Minutes from Social Sciences Task Force Meeting of September 29, 2006

Minutes from Social Sciences Task Force Meeting of April 29, 2011

The Social Science Task Force met Friday, April 29, 2010 from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM at Rio Grande Campus in Room 125. The following faculty members were in attendance: Geoffrey Andron, Karen Bell, Jake Bloom, Mary Beth Booth, Kristyn Brown, Jack Bucco, Mary Chipley, Richard Croxdale, Clint Davis, Iris Geisler, Cedric Grice, Carol Hayman, Steven Howard, Lyudmlya Krylova, Livingstone Kumassah, Tony Lee, Sanford Marble, Sean Moran, Shirin Murrassa-I-Khuda, Michael Petrowsky, Elizabeth Pintar, Michael Pool, Van Savage, Marianna Sidoryanskaya, Alec Slivinske, Gary Smith, and James Sondgeroth.

1. The agenda was approved.

Agenda:

1. Approve agenda.

2. Approve minutes from last meeting: http://www.austincc.edu/SOCSCI/Minutes/meet_02_25_2011.htm.

3. The Student Success Initiative-Economics: Discuss the experiments we have proposed to do for the SSI: 1) Math ability pre-test to see if there is correlation between math ability and successful course completion. 2) On-line homework platform experiment with control sections to see if requiring such study aids will help completion. 3) Buy in experiment to identify those who don't think they will complete the course. If confirmed, a further extension of this experiment would be to see if once identified intervention with those students most likely to withdraw would improve success. We need to take action on appointing a committee to oversee these experiments and to make sure they happen.

4. The Student Success Initiative-Anthropology: A report from Clint about where the data analysis stands and about whether or not Anthropology needs to run any experiments next year or not.

5. General Educational Competencies: Ron Johns, Department Chair of General Education, has asked for our suggestions as to what general education competencies we, as a college, might want listed with the Coordinating Board. We will have to then test our students to show we are imparting such competencies to them. I am not sure how these will relate to SACS / Core Curriculum Intellectual Competencies and the List of All Courses Recommended and Identified Competencies. We need to discuss whether or not we have anything to add to the proposed list. In preparation for this discussion please read the following documents:
        i. Proposed General Education Competencies: http://www.austincc.edu/sondg/SSTF/Assessment/EEO-GenEd/ProposedGenEdCompetencies.doc
        ii. Ron Johns Request for suggestions: http://www.austincc.edu/sondg/SSTF/Assessment/EEO-GenEd/RonJohnsRequestongenedcompt.doc
       iii. Previous SACS/Core Curriculum Intellectual Competencies:
               a. Anthropology: http://www.austincc.edu/oiepub/initiatives/cc_eval/completed_matrices/sbs_anthropology.pdf;
               b. Economics: http://www.austincc.edu/oiepub/initiatives/cc_eval/completed_matrices/sbs_economics.pdf;
               c. Geography: http://www.austincc.edu/oiepub/initiatives/cc_eval/completed_matrices/sbs_geography.pdf.
        iv. The college is serious about this: http://www.austincc.edu/gened/feedback.php.

6. SACS/Coordinating Board Pre- and Post Tests results from Fall: We need to discuss the results of our pre- and post-tests in ANTH 2301, ECON 2302, and GEOG 1303. After discussing these results we need to approve improvements we plan to make to the delivery of these courses to our students.

7. Approval of new books:

A. GEOG 1301-Mary Beth.
Physical Geography: Geosystems: An Introduction to Physical Geography by Robert Christopherson. 8th Edition.2012.

Pearson. ISBN 978-0-321-70622-5. Here is the website if anyone wants more infomation:

http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Geosystems-An-Introduction-to-Physical-Geography/9780321706225.page.

B. GEOG 2471- Sean Moran.

GIS Tutorial 1: Basic Workbook, Fourth Edition Wilpen L. Gorr, Kristen S. Kurland

ISBN: 9781589482593. Here is the website if anyone wants more infomation:

http://esripress.esri.com/display/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&websiteID=184&moduleID=0

8. The Social Science Book Club will meet immediately after the adjournment of the meeting in the same room the meeting was held in at RGC. Our book club's selection is Bad Students, Not Bad Schools by Robert Weissberg.

From the book jacket summary:

“Bad Students, Not Bad Schools is an Emperor’s new clothes book – it openly speaks the unspeakable: America’s education woes are caused by intellectually mediocre, unmotivated students – and not bad schools, rotten teachers, faulty curriculum, lack of sufficient funding and similar alleged culprits. Alter the student population and push students harder, even if this means lowering their self esteem, and American schools will thrive. If mischief makers refuse to learn, let them drop out! Politicians and professional educators avoid this awkward reality and prefer instead to squander billions while lurching from one guaranteed- to- fail gimmick after the next.”

9.. Adjourn.

2. Approve minutes from last meeting:. Discussion: Jim mentioned that each Social Science Task Force member should review the minutes and report any inaccuracies to rdayton@austincc.edu. Also please make sure to ensure that you are listed as attending each meeting. Voting task force members that attend task force meetings are paid a small stipend of $20.00 per hour at the end of the academic year. The attendance sign-up sheet at the meeting is used to process stipends. Action: The task force approved the minutes.

3. Clint- The Student Success Initiative-Anthropology: A report from Clint about where the data analysis stands and about whether or not Anthropology needs to run any experiments next year or not. Clint stated that the Student Success Initiative for Anthropology will be based on faculty participation within their own classrooms and their own set of students. It will be voluntary and every year we will collect the information, and, at the end of three years, we will evaluate the data. If we really want to compare something, we need to go three years down the line. Within the quantitative data (which was provided to the data coaches but not broken down at any level) we have identified four things. The best Clint can get is data by grades but not by course or by any other way. Four quantitative measures will be taken out of the data and there will be three qualitative aspects which when provided to the task force they will get a better idea of what this approach consists of. This will start next year. Clint will give each instructor a checklist with seven or eight categories whether it is dealing with withdrawals or F’s or other problems in the classroom. On the checklist the instructor will put a check next to the item in question and state whether “ I already address this” or “I don’t address this” or “I need to tweak this” in my class. At end of each semester we will have each instructor find one they don’t have tweak, and one they do have to tweak. At the end of each semester, we communicate to all anthropology instructors some of the tools the faculty are using in the classroom to promote student success. At end of three years, we will look at the quantitative measures we have gathered, and we will see if we made any difference whatsoever. We will run some regression analysis with the data we have collected against ethnicity and gender variables. We want to see if ethnicity or gender make any difference in predicting success in our cultural or physical courses.

4. The Student Success Initiative-Economics: Discuss the experiments we have proposed to do for the SSI: 1) Math ability pre-test to see if there is correlation between math ability and successful course completion. 2) On-line homework platform experiment with control sections to see if requiring such study aids will help completion. 3) Buy in experiment to identify those who don't think they will complete the course. If confirmed, a further extension of this experiment would be to see if once identified intervention with those students most likely to withdraw would improve success. We need to take action on appointing a committee to oversee these experiments and to make sure they happen. Jim mentioned when he read over the minutes there were a few experiments that they didn’t mention such as the TA experiment. Alec mentioned that most administrators are not educators therefore they have a difficult time understanding what is going on in the classroom in an open enrollment college where any student may attend. Jim said that the most obvious thing the data shows is not to let anyone take introductory economics courses if they need remediation in reading, writing or math. Stating that as a proposal we might send forward, we could require that anyone who has had to take a remedial class in math be required to pass a college level class in math before they can take and economics class; students who are not required to take a remedial class in math would still be able to register for the introductory economics classes without having to complete a college level math course. Jack mentioned that there would be conflicting interest trying to accomplish the pass rate and the graduation rates. He feels tht we are engaged in the SSI because we get so much money from the state but only have a 4% graduation rate. So state legislators question why they are spending so much money for such a piddling result. Jack was also amazed and angered that the math department no longer requires developmental math students to take and pass the Intermediate Algebra course to become TSI compliant. They substituted a course entitled Mathematical Thinking that students who will be majoring in subjects that don’t require College Algebra, Math for Business and Economics, or Calculus can take instead. Not surprisingly the success rate of students getting out of developmental math and taking college course improved by 50%, from around 50% to around 75%. Jack mentioned that he was being required to make a poster collage of what the Economics Department will be doing to ensure student success. 5) Sandy Marble suggested that we experiment with making course as tough as nails to see if that motivates students to succeed. Sandy felt if he offered a relatively hard course with a lot of stages students would realize it will be a hard course and once they do poorly on the first exam they would focus and buckle down. If you make the course harder more people will pass with a C, B, or A. So experiment with making the course harder with many more benchmarks. 6) Shirin mentioned an experiment she would like to do in which students would be given the textbook and myeconlab package together the first day of class. If the college bought it in bulk for them, we might get a good deal. The students would then have to pay the college for that package. Her hypothesis is that doing this would give the students an incentive to perform better because they would have the material the first day of class and could start working on it right away. She believes this might improve retention. Shirin suggested that we try this in two classes, one which would get the package the first day and another that would operate in the usual manner. We could then compare the success rate in each to the other.

Jim mentioned that Sean Moran is having a poster session presented by his students Friday May 13^th at Austin City Hall. The GIS student will present their posters and answer questions. Mary Chipley announced that her Academic Cooperative class will be presenting projects at 6:30pm on Monday the 9^th in room 125. Each presentation will be five minutes for presentation and five minutes for questions. Anyone that is interested is welcome to attend.

5. General Educational Competencies: Ron Johns, Department Chair of General Education, has asked for our suggestions as to what general education competencies we, as a college, might want listed with the Coordinating Board. We will have to then test our students to show we are imparting such competencies to them. I am not sure how these will relate to SACS / Core Curriculum Intellectual Competencies and the List of All Courses Recommended and Identified Competencies. We need to discuss whether or not we have anything to add to the proposed list. In preparation for this discussion please read the following documents:
        i. Proposed General Education Competencies: http://www.austincc.edu/sondg/SSTF/Assessment/EEO-GenEd/ProposedGenEdCompetencies.doc
        ii. Ron Johns Request for suggestions: http://www.austincc.edu/sondg/SSTF/Assessment/EEO-GenEd/RonJohnsRequestongenedcompt.doc
       iii. Previous SACS/Core Curriculum Intellectual Competencies:
               a. Anthropology: http://www.austincc.edu/oiepub/initiatives/cc_eval/completed_matrices/sbs_anthropology.pdf;
               b. Economics: http://www.austincc.edu/oiepub/initiatives/cc_eval/completed_matrices/sbs_economics.pdf;
               c. Geography: http://www.austincc.edu/oiepub/initiatives/cc_eval/completed_matrices/sbs_geography.pdf.
        iv. The college is serious about this: http://www.austincc.edu/gened/feedback.php.

Jim mentioned that we are already conducting the pre and post tests on alternating courses and that this should be sufficient in regards to testing our achievement of teaching these competencies. The college wants each department to test our students to see whether or not we are helping them to achieve these competencies in our courses. Cultural Anthropology and Geography should cover Cultural Anthropology. Sandy asked if we could propose a sublist of items that were more easily measurable and wants us to put forward that list. Jim mentioned that the list was for the whole college but that we could tailor it to our department. Sandy wondered if the core curriculum could be changed for the core curriculum board. Jim mentioned we will demonstrate a gain in the knowledge of the subjects that we teach. Jim clarified that these competencies are for every Academic AA. At ACC. Mary Beth felt that not all competencies were taught in every class and that it would be unreasonable to think they should be. Jim mentioned that our department doesn’t have to cover every competency in every course but the courses should do at least one or two. He felt that by the time ACC students get done with an associate’s degree they should have learned all of these competencies in all of the various classes.

Jim mentioned that when they were first starting these competencies new students would be given a test that might include questions from various subjects for everything they might take. Then as they graduate with an associate's degree at ACC, they could be given an exit exam to see if there was an improvement over their college career at ACC. The problem however was that so few people get their associates, and it is difficult to track down those that no longer attend ACC. The solution was to direct these questions to the task forces.

Alec mentioned that we are already covering competency number 6. We should send forward a recommendation that a gain in knowledge be demonstrated from the beginning to the end of a course. If you do the core curriculum in Social and Behavioral Sciences with various instructors and the different methodologies, then at the end of 44 hours you will have achieved this page according. Mary Beth mentioned that an instructor may feel they can only concentrate on a few of the items on the list and if all instructors focus on the same items then all items won’t be covered. Alec suggested that Ron Johns send out a survey to all faculty in the SBS and that they can check off these things and he can keep track of them. Jim mentioned that we should suggest they will gain knowledge in the subjects that they take. In this, the pre and post tests would be the best measure. Mary Beth suggested that we send forward the suggestion that we don’t agree with any of these competencies however that they will gain knowledge in the subject they take. Many task force members felt it wasn’t the responsibility of Anthropology, Geography or Economics instructors to teach any of these competencies as we are simply responsible to make sure that students gain knowledge in the subject matter that we teach with which we have expertise. Marianna suggested a statement that we will work harder to achieve these competencies.

Motion: Mary Beth. We believe that these competencies are important for community colleges to attain. However we feel that the most important competency should be that the students will gain knowledge in the subject matter that they take.

6. SACS/Coordinating Board Pre- and Post Tests results from Fall: We need to discuss the results of our pre- and post-tests in ANTH 2301, ECON 2302, and GEOG 1303.

Anthropology: After discussing these results, we need to approve improvements we plan to make to the delivery of these courses to our students. Lizzie mentioned that she hadn’t sent her post tests to our department so the scoring for Anthropology did not include her sections. If we postpone until we can get her post tests then Lizzie could create the comment on our goals. Lizzie mentioned that her sections would add maybe fifty students to the statistics. Alec felt the results would only change marginally. A motion was made that we will include Lizzie’s courses in the data for anthropology, and, once it is included, we will send it to all the anthropologists, and they can coordinate with Lizzie with how they want to respond to the results of the data.

Motion: Alec said he would say the preliminary results were positive and that they do show improvement. There is some additional data that will be added and once the additional data has been added it will be sent to all anthropologists. The benchmark for ANTH was a 20% increase in knowledge from the pre and post tests which was achieved. Jim explained that Rachel will gather all pre and post tests and weed out those students who dropped or who added late and had not taken the pretest.

Economics: The Economics results were increased from 1.3 correct to 2.1 correct of 315 students who took the test. Alec mentioned that multiple choice questions are better when they have four answers, not five. You will have the right answer, the most logical wrong answer and two others. Mary Beth mentioned that you should never have “all of the above” or “none of the above” as answers. Alec mentioned that in Micro two or three of the questions are questions that most handle in the first half of the course and in Macro the questions come from the second half of the course. Unless you tell students the knowledge they are learning in January they will be tested in May they won’t retain the information. Jim said if you look at the number of incorrect answers it is the number four question that seems to be the most difficult. Marianna reminded them that the results were a 20% improvement which was good. Andron likes the third and fourth questions as they are the second level beyond the basic level which provides a challenge to try and teach that to the students. Jim mentioned that looking at the results only ½ of the students know what the law of demand states at the end of the course. Jim mentioned that we don’t state the question on the tests as it is stated in the book. Jim mentioned that there had been a 20% improvement in understanding that we would try harder in the future to increase understanding to an overall level of 65%.

Motion: Try to raise the end of the course performance on this test to 65% or above. We reached a level of knowledge last fall and are very happy with that. Motion approved.

Geography: Mary Beth mentioned that number 9 went from 19 incorrect answers on the pretest to 29 incorrect answers on the post test. Jim mentioned that question number 8 got worse results also. Jim mentioned that we would check the key to make sure it was accurate. Mary Beth suggests that the people that teach the class look at the questions and make sure that in future semesters make sure that instructors remind their students how important it is to write their names on the tests since numerous tests could not be counted this semester. Given the small number of responses available, Mary Beth suggested the tests results may not be significant. Lizzie suggested trying to get the pre and post tests on Blackboard but Jim said that he had already questioned Seth Wilkerson about this. Jim said Seth mentioned this would all have to be a special blackboard course so that Blackboard could do all of the sorting and analysis for us. We would have to worry about the people who added and didn’t take the pretests. This idea was met with resistance because we would need a way to protect the test. Jim suggested that if any faculty were more knowledgeable in data collection they were welcome to come back to the task force with ideas of how to improve the pre and post test administration.

Motion: Mary Beth’s stated we would double check the data. Jim reminded faculty that any pretest or post tests without student names on them had to be discarded and could not be used. Also we will reduce number of answers from five to four and have the Geography professors check the key for accuracy. No results needed to report this year. For Geog we went from 4.8 to 5.8 which is an improvement in the level of geographic knowledge from 48% to 58%.

7. Approval of new books: