process of this self-study has involved many hours spent delving into the definition and application of the components of the self-study process and the generation of numerous examples of evidence addressing each component as identified by the Higher Learning Commission.
The committee will spend this fall semester interpreting, analyzing and synthesizing all the data gathered which relates to student learning and effective teaching.
Pattie notes, "While the general purpose of this self study is to identify the Institution's strengths and challenges so that we can prepare for the future, for me this process has been an extremely reflective one. I have been able to expand my knowledge of the college, its many facets and most importantly how to apply student learning and effective teaching on a much broader scale. My involvement on this committee has also had a very positive impact on my role as an instructor and learner."
In addition to Pattie's role on the accreditation committee, she has also been an active member on several English Department committees such as the First-Year Composition Outcomes Committee and Hiring/Teaching Quals Committee.
Minou Karimi
Paradise Valley Community College
Teaching English as a Second Language has been a dream come true for Minou. Over the past fifteen yeas of teaching, it has been her goal to facilitate and improve the comprehension and learning process for her students. She has had the priviledge to have taught students from Africa and different countries world-wide (China, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, and Yugoslavia). It is of great importance to understand the customs and the cultural beliefs that each student brings along with himself/herself. In her classes she encourages students to talk about their customs and their thoughts and how they feel about adjusting to a new culture. In one of the ESL030 (Grammar level III) classes, her students were assigned to choose a meal that represented their country and to write the recipe. These recipes were revised and corrected. At the end of the assignment these recipes were collected to complete an ESL cooking book that she intends to publish in the future. On the final day of class many students prepared these meals and brought them into class so everyone could taste them.
Tara LaCasta Revell
Phoenix College
Tara LaCasta-Revell, Psychology FIPP Intern at Phoenix College, created and conducted the first ever Phoenix College Psychology Advisement Seminar on February 28, 2004. There was a stellar turn out of students of all majors who were interested in majoring or minoring in the field of psychology. Guest speakers included psychology faculty and transfer advisors from Phoenix College, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and University of Arizona. Each school discussed their psychology programs, areas of psychology research, and transferring information. Students enjoyed to opportunity to speak with faculty and advisors from the neighboring universities.
Felicia Lindor
Chandler-Gilbert Community College
Felicia has been working on two projects this semester: Integrationed Circuits (IC) Laboratory and MATLAB. The Integrated Circuits Laboratory is software that is devoted to help the understanding of the processing of semiconductor materials. Manufacturing an IC involves a complex interaction of several highly developed technologies. This software is used to fabricate high-performance integrated circuits in such areas as oxidation, diffusion, ion implantation, chemical etching, photolithography, CVD, ellipsometer, plasma etching, and aluminum deposition. IC Lab software offers virtual opportunities to simulate the process of manufacturing an integrated circuit without going into a clean room. All the simulations represent processing steps that are as accurate as possible.
MATLAB is a tool for doing numerical computation and visualization capabilities. It can be used to solve linear algebraic equations, matrices, and vectors. It reinforce the use of problem-solving methodology as practiced by the educational and professional industry in general and as applied to the use of computers to solve problems in particular. The knowledge of pre-algebra and high school physics is needed to understand some of the examples in the book. There are MATLAB tutorials on the web to make things easier, if needed. MATLAB is a great tool for accuracy and effieiency for the best results.
Amy MacPherson
South Mountain Community College
Amy MacPherson is teaching CIS236 and CIS237 (Web-based Teaching and Learning I and II), online courses to help faculty learn how to use their campus Course Management System to develop web-enhanced, hybrid, and/or online courses. Additionally, Amy is providing faculty development support in the Teaching and Learning Center by developing and delivering workshops about how to integrate specific technologies into instruction.
Suzanne Martin
Rio Salado College
The BIO160 course (Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology) for non-majors and allied health students currently online is over ten years old. The current course does not reflect any modern technology or recent innovation. Suzanne is redeveloping the BIO160 course to include:
- A new module on the scientific method.
- Detailed information on each lesson topic including: text, images, and web-based activities (currently there is none of this).
- Hands-on laboratory activities including viewing web-based dissections and other activities such as in-home experiments (currently the lab activities consist only of viewing slide shows and other related materials).
- A variety of Learning Objects in every lesson so that students can better understand the material and quiz themselves.
- Assessments to reflect the new material and activities.
Rashmi Menon
Glendale Community College
Educating young minds is a noble task indeed. Ms. Betty Hufford (Former English Department Chair, Glendale Community College) introduced Rashmi to college level teaching. For the last two years, Rashmi has been teaching developmental English courses at Glendale Community College. Rashmi teaches a varied group of students including those belonging to the prestigious ACE+ program. She is particularly proud to be Glendale Community College's FIPP Intern this year. While she enjoys working with students, Rashmi is always eager to get involved in training opportunities, because educating educators can be a challenging endeavor.
Being the wonderful mentor that she is, Betty zeroed in on Rashmi's ambitions and once again opened the right door for her. During the past two semesters, Betty and Rashmi have been developing a workshop for their fellow faculty and staff members at the Maricopa Community Colleges. For the pilot presentation at Glendale Community College, they had named the workshop "When Good Gauchos Go Bad." The workshop, now called "Dealing with Student Problems," aims at pin-pointing some of the problem situations teachers and staff members can run into while dealing with students. It also provides strategies for recognizing problems and helping faculty deal with them.
Betty's unit of the workshop encourages participants to identify problem situations they have encountered in the past, or are facing at present. Resolutions for these situations are sought via brainstorming sessions with fellow participants. Rashmi's task is to read the tea leaves of the future. More and more students, these days, belong to Generation Y. She has been researching the peculiar characteristics they exhibit. Her unit of the workshop deals with the problem situations that can crop up in a classroom, in the near or distant future, because of the gaps that exist between different generations.
They have conducted four sessions of this workshop so far; two at their home campus, Glendale Community College, one at Estrella Mountain Community College, and the third one, also at Glendale Community College, for Rashmi's fellow FIPP interns. The workshops have been very successful. When they hear statements like, "Now I know why so-and-so behaves the way he/she does in my class," or "Whew! I knew I was doing something wrong. I just couldn't figure out what it was. I think I see the situation more clearly now," they know they have achieved their goal -- encouraging educators to look into themselves and seek answers for their shortcomings or failures. This is very much in keeping with Gibran's philosophy, "If he (the teacher) is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind."
Dr. Arthur Nonomura
Estrella Mountain Community College
Arthur collaborated with Bronwen Steele (Biology), who is his Faculty In Progress mentor. She trained him to set up a Blackboard site at the orientation meeting (8/19/03) and how to access it from home. Arthur was also supplied with CD's containing PowerPoints for the course. They developed a joint overview of thermodynamics that involved critical thinking exercises for the students. They also discussed an assignment where BIO181 and BIO100 students would write an essay on the characteristics of life with support from the Learning Enhancement and Writing Center (LEWC).
A joint overview of bioethics in a philosophical context that involved critical thinking exercises for the students was developed in collaboration with Paul Adams (Philosophy), Mary Fischer (Biology) and Bronwen Steele (Biology). They prepared an assignment where philosophy students would read a current article from a scientific journal. Students in philosophy read the article and discussed it after the introductory lecture. By exposure to varying views on the same topic/subject matter, students began to appreciate the complexity of science-based perspectives from philosophical angles as it relates to ethical implications. Consequently, the ability to comprehend these issues was enhanced in a tangible fashion.
- Practical living from a rational and ethical perspective
- Each student positioned for application based on concrete examples
- Coordinated preparation across disciplines (philosophy/biology)
An essay was assigned and made due a week after lectures on characteristics of life. They also coordinated tutoring with Becky Richey and Susan Malmo from the Learning Enhancement and Writing Center (LEWC). BIO181 and BIO100 students were oriented to Blackboard within the first week of lecture and how to access it from home. They were also supplied with a template for thesis manuscripts containing abstracts for an essay. Implementation was based on quickly coordinated efforts of LEWC, students, and Arthur. As a first assignment, this essay was made easy to read because the tutors were effective at the LEWC. The key was to require a sign-off by the tutors that the writing was of sufficient quality to pass. Critical thinking was evident in the creativity of approach to egocentric characteristics of life and application of scientific method inherent to the format of the presentation. The diversity of culture was the source of a very high level of creativity in response to supporting their hypotheses, most commonly, that they were, indeed, alive.
Rody Randon
Scottsdale Community College
Most recently Rody instructed the Introduction to Communication course to ACE Program students at Phoenix College. These students are high school juniors and seniors who have been identified as having, with a little motivation, the potential of being successful at the collegiate level.
Rody also taught the Student Leadership Group-Listening Workshop, a workshop designed to promote the skill of listening to future leaders of our society. The workshop objectives were to identify the stages of listening, listening barriers, and ways to improve listening skills. The workshop ran approximately one hour.
Rody also worked with an organization titled National Curriculum and Training Institute (NCTI). Within this organization Rody facilitated (6-hour) workshops for at-risk youth who have encountered the court system. The workshops were designed to create an awareness of decisions that youths sometime make and are poorly made. Additionally, Rody facilitated similar workshops for young men age 18-25 in a program funded and sponsored by the Phoenix Suns. The program 'Nite Hoops' provided young men with an outlet to the troubles of the inner city through basketball. This program was held on Monday and Thursday nights for approximately one month.
Dr. Cecilia Rosales
Estrella Mountain Community College
Cecilia and Jason Martinez, counseling faculty and MEChA advisor, organized a "Día de los Muertos" crafts workshop in November 2003. The workshop was conducted by local artist and performer Carmen Novais-Guerrero and provided participants with a general overview of the Mexican Day of the Dead Celebration. Dr. Rosales' women's studies class used the activity to reflect upon victims of domestic violence and MEChA students prepared a memorial for Mexican Surrealist painter Frida Kahlo.
Rosales currently team-teaches ENG101 with Kathleen Iudicello, Liberal Arts Division Chair. This team-teaching project emphasizes diversity in the curriculum, the use of technology in the classroom, and fosters active and collaborative learning. Students enrolled in this class write essays using different rhetorical models and hold debates based on films and texts that explore, among other topics, the interstices of class, gender, and ethnicity in different cultures around the world.
Kerry Vrabel
GateWay Community College
Kerry has acted as the assistant coordinator to Gail Shay in Hands Across the Border for GateWay Community College. Hands Across the Border provides a unique intercultural/international learning experience for students and staff of the Maricopa County Community College District and the Universidad Technologico de Hermosillo (UTH) in Sonora, Mexico. In this program, Kerry helped coordinate the visit of 12 Mexican students and two faculty from UTH to GateWay Community College from January 28 to February 1, 2004. During their five-day visit to the Phoenix, a GateWay Community College student was paired with an UTH student as the group participated in a variety of activities. The students attended GateWay Community College classes, sorted food at St. Mary's food bank, toured the Tempe Police Training Center, visited the Mesa Museum, shared a potluck dinner, walked along Mill Avenue, and culminated the experience with a celebration dinner and entertainment at a western style ranch in Mesa.
In the second part of the program from February 25 to February 29, 2004, Kerry traveled with the GateWay Community College student-faculty team to UTH in Hermosillo, Mexico. There the teams each lived with a host student's family as they visited local industry, cultural attractions, and attended classes at the University.
At the end of the program students prepared PowerPoint presentations with their partners comparing different aspects of daily life and community services in Phoenix and Hermosillo.
For the entire group, this was an enriching and culturally informative experience that promoted understanding and friendship between the two cultures.
In April of 2004, Kerry made a presentation at GateWay Community College for Liberal Arts faculty on exploring the educational needs of Generation 1.5 students. Generation 1.5 is a term used to refer to students who arrive in the U.S. during childhood or adolescence and whose language profile along with educational and cultural experiences lie somewhere between first generation immigrants and U.S-born second generation children of immigrants.
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