Fil-Am Club Members Celebrate "Her-Story Month"!
ICA Fil-Am Club members and their families
enjoying the Farms to Tables event at San
Francisco’s Asian Art Museum on October 6.
Members of ICA’s Fil-Am Club
continue to energize the campus
with cultural events and community
awareness activities. In August, a
contingent marched in the annual
Filipino Pistahan Parade in San
Francisco. Members have hosted a
number of in-school events during
October to commemorate National
Filipino American History Month.
From sharing family immigration
histories to playing popular game
shows and learning some phrases in
Tagalog, the Fil-Am club continues
to promote and learn about its
rich and diverse culture. Events
this fall have included viewing the
documentary Don’t Stop Believin’,
which chronicles the amazing rise to
fame for Filipino singer Arnel Pineda
and par ticipating in a workshop
conducted by ar tist and Baybayin
exper t Christine Balza. Fil-Am
club members learned about the
ancient script, called Baybayin, that
was used in the Philippines before
colonization.
~Carolyn Sideco
Moderator
iPads
How can we best use the time we
have with students in the classroom?
This is the central question for every
teacher. The Science depar tment
has a new answer to this question.
We recently obtained a class set of
32 iPads for use in the biology and
chemistry classes.
We thank the Dominican Sisters of
Mission San Jose for their generous
grant and the ICA Gala donors for the
rest of the money needed to purchase
the iPads. The iPads have changed the
way the biology and chemistry classes
are taught this year. They have opened
up a new world of possibilities.
What is new? Using the iPads, the
chemistry students have accessed
16 Fall 2013
websites which give unlimited
practice problems and instantaneous
feedback; this is especially useful for
tricky concepts like significant figures,
balancing equations, and predicting
equilibrium. Students can use the
iPads to record video or take pictures
of their lab work. Each student has
created a web por tfolio of her work
using Google Sites. Lectures that
would normally be delivered at the
front of the classroom have been
turned into shor t videos, and the
students can view these videos and
take notes at their own pace, pausing
and replaying the videos as necessary.
The videos can be viewed at home,
making class time available for more
labs, discussions, and activities. As
more and more colleges become
impacted and offer foundational
courses online, learning these
technology skills becomes even more
impor tant.
Another change being piloted this
year is making the curriculum selfpaced, which challenges the students
to be self-motivated and to hone their
time-management skills. In college and
in life, taking initiative and managing
time well are cer tainly as useful as any
chemistry or biology content, so time
devoted to enhancing these skills is
time well-spent.
~Anya Manes
Science Depar tment Chair