Directing Student Learning Outside the Classroom
Abstract
Resources abound on the subject of classroom activities. As teachers, it is very important that we consider ways to better utilize our time in class. We should be familiar with and use good classroom practices. It follows that if we expect students to spend more time studying outside of class than in class, perhaps we should reevaluate what we are asking them to do. Could we help them make better use of their time?
In this paper I will present activities that I have students do outside of class. These activities are based on results from physics education research but are applicable to other subject areas. Some activities use techniques from the book Just–in–Time Teaching and Blackboard course management software. The purpose is to see if Web–based activities have increased the students’ learning.
Background
For six years I have taught primarily an algebra– and trigonometry– based college physics sequence. I began teaching the course in a traditional style of lecture, homework, and tests. To improve student learning, I have incorporated the results of physics education research into my teaching. Physics education research is based on student understanding of science content. In an article in the American Journal of Physics, Lillian C. McDermott, a leader in this area, lists six research– based generalizations on teaching. The generalizations and comments from the paper follow:
1. An essential element for learning assessment is introducing questions that demand qualitative reasoning and verbal expression: “We have found that an effective approach is to challenge students with qualitative questions that cannot be answered through memorization, to help them learn how to respond to such questions, and to insist that they form the necessary reasoning by not supplying them with answers.”
2. Interpreting physics formalism (graphs, diagrams, algebra, etc.) and relating it to the real world requires repeated practice: “Analogies obvious to instructors are often not recognized by students.”
3. Directly addressing conceptual difficulties must be done in multiple contexts if they are to be overcome: “Our experience indicates that warning students not to make particular errors is ineffective.”
4. To predict and explain real–world phenomena, students need to construct qualitative models: “We have found that an effective strategy for helping students understand the relationships and differences among concepts is to engage them actively in the model–building process.”
5. Scientific reasoning skills must be expressly cultivated and developed, step–by–step: “Conceptual models in physics are often inseparably linked with particular lines of reasoning. Hence, instruction should address both concurrently.”
6. To develop a functional understanding, students must be intellectually active. “Meaningful learning requires the active mental engagement of the learner. The lecturer, however, cannot do their thinking for them.”
Over the years I have adjusted what I do inside the classroom by using the above ideas, and it is working well. As I reflected on what I was trying to accomplish, I saw the need to extend what I was doing in the classroom to activities outside the classroom. There are several reasons for the changes I have made in my teaching. The first was that asking qualitative questions and giving students time to think and respond in class left too little time to do the other activities I thought were important. Second, I wanted to give the students the repeated practice needed to understand the algebra, graphs, and diagrams of physics and address more of their conceptual misunderstandings. The third reason for the changes was to direct how students spend their time studying physics. Over the years students have said to me, “I spent over an hour trying to work this homework problem and couldn’t do it.” Most problems should not take over fifteen minutes to work, so I tell them that if they are not making any progress, they should stop on that particular problem until they can ask for help. They might be making a math error or misunderstand some aspect of the problem. For example, a common mistake in converting units is converting centimeters squared to meters squared (cm2 to m2). If a student makes this mistake at the beginning of a problem, all of the other steps could be correct, but they would not get the right answer. Students would also say, “I studied for x number of hours for this test and did not do as well as I should have.” Not doing better is frustrating for students and me. Fourth, the student’s inability to discern the main points in their reading and inability to apply what they read created problems. Sometimes the author of the text may not explain things well, or the author assumes that students have some prior knowledge that they do not possess. All of these factors motivated me to rethink and reevaluate homework assignments.
Changing Homework Assignments
Traditionally in physics, math, and engineering courses, students are given homework problems and are expected to be able to solve them based on material covered in the lecture, the textbook, and examples. As a former student and a teacher, I know this is often difficult. Physics education research shows that quantitative problem solving does not necessarily lead to a conceptual understanding. The textbook problems do not address some of the misconceptions that students have about physics.
Asking students the right questions, at the right time, is a way to help students overcome these problems and learn the material. It also saves them time. After teaching for a while, one becomes familiar with common mistakes or misunderstandings that students share. As I began to give more thought to how students were spending their time outside of class, I thought that using the Internet would be a way to direct students without using more class time. To maximize student learning, I wanted the out–of–class activities or homework to be based on the results of physics education research.
In past years I posted course syllabi and homework solutions on the Web for students. The University of Cincinnati adopted Blackboard and made it available to all faculty during winter quarter of the 2000– 01 school year. Blackboard is a Web–based, course management software package with assessment capabilities. Students can take quizzes and return their answers over the Web and receive immediate responses if they get an answer right or wrong for multiple choice questions. The software grades the quiz. For essay questions, the results are easily available to the instructor for reading and correcting online. During winter and spring quarters the first year that Blackboard was available, I used it to post course information and administer three or four quizzes per quarter.
For the 2001–02 school, year I expanded the use of the Web by posting more quizzes and incorporating ideas from Just–In–Time Teaching (JiTT). The premise of this book is to have students do Web–based assignments and submit them electronically prior to class. An instructor can review the assignments to see where the students are having problems and use this information to adjust the classroom activities. Using Blackboard is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do this. Students at the University of Cincinnati have Blackboard accounts automatically setup when they enroll in physics. With Blackboard’s assessment and grading capabilities, the assignments are easy to administer. I used JiTT pre–lecture quizzes called “warmups” to give students multiple exposure to the material by having them read the material before class and to give them some idea of what was important in the reading assignment. These were followed by post–lecture quizzes, including questions that were intermediate steps in assigned quantitative problems where I knew past students had difficulties. Each warmup and quiz consisted of only three questions. One warmup and one quiz would be given per week except for the three weeks that a test was scheduled. Students were required to do the assignments by a specific date and time. For instance, if the class started at 10:00, the assignment would be due at 9:00 to give me an hour to review their answers. The warmups and quizzes counted approximately 10% of their final grade.
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Results and Student Comments
Nineteen students participated in a survey I gave at the end of winter quarter 2001. Of that number, 74% thought that Blackboard was a worthwhile learning tool, and 89% used it to look at homework solutions.
During the 2001–02 year, what I attempted was too ambitious for both the students and myself. Although Blackboard is easy to use, it was difficult to find the time to do all that I wanted. The students also complained about having to use Blackboard so often. They did not like having assignments due twice a week.
Twenty students responded to a survey about their experience using Blackboard at the end of the 2002 winter quarter. The format for this survey was taken from Crawford and Curtis in their article “Using the Blackboard–Online.” Student responses were not as favorable as in the prior year. For comparison, I have included some of Crawford and Curtis’ survey results from Table 1 on the students’ perceptions of Blackboard for a Web–enhanced course.
Questions one and two relate to learning to use Blackboard—70% did not have a difficult time and 15% did. At the beginning of the quarter I gave the students a five–minute introduction to Blackboard and a one–page handout. I knew that most of the students had previously used it, and I offered to help them outside of class if they had questions.
Almost all of the students have the computer skills to use Blackboard as determined from question three.
The results from questions four and five reveal that access to a computer and the Internet is not a problem for 75% of the students, but remains a problem for the remaining 25%. Clermont College has open computer labs with access to the Internet for students.
Question six revealed that 80% of students looked at homework solutions posted on Blackboard compared to 89% the previous year. A hard copy of the solutions was also available on reserve in the library both years.
Question seven was the most important question—did Blackboard help student learning? The results were disappointing. Only 45% thought that the quizzes helped their learning; 30% were neutral, and 25% said that it did not help. There could be several reasons why 25% did not think that it helped. Perhaps these students understood the material and did not need the extra work or their response reflects the students’ misunderstanding of the purpose of the assignments and why particular questions were chosen.
The Crawford and Curtis survey shows more favorable results for learning and using Blackboard and having access to the Internet. For question seven about student learning, a direct comparison cannot be made between the Crawford and Curtis survey and mine because we did not use Blackboard in the same way. Even though the Crawford and Curtis used Blackboard differently, only 35% of the students thought that Blackboard helped their learning.
Some of the students’ comments were:Ditch Blackboard altogether.
Sometimes it is difficult to log on or submit the quizzes.
I like having the homework solutions available.
Having more assignments would be helpful.
Good tool to use to contact other class members.
It has taken 20 to 30 minutes for me to log on at times.
The same physics knowledge could have been acquired through study without the HASSLE of using a computer. The computer offers no advantage to comprehending the material. It is really in the way of me getting to the information I need.
If students had to use a computer at school rather than at home, it was inconvenient since Clermont College is a commuter campus and some students had to leave for work.
The assignments were due too frequently.
If interactive animations were added, as used in class, the assignments would have been more worthwhile.
As a comparison to someone else who has looked at the benefit of using the Internet for instruction, Todd Hamilton refers to a study in the Journal of Chemical Education in his article, “The Internet: Another Teaching Tool or Panacea for Education?” This study investigated the impact of Internet–based chemistry tools in four introductory chemistry courses. The use of the Internet–based tools was voluntary. Approximately 30% of the 629 students enrolled used the tools. Of the students who used the Internet, 77% felt that the Website made no difference in their understanding.
Conclusions
There are still problems with students having access to technology and the technology working, but I think that the effort to have students use the Web is worthwhile. Students at UC Clermont sent a letter to the faculty encouraging them to use Blackboard. Students like having syllabi, course material, homework solutions, and so forth available online.
Students like having the assignments on the Web as an option and not a requirement. For a commuter campus, students who did not have access to the Internet at home did not like having assignments that made them stay at school beyond the regular class time.
From the student’s perspective, only 45% believed the Web–based assignments helped their learning. From my perspective, technology can help structure learning outside the classroom. A further study could explore if learning actually did improve.
In my optimism I did not allow enough time to accomplish all that I had planned. Some things I will do differently in the future are:
1. Explain in depth and give more introduction to Blackboard and what I am trying to accomplish by using it.
2. Make some of the assignments voluntary and count them as extra credit.
3. Add animations to the Web assignments. This would make better use of the capability of the technology.
4. Remember to allow twice as much time to accomplish my plan (or reduce my plan by half.)
As faculty try different ideas to see what works with Web–enhanced courses, we should remember that the web is a tool. In his article, Hamilton reminds us that we should “pause and consider the very important question: Will adding the Internet to my course help my students learn?” As we learn how to better use web assignments, we hope more students will report that it helps their learning, but we should remember that it is not a tool that all students are amenable to using.
References
Crawford, Mikiko Ward and Lacey Curtis, “Using the Blackboard— Online,” AURCO Journal, Vol. 7, Spring 2001.
Hamilton, Todd M., “The Internet: Another Teaching Tool or Panacea for Education?” The Teaching Professor, January 2002.
McDermott, Lillian Christie, “Oersted Medal Lecture 2001: Physics Education Research—The Key to Student Learning,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 69, November 2001, 1127–1137.
Novak, Gregor M., Evelyn T. Patterson, Andrew D. Gavin, and Wolfgang Christian, Just–in Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology, Prentice–Hall, 1999.
Biography
Darwin Church is an associate professor who teaches physics at the University of Cincinnati—Clermont. UC—Clermont is a two–year branch campus located east of the University of Cincinnati in Batavia, Ohio. Church may be reached at darwin.church@uc.edu.