Steering Undergraduate Curriculum Development: Before

1
Steering Undergraduate Curriculum Development
Before After Assessment

• Kris Stewart
• San Diego State University
• NPACI Ed Center on CSE
• stewart_at_sdsu.edu
• www.edcenter.sdsu.edu

2
Outline of Steering Talk

• J. Foertsch and B. Alexander, LEAD Center,
  University of Wisconsin, formative and later
  summative assessment of EC/CSE
• GOAL identify successful strategies for
  enhancing undergraduate instruction with
  computational tools
• Evaluation experience helped guide further
  development
• Faculty Fellows program
• In-house projects
• Sociology Workbench (SWB)
• SWB development - mismatch between tools offered
  by NPACI the perceived needs of predominately
  social science faculty at SDSU.
• Lessons learned LEAD evaluation and
• Demonstrate SWB analysis of student feedback in
  CS 575 Supercomputing

3
Education Center on Computational Science
Engineering
3
Mission

• Foster the incorporation of high performance
  research
• tools for scientific investigation into the
  undergraduate
• curriculum to better prepare learners for
  post-Baccalaureate
• activities where
• Collaborative, interdisciplinary teams,
• Sophisticated computer tools and
• Effective communication among the team members
  and with others
• are used in research and problem solving.

4
Faculty Fellows

• Role of institutions and institutional
  infrastructure
• curriculum transformation important in terms of
• recognized efforts
• time
• other resources such as high performance
  computing and networking
• University faculty system of rewards does not
  encourage
• investing much effort in teaching innovations
  (Boyer
• Report)

5
Faculty CommunityFaculty Fellows Program

• Geological Sciences, Geography, Computer
  Engineering, Information Systems
• Partnership with LEAD for evaluation
• Follow-on Activities (Susan Millar, LEAD)CATS
  (Classroom Assessment Techniques)FLAG
  (Field-tested Learning Assessment Guide)SALG
  (Student Assessment Learning Guide)

6
Faculty Fellows

• Stakeholders
• College Deans - Specific support
• Faculty - Compensation, and acknowledgement,
  of the value of the faculty members contribution
• Benefits
• College
• Department (Faculty Fellows as
  discipline-specific spokespersons for EC/CSE)
• Faculty (as individuals)
• Ed Center on Computational Science and
  Engineering

7
Computational Science Curricula Evaluation and
Assessment
7

• User-Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation
  Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology
  Education, NSF 93-152 www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/RED/EVAL
  /handbook/handbook.htm
• Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation and
  Dissemination, U. Wisconsin NPACI partner

8
Evaluation and Assessment of Classroom Practice

• Student Surveys - Need a compatible tool for
  instructor to examine results with
• Sociology WorkBench (SWB) developed by team of
  undergraduate computer science majors employed by
  the EC/CSE

9
SWB Convenient Tool to Learn from Student Survey
Data

• Online tool for standard public data sets or
  your own data set http//edcenter.sdsu.edu
• Small Sample, therefore only useful as feedback
  for the instructor
• Can be used with forms interface directly into
  SWB format, as in June 99 CSU Faculty Workshop

10
The Ed Center Project and its Evaluation

• Goal incorporate computational science
  techniques in undergraduate curricula
• Differences from STEP target audience,
  institutional arrangements
• Methods and Strategies
• Faculty Fellows
• Workshops, presentations, in-house projects,
  trying out new approaches in own teaching, tools
  development
• Computational Science Olympics (curriculum from
  the bottom-up!!)
• Surveys, continuous assessment of faculty
  involvement and learning outcomes
• Evaluated by the LEAD Center in 1998-99

11
Undergraduate Faculty A Tough Target Group

• Obstacles lack of time, tenure and review
  considerations, lack of awareness about available
  technologies
• Undergraduate faculty
• ¾ have used WWW often or sometimes (1997), but
  not in the classroom (only 18 - 1998)
• The gap between those NEVER using computers in
  the classroom, and those using them OFTEN, is the
  largest for untenured faculty, increasing towards
  tenure review
• Only 12 of surveyed faculty saw themselves as
  having a use for HPC applications in courses
  (higher for Sciences and Engineering)
• 11 of faculty have students working with
  computer models OFTEN

12
Using computers in the classroom versus number of
years as a faculty member (1997 Faculty Survey)
13
Students Using Computers in the Classroom (1997
Faculty Survey)
14
Strategies for Building Faculty Community

• Reliance on most enthusiastic and technically
  advanced instructors who are already using
  computing and modeling in classes
• The Faculty Fellows program
• Stakeholders
• College Deans - Specific support
• Faculty - Compensation, and acknowledgement, of
  the value of the faculty members contribution
• Benefits
• College
• Department (Faculty Fellows as discipline-specific
  spokespersons for EC/CSE)
• Faculty (as individuals)
• Ed Center on Computational Science and
  Engineering
• Building a special infrastructure for curriculum
  transformation human, institutional, technical
  is a requirement for successful introduction of
  advanced techniques (since they are more
  demanding on faculty time and efforts)
• The problems and strategies are not that much
  different from STEP!!

15
Faculty Fellows during 1998-2000

• Faculty Fellows representing four departments
  from four colleges Geological Sciences,
  Geography, Computer Engineering, Business
  Information Systems
• Bi-weekly meetings at the Ed Center
• Faculty Fellows as ambassadors of computational
  science
• Partnership with LEAD for evaluation during
  1998-99
• Follow-on Activities (Susan Millar, LEAD)
• CATS (Classroom Assessment Techniques)
• FLAG (Field-tested Learning Assessment Guide)
• SALG (Student Assessment of Learning Gains)

16
More Strategies

• Trying the new approaches in our own teaching
• Teaching the Supercomputer class with group-based
  problem-solving environments
• Real-time distance teaching with Web-based
  collaborative software (featured as Microsoft
  Case Study in Higher Ed.)
• Development of Sociology Workbench, a free
  on-line survey data analysis system that can be
  used for evaluation of student outcomes and other
  surveys

17
Channels for Influencing Pre-Service Teacher
Preparation

• Use of advanced computing modules in general ed
  courses (e.g. Geol 303 Natural Hazards)
• Cooperation with College of Education faculty and
  students, esp. in Education Technology focus on
  experimentation with new technologies in
  classroom setting
• Computational Science Olympics supporting the
  bottom-up development of computational science
  curricula
• Providing on-line assessment technologies
• Sociology Workbench http//edcenter.sdsu.edu

18
SWB Convenient Tool to Learn from Student Survey
Data

• Online tool for standard public data sets or
  your own data set http//edcenter.sdsu.edu
• Small Sample, therefore only useful as feedback
  for the instructor
• Can be used with forms interface directly into
  SWB format, as in June 99 CSU Faculty Workshop

19
SWB as Analysis ToolView Student Comments (text)

20
SWB as Analysis ToolIsolate on Specific Survey
Response

21
SWB as Analysis ToolExplain the Response on
Learning with doing more

22
SWB as Analysis ToolExplain learning with
active participation
23
Lessons Learned

• Institutional support required for program to be
  sustainable
• Individual reform-ready faculty is focus for
  support
• Infrastructure
• Build a Synergistic Environment (across
  disciplines) for Faculty
• Continuous monitoring through interviews,
  surveys, discussions

24
Whats Next

• The approaches we described proved useful for two
  target audiences. We believe that the strategies
  and lessons learned can be extrapolated in a
  targeted effort to incorporate computational
  science technologies in pre-service teacher
  preparation
• This may be a funding opportunity?
• We will be happy to contribute our knowledge and
  share experiences

25
References AHM2000/UG-Panel

• User-Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation
  Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology
  Education, NSF 93-152 www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/RED/EVAL
  /handbook/handbook.htm
• Sid Karin The Importance of Science Literacy in
  a Computing World (see enVision Science Magazine,
  V.15 No. 2
• Smithsonian Institution STEP is in the Archive
  for 1996, Education Academia San Diego
  http//innovate.si.edu/
• K. Stewart I. Zaslavsky, Ten Grand
  Challenges, Supercomputing 98 Orlando FL SC98
  Conference Paper
• J. Foertsch B. Alexander, Integrating HPC into
  the Undergraduate Curriculum, report by LEAD
  Center June 1999 http//www.cae.wisc.edu/lead/pag
  es/products/eot-paci.pdf

26
Advancing the Computational Infrastructure

• Resources -- Todays Digital Laboratory
• High-performance computing available today to the
  academic community
• Develop and Deploy
• Technology and application collaborations to push
  the capabilities of tomorrows digital laboratory
• Use and Apply
• Computational scientists applying enhanced
  capabilities to achieve new scientific results
• Disseminate and Incorporate
• Incorporating technologies into the digital
  laboratory and disseminating them for use in new
  communities

27
NPACI Sources of Information
NPACI Sources of Information
NPACI Partnership Report enVision quarterly
science magazine, especially June99The
Importance of Science Literacy in a Computing
World, Sid Karin www.npaci.edu/envision/v15.2/dir
ector.html Online biweekly electronic
publication, www.npaci.edu/online/ www.npaci.edu