Making It All Add Up
Making It All Add Up is one of the online professional development courses from the NISOD Learning Scenarios group at Valencia Community College. The course focuses on the experiences of a new developmental math faculty member in his/her first year. By getting involved with the storyline, characters and resources, and interacting with colleagues, you will walk away with skills, attitudes and knowledge to assist in creating a positive, more effective mathematics classroom environment.
This course is designed for faculty working with developmental math students. Any faculty member who appreciates a collaborative experience will find great value in this course.
The Making It All Add Up course:
- is web‑based/distributed and facilitated (faculty-to-faculty)
- is structured as a course (orientation, syllabus, assignments, ongoing discussion threads and assessments) lasting 4 weeks
- utilizes an electronic case study and employs collaborative and problem‑based learning techniques,
- leverages the power of story, simulation and role-playing and fosters reflection, judgment and deep insight
- is designed to be integrated with other professional development activities
Course Goals:
- To establish an online learning community for faculty participants
- To encourage self- and group-reflection on the principles and practices of good teaching in the developmental math classroom
- To provide tools, resources, and expert guidance to improve the learning of developmental students
- To assist faculty in designing positive, enriched learning environments for our developmental education students
- To facilitate developmental student achievement and progress toward outcomes
Course Outcomes:
Upon completion of Making It All Add Up, participants will:
- Have an awareness of student and participant learning styles and the ability to implement multi-modality instruction
- Be able to identify valid problem solving strategies
- Have acquired methods for motivating students to problem solve and study math
- Have knowledge of strategies for using writing in a math class
- Be able to create a positive classroom learning environment
- Have identified and implemented strategies and techniques for incorporating collaborative learning in the math classroom