Mohave Community College Life Sciences Lead Faculty member Tonya Baxleyspoke to us on how she and colleages have created an active learning environment that drives student curiosity and success which has lead to receiving a $10,000 faculty-led OLC DLI Award.
With a 19% poverty rate, Mohave Community College students are impacted by the rising cost of textbooks. The Life Science department at Mohave Community College has taken part in an overall institutional goal to create classes that use low cost open educational resources. By making this move, classes have become not only more accessible to students but also more engaging as the quality and design of materials has improved.
Register for Upcoming Inspark Webinars
In this webinar Prof. Tonya Baxley will focus on how she and a team of faculty
minimized student costs
implemented an active teaching model complementary to the BioBeyond Smart Course
engineered an environment in which the curiosity of the student drives their learning outcomes.
increased student success rates rom 72% to 90%
###
About Tonya
Prof. Tonya Baxley is the lead faculty member of the Life and Physical Sciences Department at Mohave Community College. She's been there since 2014 and teaches introductory and general biology courses along with anatomy and physiology. She obtained her Master's degree in biology from the University of Nebraska and is currently working on her Doctorate in Education, with a focus on Curriculum and Instruction. She has made a commitment to creating an engaging, active learning communities to enhance student learning outcomes.
About Mohave Community College
The mission of Mohave Community College (MCC) is to be a learning-centered institution, serving all constituencies, inspiring excellence through innovation and empowering students to succeed. MCC was established as a county college in October, 1970. In the late 1980s, MCC became the primary provider of Adult Education/GED program services in the county. Today MCC offers more than 60 degree and certificate options, and the tuition rate has held steady at $81 per credit hour making it an extremely affordable higher education option. The College is continuing to increase access by cutting the cost to students with its 20/20 initiative, pushing for all core classes to use open educational resources by 2020. Utilizing resources like those provided by the OLC, the College is on target to meet that goal.
About the Inspark Teaching Network
The Inspark Teaching Network is a strong partnership between universities, community colleges, scientists, and education experts working to transform science teaching and learning. The network empowers educators and learning designers to collaborate, build, and share next-generation courseware. The courseware harnesses the latest personalized, interactive digital learning technologies, and the learning content focuses on exploring real-world scientific questions to motivate and engage today's students. The Inspark Teaching Network is led by Smart Sparrow and Arizona State University, and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Learn more at https://www.inspark.education.