Programming in Python
Marius Constantin
CET
EMT 1111
Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity
In the midst of the challenges we went through this Spring semester, I decided to address the priorities of general education using some critical and innovating teaching strategies, such as collaborative assignments and projects on OpenLab, ePortfolios, open educational resources to further engage my students in the new academic context.
Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?
Research has shown that online learning is generally less effective than face-to-face interaction and that students who are already struggling are likely to be harmed the most.
My goal is to compensate the drawbacks of remote instruction: self-discipline, time management, anxiety and depression due to isolation.
Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?
The entire semester.
Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?
In terms of high impact educational practices, I will consider collaborative assignments and projects and ePortfolios. While I will continue to request that each homework assignment to be completed and submitted individually, multiple attempts are allowed and the highest grade to be recorded. At the end of the semester, a final project in a form of a computer program will be assigned to 4 groups of students, and each student needs to have his/her collaborative share. This final project will weight 30% of the final grade for each student in the group and needs to be posted on OpenLab.
Assessment: How do you assess this activity? What assessment measures do you use? Do you use a VALUE rubric? If not, how did you develop your rubric? Is your course part of the college-wide general education assessment initiative?
Inquiry and Analysis is the rubric I chose to assess the students’ needs. For a proper inquiry I need to identify what doesn’t work for them and then analyze these findings by chunking down information into smaller parts, or from abstract to more specific concepts for a better understanding.
Reflection: How well did this activity work in your classroom? Would you repeat it? Why or why not? What challenges did you encounter, and how did you address them? What, if anything, would you change? What did students seem to enjoy about the activity?
To compensate for the lack of physical presence I will continue to provide, and even improve, a supportive learning environment where all students feel comfortable participating.
Attendance was the foremost concern, followed by internet connectivity issues.
Additional Information: Please share any additional comments and further documentation of the activity – e.g. assignment instructions, rubrics, examples of student work, etc. These can be links to pages or posts on the OpenLab.
I shall continue to use My Programming Lab, a excellent cloud-based tool, for the following reasons:
a. it provides a personalized learning experience that improves results for each student;
b. it contains a set of programming exercises correlated with the textbook that are focused on
a particular topic;
c. the feedback offered to students helps them master the syntax, semantics and basic usage
of Python programming language;
d. autonomous practice, where the feedback provided allows students to easily identify both compiling and logic errors in their code.
Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab
