« SAGE 2YC Summer 2020 June Workshop - Team Presentations Session 4 Comments

Houston Community College System Presentation Comments  

This post was edited by Cynthia Swift on Jun, 2020
I really like the suggestion you proposed to help your online students with active learning. You have done a great job of identifying a need, and proposing credible solutions.

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edittextuser=137822 post_id=44081 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

Comment: Great idea to look at % success by demographics. It was very clear which areas need more help.
Question: Why do you think there was an increase in F's for online versus face to face? Possibly missing the "active learning" component that is so successful in face to face. How do you think this can be addressed and changed increasing online grades in the future?

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edittextuser=46961 post_id=44091 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

You have a great analysis! I think it is so cool that you have several professional tech programs that require Env. Sci.
You have 2 things data points
You attributed the low success rate of Oceans and Meteorology to 2 things - distance ed and dual enrollment students. You really made the case for online, not so much for dual enrollment. Can you see if is actually the case? If it is, is there something you could do about it?

One interesting thing for me was to see that you have an over representation of hispanic students compared to your institution and that they also do better than average, typically. That is very unusual in non-HSI institutions. What tips do you have for the rest of us? You are clearly doing a great job with that!

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44092 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

You have a great analysis! I think it is so cool that you have several professional tech programs that require Env. Sci.
You have 2 things data points
You attributed the low success rate of Oceans and Meteorology to 2 things - distance ed and dual enrollment students. You really made the case for online, not so much for dual enrollment. Can you see if is actually the case? If it is, is there something you could do about it?

One interesting thing for me was to see that you have an over representation of hispanic students compared to your institution and that they also do better than average, typically. That is very unusual in non-HSI institutions. What tips do you have for the rest of us? You are clearly doing a great job with that!

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44093 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

All the details of what you investigated were cool. I epsecially liked the last set of data on the student's commenting about the active learning components. I'm wondering if there is a way to leverage that - in what students might be able to get from your ourses . I wonder if there are any "key influencers" (a term that came up in another presentation) where students can be good advocates for your program increasing enrollment? Lots of good ideas re your action plan. Back to the geo enrollment issue, I wonder eabout adding a case study or something about environmental justice, community science, or local issues (in addition to what you are currently doing in terms of local efforts).

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edittextuser=5 post_id=44095 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

Very interesting analysis, especially with respect to lower success rates for African American students in some classes. I also noticed that in the F2F vs Online comparison between different sections, the online Oceanography sections indicated many students not meeting success criterion. Is there something about teaching Oceanography online that might be behind this?

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edittextuser=147223 post_id=44096 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

One thing I noticed you have a disproportionately HIGH number of Hispanic students who are successful and who enroll in your courses. THat is really rare, especially in Non-HSI institutions. Do you have tips/suggestions for the rest of us?

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44097 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

One thing I noticed you have a disproportionately HIGH number of Hispanic students who are successful and who enroll in your courses. THat is really rare, especially in Non-HSI institutions. Do you have tips/suggestions for the rest of us?

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44098 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44099 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

A very complete study really good idea of comparing geoscience to the rest of the science classes in analysis. Had you thought about just comparing geoscience to the other physical sciences and omitting the life sciences? This might be a meaningful comparison

Do you think that the decline in geoscience enrollment might also be influenced by the decline in jobs in this area?
I did not really understand your last chart on how students feel about teaching. Was this the faculty evaluation data?

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edittextuser=44378 post_id=44100 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

I was shocked by the low number of A.S. degrees. Is there another way you could identify students who are pursuing geology? A pattern of classes for instance?

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edittextuser=57 post_id=44101 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

Originally Posted by Angela Daneshmand


Comment: Great idea to look at % success by demographics. It was very clear which areas need more help.
Question: Why do you think there was an increase in F's for online versus face to face? Possibly missing the "active learning" component that is so successful in face to face. How do you think this can be addressed and changed increasing online grades in the future?



Thanks for the feedback, Angela. My hunch is that lack of active learning is a strong factor in poor performance online and perhaps more "busy work" kinds of assignments in online courses. Time may be a factor, too (it would be cool to compare how many hours students spend working on assignments for online vs in person classes). It also occurs to me that we are comparing the performance of students who have self-selected into two groups. It would be interesting to see if this pattern persists across all science courses, or HCC overall.

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edittextuser=17427 post_id=44110 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

Originally Posted by Eric Baer


You have a great analysis! I think it is so cool that you have several professional tech programs that require Env. Sci.
You have 2 things data points
You attributed the low success rate of Oceans and Meteorology to 2 things - distance ed and dual enrollment students. You really made the case for online, not so much for dual enrollment. Can you see if is actually the case? If it is, is there something you could do about it?

One interesting thing for me was to see that you have an over representation of hispanic students compared to your institution and that they also do better than average, typically. That is very unusual in non-HSI institutions. What tips do you have for the rest of us? You are clearly doing a great job with that!



I believe HCC is actually an HSI (but I could be wrong). It was definitely interesting to see that pattern. Oddly enough, it was Oceanography and Meteorology where Hispanic students did the best, and white students performed especially below average. Those were the two "oddball" sections that we described, but they also have low N values.

It would be interesting to look section by section to see the specific classes in which Hispanic students did especially well, and see what those classes have in common. More spreadsheets!

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edittextuser=17427 post_id=44111 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

Originally Posted by Heather Macdonald


All the details of what you investigated were cool. I epsecially liked the last set of data on the student's commenting about the active learning components. I'm wondering if there is a way to leverage that - in what students might be able to get from your ourses . I wonder if there are any "key influencers" (a term that came up in another presentation) where students can be good advocates for your program increasing enrollment? Lots of good ideas re your action plan. Back to the geo enrollment issue, I wonder eabout adding a case study or something about environmental justice, community science, or local issues (in addition to what you are currently doing in terms of local efforts).



I didn't get to talk about this aspect of our action plan much, and it is still very nascent, but we plan on growing the environmental justice component of Environmental Science. I have recently been learning a lot about intersectional environmentalism and I hope to build some related content for Environmental Science. I believe there is some research that describes students motivation in environmental science - that white students tend to value "learning for the sake of learning" whereas minority students tend to value learning things that they can use to better their families and communities. (I can't remember the specific paper anymore - anybody familiar with it?!?) I think that societally relevant content, examples of actionable ideas, and local examples might go a long way towards increasing engagement and success.

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edittextuser=17427 post_id=44112 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=14342

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« SAGE 2YC Summer 2020 June Workshop - Team Presentations Session 4 Comments