Dyer - ACP Portfolio Flipbook

www.powtoon.com

Ben L. Dyer LSC: Cy-Fair, Government Dept.
Adjunct Certification Program Spring 2017, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Th.

Module 3: Formal Assessment

Learning Outcome: Analyze the state and local election process (L.O. #6 for Govt 2306)

Learning Objectives:

1. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to compare and contrast the
roles of state and local governments in the campaign and voting processes in
the State of Texas.

2. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to differentiate between the
different types of elections that exist at the state and local government levels
in the State of Texas, including, but not limited to, a plurality election, a
majority election, a partisan election, a non-partisan election, primary
elections, general elections, and run-off elections.

Formal Assessment Questions:

i. Defend this position: “Federalism in the U.S. has led to problems in system of
elections, especially regarding the protection of citizens’ voting rights, and needs to
be changed in order to preserve its integrity.” In answering this essay question,
please include a discussion of the rights and obligations of each level of government
involved in elections in Texas—federal, state, county, and municipal/city/local.
(evaluation)

ii. Analyze the political cartoon below. Be sure to discuss the following topics in the
context of elections and voting rights in the State of Texas: gerrymandering, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, pre-clearance, Shelby County v. Holder, and re-districting.
(analysis)

Ben L. Dyer LSC: Cy-Fair, Government Dept.
Adjunct Certification Program Spring 2017, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Th.

iii. How would you characterize the relationship between the State of Texas and its
counties as it pertains to elections and voting rights? (analysis)

a. The Texas Legislature has provided that counties have exclusive control over
carrying out elections in their respective counties including registration, voting
systems, campaign finance and disclosure laws, and how votes are counted.

b. Counties are primarily responsible for carrying out elections, registering voters
and counting votes, while the Texas Secretary of State attempts to ensure that
state voting laws are carried out consistently and in compliance with the law.

c. The State of Texas, particularly the Texas Secretary of State, has exclusive control
over how elections are carried out in Texas, including registration, voting
systems, campaign finance and disclosure laws, and how votes are counted.

d. The State of Texas is responsible for voter identification laws and registrations,
while the counties carry out elections, maintain records of campaign finance
laws, and count votes.

iv. What has been the effect of Texas’ system of partisan plurality elections and the
availability of straight-party ticket voting on the success of third-party/minor
political parties in elections in Texas? (evaluation)

a. Third-party/minor political parties have been harmed by the system of partisan
plurality elections and the availability of straight-party ticket voting; their only
successes have been in local elections if voting is on a non-partisan basis, or if
majority elections with runoffs are required.

b. Despite their existence, third-party/minor political parties have had no effect on
statewide, county or local elections in Texas.

c. Third-party/minor political parties have been somewhat successful in Texas in
that they are on the ballot and have been able to win some elections if they can
get into a state, county or local runoff election.

d. Straight-party ticket voting and partisan plurality elections will now enable
third-party/minor political parties to place candidates on statewide, county and
local election ballots and lead to more wins for them, so long as they can earn
enough votes in each race for the governorship.

2005 Adapted Research Paper Grading Rubric
from California
State University For Research Component
http://www.mash
ell.com/~parr5/te Uses:
chno/camera.htm 1. To set performance expectations by distributing to students when a paper is assigned.
l 2. To grade the portion of a student’s paper related to research and information use.

Beginning Proficient Advanced Score
(0-12 points) (13-16 points) (17-20 points)

1. Determine the Student creates an unfocused or Student formulates a question that is Student formulates a research question that is
Extent of the unmanageable research question. Student focused and clear. Student identifies focused, clear, and complete and identifies key
Information Needed identifies few or no relevant information concepts related to the topic, and concepts. Student identifies most or all relevant
(20 points) tools. identifies some useful information information tools in various potential formats.
tools to meet the information need.
2. Access the Needed Student uses information tools poorly and Student implements a clear and focused research
Information gathers information that lacks relevance, Student executes an appropriate strategy, uses tools effectively, and finds
Effectively quality, and balance. research strategy. Student solves information that directly fulfills the information
(20 points) problems by finding a variety of need.
relevant information resources and
3. Evaluate Student uses inadequate criteria to judge evaluates search effectiveness. Student compares and evaluates multiple and
Information and its information quality. Student makes little diverse sources and viewpoints according to
Sources Critically effort to examine the information located Student examines information using specific criteria appropriate for the discipline.
(20 points) for reliability. criteria such as authority, credibility,
relevance, timeliness, and accuracy, Student effectively synthesizes and integrates
4. Use Information Student shows little evidence of and makes good judgments about information from a variety of sources, draws
Effectively to incorporating information into their what to keep and what to discard. appropriate conclusions, and clearly
Accomplish a knowledge base. Student uses information communicates ideas to others to accomplish a
Specific Purpose poorly to accomplish a specific purpose. Student often uses appropriate specific purpose.
(20 points) information and evidence to support
Student inadequately cites ideas and their claims and conclusions and to
5. Use Information information of others. accomplish a specific purpose.
Ethically
(20 points) Student cites ideas and information of Student consistently and accurately cites ideas and

others with few errors. information of others.

2005. Adapted with permission from California State University (http://www.calstate.edu/LS/1_rubric.doc)

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Classroom

Environment By
Exercising Less
Control Over the
Learning Process
with Student-
Centered Learning

ACP Ben L. Dyer
Showcase
Portfolio

Government/
Political Science

April 6, 2017

Table of Contents

Getting Students to Read
Bridging the Gap with Bush v. Gore
Learning Objectives
Pre-Assessing
Technology
Reflection

Getting • Clearly define expectations for pre-reading
Students
To Read!  Practicing Texas Politics, pgs. 175-192
 Provide access to additional reading materials and websites that

students should survey
 Set out names of sections and subsections of material covered in

textbook on D2L or Edmodo

• Explain what I mean by “survey” the additional
reading materials

 Potentially ambiguous instructions require clarity, examples
and practice

 Use the longest piece of extra reading (a law review article) to
show the difference reading, surveying, and classifying, which
gives them a very brief spectrum of depth of understanding

• Provide students with summary questions that will
assist them in preparing for the in-class assessment
and group work

• 10-15 minutes of preceding class

BRIDGING THE GAP WITH
Bush vs. Gore

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Rules?

LEARNING • Course Student Learning Outcome:
OBJECTIVES Analyze the state and local election process
(L.O. #6 for Govt 2306)

_________________________________________
• Learning Objectives: By the end of this

lesson, students will be able to…

1. Compare and contrast the roles of state and
local governments in the campaign and voting
processes in the State of Texas.

2. Differentiate between the different types of
elections that exist at the state and local
government levels in the State of Texas,
including, but not limited to, a plurality
election, a majority election, a partisan
election, a non-partisan election, primary
elections, general elections, and run-off
elections.

PRE-ASSESSING:

CLASSIFYING AND DESCRIBING WHAT YOU LEARNED
FROM THE PRE-CLASS READING ASSIGNMENT

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THE CAT IN THE ROOM LEADS TO A BRAINSTORM

Federal State (Texas) County Local/Municipal

• Hand out the “Chapter 5: Elections & Voting—Whose Rules?” worksheet.
• Collect the ½-sheet answers to the Pre-Assessment.
• As I collect, explain the next section of the worksheet, which is my CAT.

• “Memory Matrix” (complete a table about course content, where row and column headings are complete but cells
are empty) or “Categorizing Grid” (complete a grid of 2 or 3 overarching concepts and has a variety of related

subordinate elements associated with the larger concepts).
• Students are instructed as follows: “As a group, brainstorm four (4) words or terms that best describe the voting

and election rules for each level of government. You may not use the names of “Acts” or cases as part of your lists.”
• Students in the groups get to know each other.

• I walk around to observe and see how much each group is grasping of the classification,
analysis and synthesis of the elections & voting system.

• I will assist students in coming up with one or two terms, if necessary, when I perceive that
they are struggling, or I will assure them that their efforts are on-track.

PUZZLED? Tweet it, Instagram it and Facebook it!

• Assign to each group one level of government
for which they will create a simple puzzle
(different from the Q’s answered in the Pre-
Assessment)

• The group is to include a minimum of 10
words/terms and 3 pictures on a group-
generated puzzle template

• The back side of the worksheet is for rough drafts,
taking notes and/or making their own version

• Be able to use it to teach the rest of the class about the
assigned level of government’s responsibilities in
elections, work on voting days, and preserving
voting rights

• Each group of students is given its own construction-
paper backed puzzle template, markers, crayons and
colored pencils, plus a glue stick, if they decide to
add a picture from home in the 2nd class

• The last 3 Qs are for students to create different
types of mock posts to Twitter (summary),
Instagram (critique) and Facebook (offer
solutions). They work on this between classes.

• Collect group work at the end of 1st class.

POST-ASSESSMENT: • Give back the puzzles, materials and
DID YOU CATCH worksheets, so that students can
ALL THAT? work to complete their Twitter,
Instagram, and Facebook posts.

• After ~30 minutes, groups will teach
the class about their puzzles, with
each student being asked to
contribute to their group’s
presentation.

• As needed, I will guide the students
to present the information that I
want to ensure gets presented.

• I plan to follow up with my own
questions to ensure that they have
classified and synthesized the
material relatively well.

IN SUM…

• I intend to end with a video
that I created with PowToon -
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=FcwDWzApzaQ. It
ends with a “toast” – Here’s
to Healthy Elections!

• I chose PowToon because I
wanted something lighter
after a lot of hard work
analyzing, summarizing, and
synthesizing by my students.

Reflecting on my ACP experience, …

• I am very glad that I pushed myself to apply, set aside the
time, and work on improving how I improve myself and my
teaching.

• I had to push myself to set aside time to work on every
assignment, which I am never able to take lightly. In that
regard, I frustrate myself and those around me because I am
close to being a perfectionist.

• I learned that I have made many mistakes; however, they are
all part of growth. The only way to be a better teacher and
professor is to practice, keep learning new techniques, and
not be afraid to take risks.

• I need to set aside time for myself and learn how to use the
technology resources out there, which will help me become
more effective at conveying concepts to students. Technology
has to be a tool and not a replacement for effective teaching.

Ben L. Dyer LSC: Cy-Fair, Government Dept.
Adjunct Certification Program Spring 2017, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Th.

ACP Portfolio: Reflective Essay

I have never relished true self-reflection, especially when it comes to my work
habits. It is rare that I let my guard down enough to allow others to see me for who I
actually am. My openness in how I present myself to others truly masks arrogance,
ambition, and exclusive self-reliance. I fend off those insecurities whenever I seek to
learn new things; however, they seem want to assure me that “I know better” and “I can
do better” regardless of what I am actually learning. Facing the brutal truth, this ACP
has forced me to recognize how much more effective I should be as a facilitator, teacher
and professor. I have seen versions of the BOPPPS method, but I have never seen the
utility of such methods in what I teach as an advanced placement teacher, dual credit
faculty member, and adjunct professor. My prior professional development in this area
has seemed to focus on dumbing-down curriculum and making the material easier for
students. For me, such goals were far from admirable. Now, I have finally had a
worthwhile professional development program that showed how college-level
curriculum does not need to be dumbed-down, nor does it need to be made less
challenging. In other words, I have finally been shown that the depth of flavors in a
complicated meal can still be appreciated by non-“foodies;” until now though, no one
has ever shown me how to present that complicated meal to non-foodies well.

In recent years, my traditional professional development excursion has been to
listen, practice a few helpful tips while there, and then work on my own to incorporate
what I have learned into my own teaching methods. With my brain often stretched thin
and time often being of the essence, I have found myself (i) testing the methods without
success, (ii) refusing to incorporate other methods due to their time-consuming nature,
(iii) finding the technology or method of presentation to be too arduous for me and
students to use effectively, (iv) learning a method that (a) is too elementary, (b) wants
material dumbed-down into simplistic chunks, or (c) is condescending in how it treats
high school and college-level students, and/or (v) forgetting some of the methods or
valuable steps therein. As I began learning about the BOPPPS method, I will honestly
admit that I felt a certain “here we go again, another waste of my time learning some
stupid method that has no applicability to what I need to do with my students.” In my
position as a three-tiered curriculum teacher, I have read, re-read and parsed through
my curriculum so many times for each of my classes that BOPPPS seemed like more of
the same—wasteful and inapplicable to me. My arrogance evoked internal annoyance
and impatience when I felt like I would have to redo my work yet again. I have had to
assure myself of continued compliance whenever new textbooks are adopted, laws
change, course descriptions are updated, objectives are modified, and so forth. I have
grown overly tired of the constant updating, especially when it feels like someone is
merely justifying the existence of their position and job to me. Putting my best foot
forward, I plodded on through this course’s curriculum and ultimately ended up doing
so with the proverbial egg on my face.

Ben L. Dyer LSC: Cy-Fair, Government Dept.
Adjunct Certification Program Spring 2017, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Th.

Like a good student, I did every assignment and worked each one until I felt like
I actually got something out of it. At first, I felt a marginal reward in how I whittled
away some of my own extra work and create simpler goals for my students. In an
unusual turn of events, I didn’t find that my work on the first couple of assignments
was generating dumbed-down or simplified versions of my curriculum; instead, I felt as
though my work was going to give students a better picture of how to accomplish my
objective. From there, I began to trust the process even more and let Professor Pruden
and her curriculum lead me down her path to success. I say it lightly now, but this is no
small feat when dealing with the potential cynicism and wall of arrogance of a former
civil trial attorney.

I truly believe that learning is difficult, which is why some students do not
succeed at every subject and some professors do not reach every student. However, my
personal goal has always been to beat those odds and be the teacher who reaches more
students than others. This is one positive aspect of my arrogance, ambition and self-
reliance. I have known that I must learn to be a better teacher before I can accomplish
that goal. Having taken so many useless professional development courses though, I’ve
always thought my path was one that I had to take and endure on my own; through
trial and error, I would eventually evolve into something better. Excuse the cliché, but
this class pierced my walled-in learning style and a now humbled student has been
reached by a wonderful professor and facilitator. Learning to be better has been a
different “difficult” for me than the difficulties expressed by others in this class. It has
not been about learning Bloom’s Taxonomy or the BOPPPS method per se. Instead, it has
been about applying, practicing, trying and refining the BOPPPS method on my actual
coursework. I have never had to do work like this in a classroom setting where I was
held accountable for the work put into my planning and teaching methods. In the end,
the more I worked through the methodology with my actual coursework, the more I
trusted the process. As trust developed further, the process rewarded me even more.

I believe my greatest rewards have been in developing the pre-assessment
materials and in working through my summaries. Together, they force me to see my
course outcomes and descriptions in a different light. I always knew that what I was
teaching would lead me to accomplish those outcomes. However, the key is that I knew
those outcomes and how I would lead students to those course outcomes. I now see
things from a different perspective. I never believed that the courses I teach were ever
about me, but I can do a better job at helping students realize and appreciate those
outcomes. Our course readings were extremely valuable in this regard. Being forced to
take those outcomes and create student-centered objectives, I now see that most
students want a map to where I am taking them. As a passenger, don’t most of us like
to know where we are going when someone else is driving? Some enjoy the journey
regardless of whether a map exists; most students like a map though, so they can view
the sites as they come or take side-trips along the way (as you can see, I use analogies
and metaphors a lot).

Ben L. Dyer LSC: Cy-Fair, Government Dept.
Adjunct Certification Program Spring 2017, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Th.

I have begun to incorporate more pre-assessments and summaries into my
coursework because I want to do what I learned was extremely effective in my law
practice. An effective communicator (whether in a speech or in writing) tells the
audience where they are being taken, s/he takes the audience there, a few surprises are
added along the way, and then s/he tells the audience where they’ve been taken after
the journey is complete. I am working on “bookending” my lessons better with my pre-
assessments and my summaries. These two steps are what I believe are the keys to
greater success in my classrooms. I can set students up early on for success with pre-
assessments, and my summaries can assure them that they’ve succeeded or provide
them with guidance if they’ve gotten lost.

In the future, my hope is that this class continues and that newer professors can
partake in the learning process this course provides. For me, the two greatest additions
would be for there to be (A) more help with incorporating technology into our
classrooms, and (B) a follow-up course to help professors create and refine more lessons
with the assistance of other professors. In (A), I believe that we all get stuck in a rut of
creating one or two types of technology-based tools to help us with our courses.
Professional development geared toward (A) would force professors to use multiple
platforms and present aspects of their lessons in different ways. As for (B), it could be
“ACP, part II,” where professors work side-by-side with one another across the various
subjects and create more of these BOPPPS-based lessons for their courses. A facilitator
would have access to lessons that have worked and have the creators share them,
reflecting on how they developed, were refined, and eventually evolved into the
greatest versions of themselves. A facilitator could also present some BOPPPS lesson
problems that professors have encountered, such as too much work, too little work that
led to student confusion, poorly worded instructions or guidance, or any number of
potential problems when great ideas are poorly executed. Placing professors in
structured environments like (A) and (B) would help someone like me because it would
force me to take the time to actually do the work. In addition, professional development
credit could be earned along the way, which would assure the school’s administration
that its most valuable assets are continuing to create value for the institution.

I am very glad that I pushed myself to apply to the ACP and worked on
improving how I can improve myself and my teaching. I learned that I have made
many mistakes over my years of teaching, but they are all part of my growth as a
teacher. The only way to be a better teacher and professor is to practice, keep learning
new techniques, and not be afraid to take risks. I am glad that I pushed past my own
shell of arrogance and trusted the process set before me in this ACP. Professor Pruden
was the perfect mix of teacher and facilitator, and she was never patronizing toward
any of us, as though she knew better. I preach “appreciation” to my students and hope
that they grow to appreciate my courses, as well as the opportunities to learn. In this
vein of double entendres, I want Professor Pruden and Lone Star College to know that I
have truly appreciated what was taught to me in this ACP.