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  • 1.  IMPACT in Action - Specific actions to promote engagement

    Posted 01-02-2022 20:51:00

    In this month's IMPACTful Thoughts blog, I shared some ideas for simple actions to increase student-content, student-student, and student-instructor engagement. What do you do in your classes to promote these types of engagement, or what do you look forward to trying in the future?



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    Scot Pruyn
    Mathematics Faculty & Learning Center Coordinator
    Clackamas Community College
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  • 2.  RE: IMPACT in Action - Specific actions to promote engagement

    Posted 01-04-2022 15:47:00
    In the book Student Engagement (Barkley, 2010) , the author describes an activity called Send-a-Problem.  Here is her description:

    "In "Send-a-Problem," groups of students each receive a problem, try to solve it, and then pass the problem and solution to a nearby group.  Without looking at the previous group's solution, the next group works to solve the problem.  After as many passes as seem useful, groups analyze, evaluate, and synthesize the responses to the problem they received in the final pass and report the best solution to the class.  "Send-a-Problem" thus involves two activity stages: solving problems and evaluating solutions.  The purpose of the first stage is to provide students with an opportunity to practice together and learn from each other the thinking skills required for effective problem solving.  The purpose of the second stage is to help students learning to compare and discriminate among multiple solutions."

    I realize that for most of my teaching career I was not thinking deeply enough about how one activity, if carefully designed, could have so many layers and so many benefits for my students.  I was definitely more focused on a specific math skill than on the other things students could get from activities.  I know that we all struggle with time constraints to dedicate time to make our courses richer for our students, but opportunities like joining in these discussions and sharing our collective knowledge can lessen those constraints.  




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    Karen Gaines
    myAMATYC Online Community Coordinator
    Professor Emeritus - St. Louis CC-Meramec
    Kirkwood MO
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  • 3.  RE: IMPACT in Action - Specific actions to promote engagement

    Posted 01-04-2022 23:12:00
    Scot has shared many great strategies and ideas! I would like to highlight one...the 3-Act task...

    In short: Act 1 - Present something to "hook" student interest. For example - https://mrorr-isageek.com/smartcar-smash/:


    Act 2 - Let students "notice and wonder" and record facts they request that might be useful to respond to an agreed upon question (in this case..."how many bird craps are needed to crush a smart car????")



    Solve the problem. Students may do so working in groups of three while standing together and collaborating at a white board.

    Act 3 - Reveal the Solution - after sharing, explaining, critiquing, justifying, verifying, etc., students can view an answer as posted on Twitter.


    Notice...some groups or classes can extend the original problem to determine how many pigeons...or turkeys...or emus....

    Have fun!!!!

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    Scott Adamson
    Chandler-Gilbert CC
    Chandler AZ
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