development of an integrated local/distant mathematics instruction program: a progress report paul...
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Development of an Integrated Local/Distant Mathematics Instruction
Program:A Progress Report
Paul EakinDepartment of MathematicsUniversity of [email protected]
The work described here is a collaboration among:
Dan Chaney Paul Eakin Carl Eberhart K.K. Kubota Mike McKenna
Mary Bond Jody Fast Laura Spencer
The developers freely share the software, texts, instructional materials, methodologies, etc. produced in this project for non-commercial educational or instructional use.
Development Strategy: Develop on-campus versions of courses
which employ the distance learning tools and techniques intended for distance learning
Unify DL and on-campus instructional development
Advantages:
Permits DL development with “safety net”
Provides conventional course as reference frame for comparison
Spreads development cost over both local and distant instruction programs.
Program Philosophy as Aphorism:
If we can’t make it work
locally we have no hope
of making it work at a distance
Implementation Strategy:
Take a large enrollment course and develop “on-campus” distance learning version
Add/modify technology incrementally Compare results, costs to concurrent
conventional course and make certain two experiences are fully equivalent
Don’t offer off-campus until on-campus issues arising on-campus are fully resolved
Development Platform:Ma123
3 semester hour intro calculus course General studies course Approx 1200 students per semester in
sections of about 35 first-day enrollment Course generally not considered a success
– poor success rate (over 30% dropout or fail)– poorly prepared students– low student/faculty satisfaction
Ma123: Fall 1999
23 “traditional sections” of about 30– taught by TA’s, PTI’s, and Faculty
7 experimental sections of about 30– taught by 2 faculty and 2 TA’s
Instructors were volunteers, students were not.
Fall 1999 Format: Traditional
Commercial hardbound text ($70) Undergraduates employed as homework
graders ($350 per section) 3 (uniform) midterm examinations plus
final Class meets three hours per week of
formal lecture by instructor
Fall 1999 Format: Development
“Free” text (html, softbound copy from bookstore ($6) )
web-based homework system formal lectures on Internet and CD 3 (uniform) midterm examinations plus
final class time (3 hrs per week) used for
recitation, collaborative work, ad hoc lectures at instructor’s instruction
Current Results in Ma123: Quite comparable to “traditional”
Grades Student Satisfaction Drop-out rate about 10% higher Success with non drop outs higher
Results (continued)
weaker students have lot of trouble with video-based lectures (compliance)
Strong correlation scores/attendance/compliance
High level of acceptance, success among compliant students
Problems/issues/conclusions: Very few problems with web-based homework, providing for video
– lab setup (viewers, sound)
– off-campus bandwidth
– length students forgetting/confusing passwords
“Too much data”
Effort: Preparation of materials takes about four times the
effort as simply teaching the traditional on-campus class
Takes significantly less work to conduct individual section
Ma123 Close to “break even” on net instructional effort this semester with seven sections – plus staff time and capital costs
Linear Algebra definitely at break-even on net instructional time with four sections
Description:
Student View Faculty User View Materials Development Process
Primary Student Interface: Instructor’s Web Page
syllabus links to html text links to chat system and FAQ systems links to “WQS” system for course
materials (e.g. homework, review materials, video lectures, etc)
Student Interface: Instructor’s Web Page (part 1)
System tutorial
Course syllabus
Visual class rolls
Exam schedule
Class Roll:
Instructor’s Web Page (part 2)
Link to wqs system server
Student emailsfrom homework systemwith responses
Links to lecturenotes for videolectures
Responses to Student Questions:
Page referencesparticular assignment
Student query
Instructorresponse
Instructor Web Page (part 3)
Link to onlinetext
Link to wqssystem
Links to lectureslides for videolectures by chapter
WQS System: current login screen
Students selectvideo lecturesmenuor their class homeworkmenu
Group logins andwork are encouraged
Typical Section Menu
Chapter 1 homework
Review for test II
Homework Page: Current Format
Problem and answers
Systemresponse
Email window
Student answer
System answer
Most students print the problem sets out and record their solutions or solutions from class
directly on the printouts
Video Lectures Menu
Lecture Slides (html)
Video of lecturesegment (10-30 min)
How students view the videos
Other Materials: Test Review with video solutions
Problemstatementwithdiagram
Link to videosolution
Data Logs
Every student action is logged with time stamp
All activity credited to each member on group login
Total number of answers submitted (right or wrong) correlates very well with performance on tests
Log Data
WQS Video
Materials prepared by faculty lectures by faculty and graduate students tapes converted to ASF and edited by
grad students and staff separate video and homework (original
system) text/homework/video merged in next
edition
Graduate Student Editing Video Files
WQS and Video Lecture Materials Preparation
Materials developed by faculty using a variety of standard tools (e.g. Maple, LaTeX, Perl).
Individual item described by a file called “data” in directory specific to item. It describes how construct the item.
locations placed in control file called wqs-dirs which is known to server and describes the section menu page
Faculty Preparing Materials
coffeefood
CD burner andblanks
WQS CDs
Natural corollary of HTML format– easily made at faculty desk, cheap
Originated through necessity Strongly favored by upper-level students
who tend to live off-campus Not used much by lower level students
who tend to live on campus
Maple Source: Homework Problem
Question Tag:( Q_ )
“SKIP”Tags
Answer Tags:( A_ )
Correct Answer Tag
To create and “post” a simple wqs homework set:
Source document is exported to html from Maple menu
exported html document is processed by a Perl script to:– create a “data” file which describes the
final document to the server– place an entry in a control file which
describes the menu
The “data” file which describes the final document
These correspond to tags in source document
These correspond to segments ofhtml in exporteddocument which were delimited bythe tags
Sharing Materials: Paul’s control file
Paul madehomework setnumber 7
Ken madehomework setnumber 8
Laura’s Ma123 Control File and class menu
Other Experiment: Linear algebra Same system Use standard text (Strang) 4 of 6 sections (one at community college
200 miles away)– Instructor there helped make videos in
summer
Works very well– excellent compliance– to date results better than traditional
Control File for Joe Mahoney’s Paducah, KY Section of Ma322
Carl Eberhart created the homework for the Ma322 sections
Joe Mahoney and Avinash Sathaye did Videos for MA322
Sharing: Instructor A can use instructor B’s entire
menu simply by copying B’s control file (with permission)
Instructor A can use any item in instructor B’s menu simply by copying the corresponding entry from B’s control file (with permission)
In either case student email from A’s students will be routed to A and activity logged for A
Planned changes for Spring 2000 Re-written, expanded text as multimedia
document including homework, videos, reviews, etc. (unified format)
Continuous reporting of log data to students,
Full sets of CDs available to students in advance
Unified Format:
LaTeX mathformatting
Video link
Web homework is part of text in unified format
Unified Format
Puts all services (text, video lecture, homework, reviews, etc.) on one page
Moves “login” to end of process: gets students immediately to the subject matter
Nicer text through use of LaTeX Shorter video segments Development more complex
http://www.ms.uky.edu/wqs
Paul Eakin
Department of Mathematics
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40606
Pictures/slides
Copies/scanned of a set of student wqs homework
page from book