Assistant Professor
Queensborough
Community College
Bayside, NY - 11803.
E-mail: MTawde@qcc.cuny.edu
Courses - Human Anatomy-Physiology – I and II and General Microbiology
-Semester(s): Fall 2008 onwards and previous
-Student population: Allied Health (pre-nursing) majors
-Number of students: 35-40 / class- 100-120 per semester
-Level of students: Sophomore
I teach above 3 courses to mostly pre-nursing majors- . The enrollment for these classes is pretty heavy; however the students at Queens borough
are highly diverse not only in their ethnic and educational backgrounds but also
in their ages, stage of life and family commitments. Many students lack
the formal training in Science, especially in Biology at High school
level; while many are the returning students, who haven’t been to
school for a long time. These students are overwhelmed by the depth and
immensity of the material presented in any of the
above courses. This leads to High attrition rate of the student
population enrolled in these classes. To improve retention of these classes--
My research Question is whether online supplementary instruction
via BlackBoard can help pre-Nursing students to succed academically.
I had filed IRB for my above research proposal, however I was informed recently that it was not approved. So I am going to re-write the proposal and file again by September 2008
-Data collection will start at the end of the semester (due to IRB restrictions)
-Preliminary data analysis
Some areas where students could use some help are for example- the Cell structure & Function, Metabolism, Enzyme kinetics etc. So the students will be presented with basic concepts of Biology, Biochemistry, cell biology and/or genetics. The concepts presented will include (but may not be limited to)-- 1) What is Science and Biology; 2) Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cell stucture and Function; 4) Elements and chemical reaction; chemical interactions between biomolecules; 5) Cell structure -cell membrane and organelles With the help from SoTL, I would like to build an online resource center/course which the non-majors or the pre-nursing students can use to better-prepare them for their respective courses. I believe that team-based learning is an effective technique but would like to know various aspects of these pedagogical techniques.
http://wiki.biologyscholars.org/2008-2009_Research_Residency_Scholars/Tawde%2c_Mangala/Bibliography
Post a synopsis of the methodology you will undertake. http://wiki.biologyscholars.org/2008-2009_Research_Residency_Scholars/Tawde%2c_Mangala/Mangala_Tawde
Also use this page to start documenting the results that have emerged. You will have an assignment due in October which requires you to discuss methodology and results more thoroughly.
Post a thought or two about the results you see thus far. Link to <Discussion> page for more detailed analysis and thoughts.