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Teaching with New Technologies Award Scheme
2007-2008 - Project Report
Course Pacemaker
NON-LINEAR LEARNING USING ENHANCED POD-
CASTING AND CONCEPT MAPS
Prepared for: E-Learning Unit
Prepared by: Dr Janko Calic, Lecturer, Department of Electronic Engineering, CCSR, I-Lab
26 March 2008
Dr Janko Calic! Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, E j.calic@surrey.ac.uk W personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/J.Calic T +44(0)1483 68 4739
School of Electronics and
Physical Sciences
Project Report
Introduction
In the current climate of simplistic utilisation of the learning technology, based mainly on a unidirectional delivery of projected
PowerPoint slides, the issues of student feedback and exploitation of the gained knowledge about the learning process are
fundamental problems of e-Learning. This project takes a more detailed approach to student feedback by using the
concept-maps and utilises podcasting technology to adapt the teaching delivery to the student’s learning progress.
Project Objectives
The main objective of this project was to address the problem of unidirectional linear course delivery due to simplistic
utilisation of learning technology. Common understanding is that projection of PowerPoint slides enhances student’s
experience and thus makes learning more efficient when compared to the old-fashioned blackboard approach. Furthermore,
if one communicates with students using a technology that is familiar to them, such as podcasting, things can be improved
even further. However, superficial usage of lecture slides and straightforward podcasting of lecture recordings often prevent
teachers to easily adapt the pace of course delivery. Therefore, this project focuses on meaningful utilisation of presentational
technology and novel communicational media, e.g. podcasting, in the context of engaged teaching, especially when it
comes to setting the right pace at right level of detail. The project objectives were twofold:
i) to gain understanding of the student learning and students misinterpretations of the delivered content and make necessary
corrections immediately.
ii) to produce enhanced weekly podcasts couple of days after lectures as a response to feedback given by students through
the course forum (maintained by the lecturer or an existing portal like ULearn) or any other channel of student feedback.
This podcast could deliver more information focusing on the issues raised by students or detected by the lecturer after the
lecture sessions and would be delivered automatically to all students by podcast subscription.
Implemented Solution
The main goal of this project was to design and evaluate a methodology that will utilise podcasting technology in order to
adapt the pace of the course to student’s needs, where the student feedback is given by utilisation of concept maps.
Podcasting
The classical approach to podcasting is to generate live recordings of lectures or record comments to lecture slides off-line.
Here, in addition to lecture recordings, the aim was to produce weekly podcasts as a response to student feedback during
and after lecture. Approximately, two to three days after the lecture, an enhanced podcast brought additional information
focusing on the areas that students and/or teacher found unclear after the lecture. The main feedback channel was an
anonymous test where students drew concept-maps of the gained knowledge about the content of the course. In addition
the course forum as well as other feedback channels were considered in the assessment of the learning progress.
Course Pacemaker : Non-linear learning using enhanced podcasting and concept maps! 1
Dr Janko Calic" Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, E j.calic@surrey.ac.uk W personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/J.Calic T +44(0)1483 68 4739
School of Electronics and
Physical Sciences
Concept Mapping
The idea of concept mapping, a widely recognised tool in the education research is proposed as a tool for understanding
student learning process. Developed as means of representing the emerging science knowledge of students, concept maps
are graphical tools for organising and representing knowledge, where the concepts are usually enclosed in circles or boxes
of some type, and relationships between concepts indicated by a connecting line linking two concepts. The research
showed that an important by-product of concept mapping is its ability to detect or illustrate the "misconceptions" learners
may have as explanations of content matter. Therefore, they can help the teacher diagnose the misconceptions that make
the instruction ineffective.
Having this in mind, the objective was to utilise concept maps to gain understanding of the acquired student knowledge of
the course content and accordingly adapt the delivery, either by podcasting additional materials and/or adapting my
teaching. In practice, one 15 minute blitz course on content maps and one feedback sessions with the students attending
the course was conducted. Drawing on the experience from this assessment, the impression is that the teacher can plan for
more effective learning, designing more detailed module description and precisely define possible course outcomes.
Furthermore, by using this method it is possible to introduce additional ways of active learning by exploiting concept maps in
the group work, as well as introduce more in depth assessment of the student understanding.
Implementation
During the course ‘Product Engineering and Management’ at Level 3, the average attendance was approx. 17 students from
24 registered for the module. The module comprises of a mix of engineering skills and technical content. The skills section of
the module is delivered through peer-assessed presentation sessions, while the technical part was formulated though a
typical lecture delivery.
Concept-map Tutorial
By combining skills aspect of the learning outcomes with
technical content of the course, a 15 minute tutorial about
concept-maps was delivered, using a standard format of
concept-maps, as given in the figure on the right. In
addition, after the tutorial, a whole session was presented
by using sequential presentation of a development of the
corresponding concept-map. Having used concept-maps
as a lecturing tool, students got involved in the process of a
sample on-line development of a complex concept-map. In
addition, my experience as the teacher was more confident
than after delivering by simple projected slides. During the
tutorial a very useful on-line tutorial was found at http://
www.surrey.ac.uk/bioskills/biomap/concept/frame.htm, and
it would be good if e-Learning centre could save the
presentation and adapt it for the future usage of other
teachers.
The tutorial slides can be found in the Appendix.
Course Pacemaker : Non-linear learning using enhanced podcasting and concept maps! 2
Dr Janko Calic" Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, E j.calic@surrey.ac.uk W personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/J.Calic T +44(0)1483 68 4739
School of Electronics and
Physical Sciences
Sample Concept Map
Student Feedback using Concept-maps
After having a substantial practice with concept-maps, students were
asked to anonymously in-pairs produce concept maps of the topics
delivered up to that lecture. Group work initiated discussion and an
additional aspect of problem-based learning at the time of assessment.
Students were given 15 minutes to draw their concept-maps of the three
areas that we’ve covered by that lecture: electromagnetic compatibility,
thermal design and presentation tools. Without any guidance, student
decided to draw separate maps for separate topics. There is a wide
selection of styles and coarseness of the produced maps, as given in the
figure on the right.
The main conclusion was that after the first inspection of the maps, it
was very easy to understand the learning progress and locate areas that
were collectively misunderstood. This proved the usefulness of the
concept-maps in assessing students’ conceptualisation of the delivered
content.
The results of this assessment can be found in the Appendix.
Podcast Generation
The podcast generated after the feedback session
addressed areas and topics that were obviously
misunderstood by students. Using Apple Keynote as a
main tool for podcast generation, an enhanced podcast is
created and uploaded to the module’s ULearn (WebCT)
pages. Slides that follow the spoken explanation were
specially formatted to achieve good readability on the
small screen devices, as given in the figure on the right.
Evaluation
Evaluation of the presented approach was twofold by: (i) Continuous tracking of student feedback during the course that
gave not only information on the areas that need additional clarification, but the quantity and quality of feedback were used
to track how useful the feedback was; (ii) Evaluation in the form of questionnaire gave more precise insight in the
performance of the proposed system. There were two questionnaires, one specifically designed to evaluate the project
results and a more generic standard student feedback questionnaire set up by the Faculty.
The main part of the evaluation is a project focused questionnaire, delivered at the end of the module as an anonymous
WebCT quiz. The quiz comprised 5 questions and one text area to give overall reflection on the concept-mapping (CM) and
podcast exercise. The quiz was designed to attract more students, and therefore it was short and simple. The response was
good: approximately 40% of the registered students did it.
Course Pacemaker : Non-linear learning using enhanced podcasting and concept maps! 3
Dr Janko Calic" Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, E j.calic@surrey.ac.uk W personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/J.Calic T +44(0)1483 68 4739
The quiz was designed as a multiple choice quiz, with a
singe statement and student’s feedback that could range
from strongly agree to strongly disagree (see the screen
capture of the quiz page on the left). The score was
calculated as a cumulative sum of the answers in the four
categories.
Some of the responses were:
“… Good. ...”
“… The concept mapping exercise was very helpful and
was a way of focusing my thinking about the subject. I
could not get the podcast to open on my computer but the
course and lecturing in general was fantastic! ...”
“… An interesting module with many learning experiences
gained …”
Results show very positive bias towards concept-maps
and the podcast. Not only in the context of this module,
but a general response was that the students will be using
CM in the future.
The standard student feedback questionnaire, set up by
the Faculty, showed that in spite of a rather complex
module structure and its high-level provision of the
technical content, the teacher got very positive feedback of
80% (4.00 out of 5.00). This is partially due to a novel
utilisation of technology in learning.
The overall subjective evaluation is that the concept maps
proved to be very effective in gaining a very deep insight
into the real learning process on various levels. Firstly, it
clearly highlights areas of knowledge that need additional
clarification. Furthermore, it gives a very good information
about the overall confidence students. Finally, experiment
encouraged utilisation of concept-maps as a teaching tool.
Course Pacemaker : Non-linear learning using enhanced podcasting and concept maps! 4
Dr Janko Calic" Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, E j.calic@surrey.ac.uk W personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/J.Calic T +44(0)1483 68 4739
27/05/2008 16:56Assessment
Page 1 of 1http://vle.surrey.ac.uk/webct/urw/lc164304070041.tp164304090041/assessmentPreviewMgr.dowebct?assessment=209132385031
Blitz Questionnaire
Dr Janko Calic
Started: 27 May 2008 16:55
Questions: 6
Finish Save All
1. Question 1
I liked the concept-mapping excersise ...
1. Strongly agree
2. Agree
3. Disagree
4. Strongly disagree
Save Answer
2. Question 2
The concept-mapping excersise was disturbing the lecture ...
1. Strongly agree
2. Agree
3. Disagree
4. Strongly disagree
Save Answer
3. Question 3
I will use concept-mapping in the future ...
1. Strongly agree
2. Agree
3. Disagree
4. Strongly disagree
Save Answer
4. Question 4
The concept-mapping was a good reflection of my knowledge ...
1. Strongly agree
2. Agree
3. Disagree
4. Strongly disagree
Save Answer
5. Question 5
I found the podcast useful ...
1. Strongly agree
2. Agree
3. Disagree
4. Strongly disagree
Save Answer
6. Your feedback
Please, give us you opinion about the concept-mapping and podcasting excersise and your
learning experience of this module.
Save Answer
Finish Save All
Screen capture of the project focused questionnaire.
Question \ Response [%] Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
1. I liked the concept-mapping
exercise 40 40 20 0
2. The concept-mapping exercise
was disturbing the lecture 0 20 60 20
3. I will use concept-mapping in
the future 40 40 20 0
4. The concept-mapping was a
good reflection of my knowledge 20 60 20 0
5. I found the podcast useful 20 60 20 0
Conclusions
This project demonstrated that technology in learning and teaching can be successfully utilised in gaining very detailed and
deep feedback from learners by exploiting concept-maps and podcasting technology. Not only this improved control of the
course’s pace, but enhanced the overall learning experience. Finally, the evaluation results show that the learning experience
was very positive and that the concept-mapping skills acquired will be exploited outside of the module scope.
The project leader would like to thank the students attending EE3.PEM module at University of Surrey in the spring 2008 for
invaluable feedback and support throughout the project.
Course Pacemaker : Non-linear learning using enhanced podcasting and concept maps! 5
Dr Janko Calic" Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, E j.calic@surrey.ac.uk W personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/J.Calic T +44(0)1483 68 4739
1. I liked the CM exercise 2. The CM exercise was disturbing the lecture 3. I will use CM in the future 4. The CM was a good reflection of my knowledge 5. I found the podcast useful
Chart 1. Cumulative scores of the five questions per answer, from the most posi-
tive feedback on the left to the most negative on the right. Observe no strongly
negative opinion and a strong bias towards positive feedback.
Table 1. Numeric results of the quiz.
Appendixes
1. Tutorial Slides
2. Test Slides
3. Student Feedback - Concept-Maps
4. Podcast Slides
Course Pacemaker : Non-linear learning using enhanced podcasting and concept maps! 6
Dr Janko Calic" Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, E j.calic@surrey.ac.uk W personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/J.Calic T +44(0)1483 68 4739
Concept MappingVisualising thinking
Dr Janko Calic
Concept Maps
• Technique for visualising the relationships among different concepts.
• Diagram showing the relationships among concepts. Concepts are connected with labelled arrows, in a downward-branching hierarchical structure.
• The relationship between concepts is articulated in linking phrases
Sample Concept Map
Usage
• Brainstorming
• Creative-thinking
• Complex ideas
• Collaborative work
• Software: CMapTools, FreeMind, OmniGraffle, NovaMind, MindMapper
Links
• Tutorial - http://www.surrey.ac.uk/bioskills/biomap/concept/frame.htm
• http://cmap.ihmc.us/
Concept MappingAnonymous Exercise
Task
• Not assessed - just as your feedback
• Work in pairs, with colleague next to you
• Draw a concept map (mind-map) of device design aspects we’ve done
• 15 min
Friday, 15 February 2008
EE3.PEM Student Feedback on their
understanding of the PEM lectures on EMC,
Thermal, presentation tools and device
interfaces
Dr Janko Calic
EE3.PEMFeedback
Podcast
Presentation tools
• PowerPoint/Keynote
• Flash
• LaTex (Beamer)
PowerPoint•Easy/fast
•Not original
•Not for demos
Flash•Time consuming
•Videos/Animations
•Programming
LaTex•Markup language
•Standard, academic
•Bad multimedia
Thermal Design
•Dissipated heat must be managed effectively
Thermal Design
•Hot spots
•Failure, function, reliability
Conduction•heat flows through a stationary material
!
Conduction
Convection•heat transfer by fluid flow - liquid or gas
Convection•Natural, Forced or Liquid
•Q = hc A (Tw-Tf)
Radiation•heat transfer by electromagnetic waves
Radiation
• No carrying medium
• Q = AF12(T24 – T1
4)
EMC
•Definition
•2 way problem
EMC•Issues of immunity and emissions
•Example: radio
!
Immunity - Radio
!
Emissions - Radio
EMC Directive• Maintain margin of
safety
• From tests to compliance mark
EMC Directive defines Immunity vs. Emissions
EMC Directive
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