Eric Stoller's Blog

I started my summer practicum a couple of weeks ago. The project is fairly simple. All I have to do is prove that the Academic Success Center’s (ASC) study tables program increases student participants’ final grades. The study table program is really unique. Student tutors are recommended and evaluated/hired by the ASC to tutor small groups of students within specific classes. Classes include: Math 111, Physics, Economics, and my personal favorite – Zoology. Each student tutor (st) attends the same classes as the students that they will tutor. The ST’s take notes and prepare a customized study table session for each class that they are a tutor for. Students then attend weekly study tables on a voluntary basis. There were 9 regular, 1 hour long study table sessions and 2 three hour long final examination study table periods.

The ASC piloted the study table program during Winter term (05). Student’s final grades were amazing. If you attended a study table, your grades improved. The neat part is that they tracked math placement scores and incoming SAT scores as pre tests and the final grades as post tests. The control group consisted of the students that did not attend any study tables.

My experience with this assessment project is really exciting because I get to see results that actually contributed to the retention of students. I’m working with MS Excel, OSU Banner, and that damn Hummingbird application, also known as the Data Warehouse. My skills are really rusty with Banner and Data Warehouse but I’m getting better. It’s frightening when you see what kind of information is collected. The databases are extremely sophisticated. My first day at the ASC, I called the Banner/Data Warehouse support number twice in 2 hours!

There will be a lot of number crunching which you know is not exactly my forte but I am still thrilled to get a solid experience within the ASC. Part of my assessment will be to interview students who were are calling “the Regulars” to see if they have anything to contribute regarding the study tables that the cold, hard numbers do not tell us.

I am well on my way to crunching/digesting the results of all the students at OSU who took Math 111. So far, I’ve run into a few data glitches but nothing that I won’t be able to figure out. I have a lot to do for each class and at this stage in the summer it is going to be a challenge to finish everything before school starts. I have all of my fingers, toes, eyes, and legs crossed. Wish me luck

Before I forget to post this, I helped out with the English Language Institute’s (ELI) summer orientation program. I spoke to students regarding campus activities and the anxiety of finding food in a different country. On Saturday, June 25th, I was one of several OSU students who gave a tour of downtown Corvallis. It was a beautiful day and the experiences that I have had working with ELI students through two orientation programs have been awesome. The students have shared a lot of information about their home countries which include: Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and Columbia.

I’m participating as an ELI Conversant during the summer. The student is from Korea. I’ll withhold his name for privacies sake. I have been invited to Korea and he has been told that Iowa is nice in the fall! Each week we meet for an hour at Java II to discuss a variety of topics. His English proficiency is getting better each week. Meanwhile, mine continues to hold still somewhere below average and above horrible

International students are a blast to work with and I would encourage all of my readers (you know who I’m talking about!) to consider a job where you get to work with students from all over the globe.

Here are a 2 photos from the downtown Corvallis tour:

Wendy and I went to Mary’s Peak today. It’s located about 30 minutes west of Corvallis. The road is like a rollercoaster. If you have issues with motion sickness this road is not for you! We parked about 9 miles from the summit. I got out of the car and proceeded to the “get an envelope, write down your info, pay $5″ station when I was attacked by bees. At first there was a loud hum whick quickly became a roar. I was wearing my SF MOMA t-shirt with the orange logo — I must have looked like a large orange flower. I ran away from the car as quickly as I could. I’m not very fast so the bees had no problems staying close to me. I zigged. I zagged. It was no use. I was about 50 ft. from the car so I asked (yelled at) Wendy if she could open the car. She unlocked the passenger side behind the driver and I dove in as quickly as I could. A quick bee check revealed that none of the bees had made it into the car. Wendy informed me that I had had at least 5 – 6 bees pursuing me! I was very winded! We then drove up to a safer area and parked the car. We were half way up the trail to the summit when we both were dive bombed by more angry bees. I asked Wendy if she had sprayed us both with honey. The bees were quick but our quick wits told us that the forest was our only hope (we had been in a grassy medow). The forest provided shade and the bees left due to an apparent lack of pollen and/or we were now boring to them…

As we neared the summit, we came upon a flower lined gravel road. We started walking up the road when once again a pack of angry bees started swirling around our heads. A bee landed on my leg and one of them got stuck for a moment in Wendy’s hair. I started to get really angry and started running up the hill. It was more of a trot but it was exhausting. Wendy calmly proceeded up the hill. Apparently she is immune to bee venom. I finally reached the top. It felt like I had run a marathon. Towards the end of this run, I had resigned myself to the idea that the next bee that lands on me is going to die even if I get stung. I couldn’t take any more bee mind games. What a day. The view from the summit was amazing. I took some pics (sans bees) from the camera phone. Enjoy!

Learning Contract
Practicum Site: Academic Success Center

Duties and Responsibilities:
The overall goal of the practicum will be to help the Academic Success Center perform an assessment of the ASC study table program. To do this, I’ll need to gather and synthesize both quantitative and qualitative data. This practicum will provide learning in the following CSSA competencies: #2 Student Development in Higher Education and #4 Assessment and Evaluation

Here are some of the specific assessment/student development activities I will be engaged in:

• Using data warehouse to gather hard data about how much study tables helped student grades. For example, to measure the effect of the Ph 203 study tables, I can predict student performance based on Ph 201 and 202 grades and then analyze whether the students in the study tables outperformed their peers with similar 201 and 202 grades. For ZOO 333, I’ll use ZOO 331 and 332; for Math 111, I’ll use SAT and math placement grades.

• Analyzing responses from the assessment survey that students in the study tables have filled out. These assessment sheets contain data measured by likert scales as well as more open-ended response questions such as the benefits of the program as well as their recommendations.

• In depth interview/follow-ups with specific students in the tables. For example, I will interview students who attended regularly and some students who did not attend regularly or dropped out of the program. Also, I’ll interview students who showed significant improvement after attending study tables regularly versus students who perhaps did not improve very much despite the study tables. These interviews will either be done by phone or email.