Category: Collaborative Assignments and Projects

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Suspension Workshop

Suspension Workshop

Alexander Aptekar

Architectural Technology & Library /

LEARNING PLACES: UNDERSTANDING THE CITY

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

In this workshop, you will work in teams and groups of teams to create a model suspension bridge. Your model suspension bridge will be tested until structural failure. In reflections, you will individually analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your modeled suspension bridge.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

• Developing your understanding of suspension structures
• Increasing your analysis and problem-solving abilities
• Sharpening your observation and reflection skills
• Deepening your collaborative team techniques

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?

This workshop should occur towards the beginning of the semester as part of the introduction to observation skills and techniques.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Low-stakes

Each team will utilize the following kit of materials:
• Wood blocks (4” x ¾” × ¾”), 18 min
• String, 8’ lengths
• Straws, 14
• Sheets of paper, 3 @ 4” x 17”
• Scissors
• Masking tape, 3’ length
• Tape measure (only one for the workshop required)

Team goals
Construct a model of a suspension bridge utilizing only the materials provided. The bridge must be strong enough to support at least one cell phone at its center. [Recommendation; offer extra points for every additional cell phone the bridge can support]

Team makeup
Each bridge group will consist of two 3 to 4 member teams. Each team is responsible for one half of the bridge spanning from one of the supporting tables to the center of the bridge.

Bridging the gap
Each bridge group will need to span between two tables set 36” apart.

Bridge assembly
The bridge constructed should include the following parts:
• Anchorage (blocks)
• Deck (paper)
• Main cable (string)
• Suspender cables (straws)
• Tower (blocks)

Timing
Your bridge group will have 20 minutes to develop your solution before testing will commence.

Testing
The structural integrity and quality of your bridge will be tested by checking to see how many cell phones the bridge will be able to support. The class will observe as each bridge is tested. Be ready to document where and what are the causes of structural failure. At 20 second intervals, additional cell phones will be added to the Main span of the bridge until the bridge collapses. [It’s recommended that students be ready to catch their cell phones and have their hands under the bridge at least 3 inches away from the bridge deck]

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?

Reflections /Documentation
Each team member will need to post on the Open Lab their reflections on this workshop. Be sure to include the following issues in your reflections:
• What strategy did your team used to solve the problem?
• Did you use the iteration process effectively?
• What were the hardest team organization challenges?
• What are the hardest technical challenges?
• What part of the bridge did you think would collapse first?
• What part did collapse first and why?
• Include at least two photographs, sketches or diagrams in your reflection.

Assessment
This assignment will be evaluated by reviewing your reflections on the Open Lab. The focus of this evaluation will be the lessons learned in this workshop. Additional points will be given for each cell phone your groups bridge could support.

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?

Following are some quotes from student reflections on this project. Additional reflections can be seen at this site:

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/aptekar-berger2205sp2017/assignments/216-reflection-on-suspension-bridgeobservation-sketch/

“Today’s class project was very challenging and hands on. It is something I enjoyed doing because my team worked well together to create a steady bridge. Although, it took some time to figure out how to actually build a proper bridge was kind of difficult considering I know nothing about architecture or building. My team mates worked together from putting straws together to taking down blocks to the table. Overall, we learned that the anchorage is the most important part which is something our bridge lacked. Now we know for next time what to spend more money on.”
Alexandra Linik

“…

3. I learnt that the cabling is as important as the others structures as well. Since it is suspension bridge, both the weight of the deck and the live loads will be hung by the suspenders. So the connection between the horizontal cable and vertical cables should be strong enough to hold all the weights. And the angle of the cable from the anchorage should be calculated in order to reduce the extra forces.

4. Lastly, I think we can design our towers of the bridge more pretty, because I learnt that putting weights on the towers do not help in order to stabilize the bridge.”
Alice Myint

“In today’s class the most interesting and challenging part was to make a suspension bridge using small wood blocks, ribbon, tape, paper and our creative mind of course. I got to know some of my classmates whom I have worked with throughout the project. I think architectural stuffs sounds like easy, but it’s really not and the worst experience was when we made the bridge and it’s collapsed twice. But we did not lose hopes and we made a well -organized and furnished bridge with beautiful two anchorages and deck. The “deck” should be strong because the weight on the bridge is related on the base and it’s connected to the deck of both sides of the bridge. We put 4 phones on the bridge and it was still in the same position, but however it collapsed when 5th phone added on the bridge. But in the class we had much fun when working with as a group. We were very excited to see how others work done and that was the coolest part because we can learn something how they made their own. Overall, it was very cool, making a bridge with elementary stuffs and a great experience to work with my classmates.”
Mdzafar Sadak

“The class project that we have was pretty intresting because we get to work together as we form two group. One group was to build one half of the bridge and the other group would do the other half of it. The challageing part was trying to combine the bridge and form a deck that could support the weight. We through that it would help but as it turn out after we finish building it and testing it that it wasn’t the deck that we create can support the weight it was the anchor was the most important part of it that would have support the weight of it. The thing that i learn most was no matter what type of bridge that people make if the anchor is not strong enough then the whole bridge would fall.”
Alan Qiu

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 welcome comments and suggestions. I am be happy to provide you with more documentation including diagrams and photographs for this workshop. Don’t hesitate to reach out by email.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

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Restaurant Manager’s Operational Challenge

Restaurant Manager’s Operational Challenge

Rosa Abreu

Hospitality Management

Restaurant Management

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

This is part of a scaffold assignment that incorporates a number of discipline specific to Student Learning Outcomes. This portion, a case study, focused on the Student Learning Outcomes of Ethical Reasoning.

The case study is design to place senior students in an operational challenge with the restaurant staff.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

The larger outcome will be for students to evaluate the overall impact of the case study to the industry.

Here students will be assessed with the Rubric of Ethical Reasoning, Communication, discipline specific.

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?

When in the semester, this case study is in relation to the larger project, the groups will have 25 minutes to complete.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

The preparation will be, reading the scenario and background of the case. Students will be place in a small groups and they are to write solutions to the case study. This activity will be consider low stakes.

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?

I will use the Ethical Reasoning Rubric

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?

This activity will be implemented in Fall 2017

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.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

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Editorial Illustration Part 1 – Project Research

Editorial Illustration Part 1 – Project Research

Sara Woolley Gómez

Communication Design

Illustration 1

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

This activity is the introductory assignment of a scaffolded project, in which students create an Editorial Illustration for use to accompany an article in a magazine, printed or online. The project is broken into stages with peer critique and feedback given at each stage, spanning 4 weeks in total.

Part 1 Editorial Illustration Research:

1- Open with a Collaborative Learning Activity:

Rapid Fire Discussion: What do we care about?

There is a sterotype that young people are unaware or unconcerned with social issues and current events.
• Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
• Are there issues or events which you are particularly passionate about?

5 minute Brain Dump:
• In teams, grab a piece of chalk and fill the black board with a brainstorm of every issue you care about.
• If another student’s answer sparks an idea, draw a line to link the ideas.
• There are no wrong answers, but be sure to read before you write! No doubles allowed!

End with a 5 minute Reflection

2- IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENT : Editorial Illustration Research

Research: Find an article from a legitimate news source, online or printed, about a topic which you are passionate about or find particularly interesting, as source material for your editorial illustration. Carefully read and analyze those articles.

Brainstorm: Using the Word Stack method taught in an earlier assignment, students will write down all of the key words they can think of relating to the article. They then build out from those key word forming stacks, and make bridges between any concepts that they find related. For example, by theme, color, shape, etc. This part is entirely personal and represents part of their unique artistic lens.

Write: Students author a blog post on open lab in response to the article. Key stakeholders are identified. Who does this issue matter to and why? Students share the article as well as their brainstorm with their peers.

Discuss: Students prepare a brief presentation of their chosen article and brainstorm.

Presentation: Students present their findings to their peers, showing all related materials through the open lab. 3 minutes per student with an additional 2 minute Q&A.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOME
Students discuss / analyze core beliefs and the origins of the core belief.
Analyze content and evaluate evidence
Apply critical thinking skills to make creative inferences
Evaluate different ethical perspectives and concepts
Respect and Use Creativity

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?

This activity is the introductory assignment of a 4 part scaffolded project, Editorial Illustration. We begin this month long project midway through the semester. It builds upon knowledge gained from two preceding projects, such as illustration professional practices, the revision process, technical skills, and concept development techniques. It also uses a place based learning experience at the New York Society of Illustrators annual show, as a springboard for the assignment.

This activity, project research is an in class activity and purposely designed so to allow opportunity for collaborative learning. It will take the full class session (3 hours) to complete. Students are expected to continue the assignment outside of class during the next three parts of the assignment leading to the final illustration and work process presentation.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

This activity does not require a great deal of preparation. As previously noted, the art form of Editorial Illustration is previously introduced through a place based learning experience at the New York Society of Illustrators. Students are not asked to come in with any concept of what they would like to work on. Instead they are to identify issues the care passionately about through collaborative learning with their peers. This also allows them to recognize and discuss multiple perspectives. Then they are to inform their opinions through thorough research. Then finally to present the issue to the class, expressing their views on it, and showing their research and an accompanying brainstorm.

This is a low stakes activity. It in an of itself is not graded, however it contributes to the process development of a high stakes project.

Students are given the following evaluation criteria:

Overall quality of your presentation to the class.
Clarity while explaining the topic you’ve chosen and it's significance.
Quality and depth of the Brainstorm created based on the topic.

• Identify the key stakeholders in the issue.
• Describe your perspective on the issue.
• Describe how different ethical perspectives might be applied.
• Explain your brainstorm, and share any creative insights or inferences it may have sparked.

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?

This activity uses a VALUE rubric to access the following learning outcomes:

Self Reflect and Identify personal values and ethics
Analyze content and evaluate evidence
Apply critical thinking skills to make creative inferences
Discern multiple perspectives

In addition I access the following outcomes using the same 4 tiered rating system:

Respect and Use of Creativity.
Overall quality and professionalism of presentation.

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?

This activity description represents a revision of a current assignment in order to improve upon it. Currently students are coming into class after having researched and chosen a topic on their own.

This new structured in class version allows students to learn collaboratively, and to discern multiple perspectives through evaluating the work of their peers.

Students in the current version of the assignment seem to greatly enjoy presenting the issue and their views on it as well as creative work to their peers.

One challenge I encountered was identifying the difference between a legitimate or false news source. At first I dealt with this on an individual basis, but once it had come up for discussion a second time I stopped the class to discuss the difference as a group, leading them to come up with a set of parameters.

In the future I'd structure in the same discussion and provide some better examples.

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.

Assignment Instructions:

Editorial Illustration (4 part project)

Overall Project Description:

Create an Editorial Illustration for use to accompany an article in a magazine, printed or online. This project is broken into stages with peer critique and critical feedback given at each stage, spanning 4 weeks in total.

The final illustration must be created using a limited palate of black, white, and one other color and should be made using a combination of traditional drawing / inking skills and digital coloring. Final art should be made to fit the real magazine’s specs. (Approx 9” x12”)

Final work will be judged on the clarity and cleverness of the overall concept, thoughtful utilization of composition, the use of value, and of course the skillfulness of overall technique.
_______________________________________________________

Part 1 of 4

Rapid Fire Discussion: What do we care about?

There is a sterotype that young people are unaware or unconcerned with social issues and current events.
• Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
• Are there issues or events which you are particularly passionate about?

5 minute Brain Dump:
• In teams, grab a piece of chalk and fill the black board with a brainstorm of every issue you care about.
• If another student’s answer sparks an idea, draw a line to link the ideas.
• There are no wrong answers, but be sure to read before you write! No doubles allowed!

IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENT : Editorial Illustration Research

Research: Find an article from a legitimate news source, online or printed, about a topic which you are passionate about or find particularly interesting, as source material for your editorial illustration. Carefully read and analyze those articles.

Brainstorm: Using the Word Stack method we’ve used for earlier assignments, write down all of the key words you can think of related to the article. Be sure to include the actions – what is happening, not just who, what, or where.

Write: A blog post on open lab in response to the article. Identify the key stakeholders. Who does this matter to and why? Highlight particular areas of interest to you. Share the article as well as your brainstorm and any images you may consider using in the future as reference material.

Discuss: Prepare a brief presentation of your chosen article and brainstorm.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOME
Students discuss / analyze core beliefs and the origins of the core belief.
Analyze content and evaluate evidence
Apply critical thinking skills to make creative inferences
Evaluate different ethical perspectives and concepts
Respect and Use Creativity

PURPOSE
Identify personal values and understand how passion to fuels your work.
Listen to the values and consider the perspectives of others.
Understand ethical perspectives.

EVALUATION CRITERIA
Overall quality of your presentation to the class.
Clarity while explaining the topic you’ve chosen and it's significance.
Quality and depth of the Brainstorm created based on the topic.

• Identify the key stakeholders in the issue.
• Describe your perspective on the issue.
• Describe how different ethical perspectives might be applied.
• Explain your brainstorm, and share any creative insights or inferences it may have sparked.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/woolley-comd2313sp17/2017/05/03/editorial-illustration-process-book-examples/

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The ethical issue of biomedical engineering

The ethical issue of biomedical engineering

Chen Xu

Computer Engineering Technology

BMET1101

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

In BMET1101, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering Technology, different subareas of biomedical engineering are introduced. Discuss the new development of prosthetic arm, watch the video of mind controlled robotic arm. Ask students to research about different aspects, such as biomechanics, neural engineering, and biomedical instrumentation, medical imaging. Then move to cyborg (short for "cybernetic organism") in the novel and movies, which is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts, such as iron man, spider man, and Darth Vader. Discuss the ethical issues, such as will the artificial devices may affect personal identity and dignity, can human still be held morally responsible for their behavior when their brain has been engineered by others to function in certain way?

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

Inspire students to explore the development of technology and critically think about the limit of technology.

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?

At the end of semester. Maybe discuss some topics in one lecture, then let students do more research, revisit the topics again after two or three weeks.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Show some videos, and introduce the background. It’s an open-ended question, write or present as a project.

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?

Breadth of knowledge, lifelong learning, inquiry and analysis, integrate learning, ethics and value.

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?

Still in course design stage.

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.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

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Exploring cultural differences in dental care

Exploring cultural differences in dental care

Anna Matthews

Dental Hygiene / SPS

Oral Anatomy DEN 1112

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

In Fall 2016, students in three sections of DEN1112 completed a term project assignment with the focus on Intercultural Knowledge and Skills assessment.
This assignment consisted of several parts.
Individually, students watched a Frontline PBS documentary “Dollars and Dentists” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/dollars-and-dentists/ ) which explores the complexity and availability of dental care in the U.S.
Next, students read the case study “Mortality associated with odontogenic infection” (Green et al., 2001) and answer accompanying questions. Students were asked to discuss the documentaries they watched in small groups. Students were provided questions for discussion prompting them to discuss their opinions regarding the status of dental health care in the U.S. as presented in the documentary. Students were also asked to share their cultural beliefs and attitudes towards dental care. Given the diversity of students in our Dental Hygiene program (over 50% of students were not born in the U.S. and speak over 20 primary/first languages), a difference of experiences and resulting opinions about health care more broadly and dental care in particular emerged in their discussions.

Individually, students wrote an essay reflecting on the Frontline documentary and the case study. Among the questions they were to address in their essay, they were asked to describe their interactions with peers in their groups and to evaluate how their own attitudes/opinions were or were not different from those of their classmates, what have they learned about other cultural beliefs/attitudes from the dialog with other students, how their own opinions have or have not changed as a result of the whole experience (watching the documentary and learning about the subject and their subsequent discussion of it in small groups).

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

1. introduce students to the complexity of dental care and its availability in the U.S.
2. connect the topics of spread of dental infection, as introduced in their Head & Neck portion of DEN1112 course, to the real-life situations leading to serious and life-threatening outcomes discussed in the scientific article (case study) and Frontline investigation.
3. work in teams to discuss the different cultural influences on how people perceive the necessity of dental care and its various aspects.
4. reflect on the whole experience by connecting all parts of this assignment in the written essay.

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?

This assignment begins during week 13 of the Fall semester. The students discussed in small groups during class sessions twice for about 20 min. Depending on how long it takes students to write their 1200-1500 word essays, the activity would take at least 10 hours to complete outside of class.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

This term project is worth 10% of their final grade for DEN1112. The students were given detailed instructions for each part of the assignment and provided with the PDF of the article and a link to Frontine documentary.

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?

In 2016, my course was part of college-wide assessment of Intercultural Knowledge and Skills. An appropriate AAC&U VALUE rubric was used for this evaluation, however, it was not used for grading. Students’ essays were evaluated based on the clarity and organization of the information, providing accurate and appropriate sources and citations (they were asked to substantiate their writing with at least two sources analyzing the topic of the video, other than the documentary itself), sentence structure, grammar and spelling.

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?

This activity worked very well and I intend to repeat it in Fall 2017. I don’t plan to introduce any changes at this time. The students seemed to enjoy the small group discussions and according to their reflections in the essays, they learned a lot from each other as well as the case study and Frontline documentary. One student’s essay was selected for publication in the 2017 issue of City Tech Writer.

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.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

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Teamwork assignment

Teamwork assignment

Anna Matthews

Dental Hygiene/SPS

DEN2315

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

This assignment focused on fostering students’ ability to work in teams, in class and online. Students in my Summer session’s class were randomly assigned to one of four groups (each had 5 members) and they were asked to create a PowerPoint presentation of 15-20 slides on a randomly assigned topic (one of four possible topics), which included a group of drugs that were not covered in class (anti-fungal medications, AIDS/HIV and drugs used in management, topical and systemic corticosteroids, and anti-allergy medications). Groups worked in class to create their own OpenLab project sites and I was a member of each group together with the five students. After the sites were created, students exchanged information and resources online and communicated among each other and with me. They had 2 weeks to work on their presentations and I evaluated their progress continuously. The final presentations were uploaded by one of the students from each group to our course OpenLab site. All students reviewed the presentations from each group.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

I have done similar activity before and the main goal of it is to provide opportunity for students to work in teams and foster collaboration. While the final products by teams were always successful in the previous sessions of DEN2315, some students complained that it was not a true team effort and some students did not participate equally and did not contribute to the team’s outcome. By observing individual students’ participation online and evaluating their contributions to the process and the final group product, I was able to grade their efforts in a much more fair way and there was no more concerns from students about the unequal share of group’s work if some had done more or less than others.

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?

Summer session 2-S is a 5-week course, we meet twice weekly in class. This assignment was due after the 4th week of the session and a progress evaluation was done at the end of week 3. We spent about 30 min in class to discuss the activity, organize students in groups and create their OpenLab project sites. The rest of work was done entirely online.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Students needed to learn how to create and manage their OpenLab sites and how to post/comment/add media and links there.
The activity is one of the 3 online assignments and it is 10% of their final course grade.

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?

I assessed students’ work by the following:
1. their participation in class in creating the site
2. the number of posts/comments they contributed during the group’s work online
3. quality of the resources they found and shared
4. clarity and organization of their own powerpoint slides in the group’s presentation
5. appropriateness of references/citations
I did use the VALUE rubric for the assessment of Teamwork as my guide to evaluate students’ interactions. My session was part of college-wide Spring 2016 assessment (although it was conducted in the Summer 2016 session) but the rubrics were used for guidance and assessment only, not for grading individual student work.

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?

The activity worked very well. It was a marked improvement compared to the previous times I used this assignment and allowed students to select their own groups and topics as well as divide their work by themselves. Previously, for some groups it resulted in unequal work distribution and by overseeing each group of students I was able to evaluate each student’s work individually. I especially liked that this time all students worked together very well, even though they were randomly assigned to groups. Students’ comments about their experience were positive as well.

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.

For students’ privacy, their OpenLab project sites were for members only. Assignment description is here: group-study-assignment-2016-teamwork
Teamwork VALUE rubric is on the CityTech AIR website.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

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Brooklyn Business Analysis

Brooklyn Business Analysis

Rachel Raskin

Business/ School of Professional Studies

ACC 1201 – Principles of Accounting II

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

The class will be divided into groups of 4-5 students. Each group will choose a Brooklyn based company from the list provided and develop a research paper about the company. Groups will also present their findings in a 15 minute presentation at the end of the semester. The research paper must address the following issues:

– Discuss the business, the industry and the history of the company’s formation. What type of business entity was it formed as (corporation, partnership, LLC, etc.)? What are the benefits of having chosen that specific entity? What business challenges did the founders face when launching the company? What accounting challenges did the founders face when the business was first established? How did they or how might have they dealt with these challenges?
– How has the location in Brooklyn aided or inspired the formation of the business? If the business is still in Brooklyn (such as Maker Bot, Etsy, Gotham Greens, Vice Media, or Brooklyn Brewery) visit its headquarters. Try to arrange a meeting with its employees and ask relevant questions to help you in your research. If you choose Pfizer or Domino Foods, the Brooklyn Historical Society has a wealth of primary sources on these companies.
– Find a similar company in the same industry and if the chosen Brooklyn based company is not public, make sure the second one is a public company that has filed a 10-K with the SEC. Provide a description and history of this business. Compare it to the similar business discussed that was formed in Brooklyn. What similarities do the two companies have and what are the differences?
– Analyze the financial statements of the chosen public company. Perform vertical, horizontal and ratio analysis and discuss how the business stands in comparison to its competitors and the industry. Access the financial statements through the SEC’s EDGAR filing system. All other articles and data should be accessed through Morningstar.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

I would like students to be able to analyze a company’s position based on its financial statements. They should gain an understanding of how to research a company using reliable sources such as the Morningstar Market Research platform and SEC filing system. Ultimately, my goal is for the students to be able to connect their research about the company with the financial statement assessment they perform and put forth a comprehensive and original analysis. I would like them to step out of their comfort zone to work in a group, visit the business site directly to ask employee’s questions, and be able to convey all their findings in a professional presentation.

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?

This is a term project. I dedicate twenty minutes a week for the groups to discuss their progress in class. Most of the work is done outside of class.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Prior to starting the activity I will cover the main concepts students will need to complete the project. Mainly, how to perform financial statement analysis and the characteristics of various forms of business entities. I will also introduce the students to the databases they will need in order to conduct the research.
Students will be instructed to post two drafts of the project to our class’ Open Lab site for my review prior to the final submission. They will be encouraged to use our Open Lab site as a place for group discussions regarding the assignment.

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?

I use a points rubric based on the AACU’s Critical Thinking Value Rubric.

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?

Overall, this project was a great learning experience for the students. The challenges the students had were making connections between the financial analysis and the context/current state of the company. To address this issue in advance, next semester I will have the students scaffold their work over a few drafts of the paper, leading to the final product.
I think the students liked working in excel to perform a complete financial analysis. They enjoyed the opportunity to apply many concepts learned in class. They also were surprised at how many companies were created right around City Tech and were pleased to know of all the potential career opportunities at these businesses. All students dressed in business attire to present their research to the class. I believe this gave them a sense of pride in their work.

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.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

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