1

Name

Department

Campus

Objective

1

Linda Rogness

Chemistry

Rockville

This proposal builds on earlier work with active learning teaching strategies, and has three components: to reach out to other institutions to see what active learning approaches and evaluation tools exist in Chemistry courses; to trace former students to see if these AL approaches have been successful for them here at MC; and to design a general Chemistry course that is entirely activity and laboratory based.

2

Rebecca Cartwright

History, Politial Science

Rockville

This project aims to adapt active learning strategies currently used in the traditional classroom to a distance learning course, specifically Political Science 101 (American Government). The primary goal is to design at least one new activity for each major section of this course that will take advantage of political resources on the Internet.

3

Miller Newman

English

Rockville

Through this fellowship, the proposer hopes to create an English 101A course that promotes active learning to learn composition. Specifically, the goals are to identify a textbook more appropriate to critical thinking and active learning, develop teaching strategies to inspire active learning in the writing process, and incorporate group projects and problem-based learning as an alternative to more traditional composition class deliverables.

5

Joanna Howard

English

Rockville

This project will revise the EN 001 and 002 writing center exercise packets to focus on student writing and utilize quiz-generating software to practice grammar concepts. These activities would engage learners with their own papers and their tutors through the steps of the writing process. This project will also create games and quizzes that can be used to reinforce grammar concepts on the worksheets. These activities will be piloted in Professor Howard's classes this semester.

6

Mary Kay Abbey &
Bette Daudu

Math, English

Takoma Park

Using an internet-based instructional program, based on the instructional tool "Calibrated Peer Review," students will learn important concepts by writing expository paragraphs. This is an interdisciplinary program that teaches writing outside English classes, and evaluates students' writing based on well-understood critical facets of the writing process.

7

Adel Halli

Physical Sciences

Takoma Park

The goal of this project is to improve students' learning of nmr spectroscopy and its application to organic chemistry. By designing activities around a pre-existing computer simulation package, students should better understand this difficult concept that provides a foundation for the rest of the course.

8

Nancy Shaw

Math

Rockville

This proposal is grounded on the idea that students are more motivated and learn better when they interact with each other, with the teacher as a coach. This is particularly important in the developmental math classes, with their dismal retention rates and less-than-motivated students. I have begun some cooperative group work in class, and would like to further develop these lessons and activities and try other ideas and approaches learned from my peers through this program.