READING/WRITING/MATH & COUNSELING LEARNING COMMUNITY

A model for developing a career-

contextualized, cross-disciplinary

learning community

• Jenny Nolen, Reading

• Joan Ahrens, Writing

• Corey Manchester, Math

• Sarah Moore, Counseling

Instructional Team

Learning Communities at Grossmont• Grossmont College has a rich history of learning

communities with 30 years of Project Success• In Spring 2016, there will be over 30 linked courses,

including basic skills links, transfer-level links, and contextualized links for Allied Health, AOJ, Psychology, and History

• Math links in Spring 2016 include Allied Health Learning Community (basic skills level) and a transfer level LC that links Statistics with a Composition course

• Campus wide learning community—One Theme, One Campus: allows contextualized integrated learning without being in a “formal” linked course format

• Teamed with Dean of Nursing• Identified Basic Entrance Skills for Nursing

Program• Determined Educational Goals of Students

Assessing into English 98 and Math 90• Worked together to create integrated

assignments and timelines

Forming an Allied Health Contextualized Learning Community

• Staying Healthy

• Coping with Death and Dying

• Exploring the Medical Professions

Themes

• Non-fiction Essays and Texts: The Ideal v. The Reality of Nursing

• Reading Strategies using Nursing Textbooks• Vocabulary – roots, prefixes, suffixes geared

toward biology/medical terminology• Summary Writing• Technical Editing• Math – Ratios and proportions, linear functions,

systems of equations, functional relationships

Contextualized Learning

• Mathematical Analysis of pre- and post-reading surveys on “Kids and Caffeine”

• Ratio and proportions – From a student’s healthy food recipe, create and use an algebraic equation for expanding the recipe multifold

• BMI Chart – write equations of the line that would be used for predicting overweight cutoff points based on height

• Convert height in feet to inches• Use a given mathematical function for predicting values • Construct and use systems of equations for solving more

than one unknown

Mathematical Applications

HOW IS BODY MASS INDEX RELATED TO MATH?When the doctor tells someone they’re at the “ideal weight” for their height, how do they know? The charts below are commonly used by doctors to determine ranges of weights that are healthy for various heights. The tabled relationship between height and weight tends to be linear.

B. Now, let’s take your sentence above and turn it into a math formula people could use for figuring out how their height in inches.

C. Now use your formula to convert the heights of 5 feet tall and 5 feet, 8 inches into units of inches.

D. Let x represent a female’s height in inches and let y represent the target weight for those heights. Using the x values you got in part C, look up the target weights on the chart. Use the information to write the equation of the line that relates female height (x) to target weight (y). Write your answer in y = mx +b form.

 

A. When we write the linear equation, we’re going to treat a person’s height in inches as the variable x. Since all of the heights in the table are written in FEET-INCHES format, we first need to come up with a formula for converting them into inches. How will we do this? Write a sentence explaining how someone could do this.

HOW IS CAFFEINE INTAKE RELATED TO MATH?

Directions: Rate the following statements on a scale of 1 – 5.

1 = Definitely disagree 2 = Mostly disagree 3 = Slightly Agree

4 = Mostly Agree 5 = Definitely Agree

X: I cannot make it through the day without drinking a caffeinated beverage.

Y: I have wondered whether caffeine has negatively affected my health.

 

1. After I gather all students’ responses and write them on the board, copy them onto this paper. Once you’ve done that, please find the average score for X.

2. Including Manchester’s response to the questions, the average value of X becomes . Use this information and the answer to question 1 to figure out Manchester’s response to question X.

3. Suppose that a James answered “4” to both questions and Maria answered “3” to the first question and “5” to the second question. Write the equation of the line that would connect these two students’ responses.

HOW IS COOKING RELATED TO MATH?

INGREDIENT CONVERSIONS1. Pick an ingredient off of your list and how much of the ingredient you’re supposed to put in the recipe.

Ingredient:

Amount Required for Recipe:

2. How many people is your recipe designed to serve? (If your recipe doesn’t specifically say, you can just estimate the number of people you think it would serve)

3. If we need to throw a party for 250 people, how much of your ingredient do we need to buy?

4. Suppose that Manchester’s recipe called for lemons and garlic cloves, and the total amount of both lemons and garlic cloves was 8. If the number of garlic cloves required was 2 fewer than 4 times the number of lemons required, how many of each does he need?

HOW ARE SURGERIES AND ALS RELATED TO MATH?

1. Suppose a particular patient’s systolic blood pressure has to be kept between 110 and 140. If x represents the patient’s systolic blood pressure at any given time, graph the possible x values and express the possible x values using interval notation.

2. Three hours after surgery, a patients’ resting heart rate is 100 beats per minute. 2 hours later, there resting heart rate is 80 beats per minute.

A. Write a linear equation for predicting the resting heart rate (y) from the hours since surgery (x).

B. Identify two grammatical errors in this problem.

3. A recent clinical research study found that the average age of onset of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) for men in America is 6 years sooner than that of females. The average age of onset when both genders were combined was 61. What is the average age of onset for males? What is the average age of onset for females?

HOW ARE BURN RECOVERIES AND LETHAL INJECTIONS RELATED TO MATH?

1. One story in Tending Lives describes a nurse who, after suffering from severe burns herself as a child, pursues a career as a nurse in the burn unit.

Patients in a burn unit are particularly susceptible to life-threatening infections. Without the protection that skin provides, there is constant risk of infection that other hospital patients don’t necessarily face. As time goes by, the risk of serious infection decreases. The mathematical model below describes the risk of infection, R, as a percentage after t days in the burn unit.

A. What is the risk of infection on the first day in a burn unit?

B. What is the risk of infection after 26 days in a burn unit?

C. After how many days will the risk of infection be 40%?

 

2. In another story from Tending Lives, one nurse describes how he worked at a prison and had to prepare the lethal dose for the prisoner who was about to be executed. One of the most critical skills health professionals need is a firm understanding of ratios.

If the lethal dose for a 220 pound death row inmate requires 0.5 cc’s (cubic centimeters) of a particular drug, how many cc’s would be required for a 262 pound inmate?  

• Three minute one-on-one Conferences• Tag team interventions both one-on-one and whole class• Study Skills development• Time Management development• Student Services in-class presentations• Mandated tutoring• Office hours assignment• End of semester advising sessions

Mentoring Activities

Research (7 years of data collected)

Success in Link Success all others

English 98 76% 67%

English 98R 84% 72%

Math 90 60% 52%

Questions