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Development of an Integrated Local/Distant Mathematics Instruction Program: A Progress Report

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Control File for Joe Mahoney's Paducah, KY Section of Ma322 ... Joe Mahoney and Avinash Sathaye did Videos for MA322. Sharing: ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Development of an Integrated Local/Distant Mathematics Instruction Program: A Progress Report


1
Development of an Integrated Local/Distant
Mathematics Instruction ProgramA Progress
Report
  • Paul Eakin
  • Department of Mathematics
  • University of Kentucky
  • paul_at_ms.uky.edu

2
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.
3
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

4
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.

5
Program Philosophy as Aphorism
  • If we cant make it work
  • locally we have no hope
  • of making it work at a distance

6
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
  • Dont offer off-campus until on-campus issues
    arising on-campus are fully resolved

7
Development PlatformMa123
  • 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

8
Ma123 Fall 1999
  • 23 traditional sections of about 30
  • taught by TAs, PTIs, and Faculty
  • 7 experimental sections of about 30
  • taught by 2 faculty and 2 TAs
  • Instructors were volunteers, students were not.

9
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

10
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
    instructors instruction

11
Current Results in Ma123
  • Quite comparable
  • first test (algebra review) disaster.
  • Second test very high grades
  • No improvement in drop rate

12
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

13
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17
Description
  • Student View
  • Faculty User View
  • Materials Development Process

18
Primary Student Interface Instructors 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)

19
Student Interface Instructors Web Page (part 1)
System tutorial
Course syllabus
Visual class rolls
Exam schedule
20
Class Roll
21
Instructors Web Page (part 2)
Link to wqs system server
Student emails from homework system with
responses
Links to lecture notes for video lectures
22
Responses to Student Questions
Page references particular assignment
Student query
Instructor response
23
Instructor Web Page (part 3)
Link to wqs system
Link to online text
Links to lecture slides for video lectures by
chapter
24
WQS System current login screen
Students select video lectures menu or their
class homework menu
Group logins and work are encouraged
25
Typical Section Menu
Chapter 1 homework
Review for test II
26
Homework Page Current Format
System response
Student answer
Email window
System answer
Problem and answers
27
Most students print the problem sets out and
record their solutions or solutions from class
directly on the printouts
28
Video Lectures Menu
Lecture Slides (html)
Video of lecture segment (10-30 min)
29
(No Transcript)
30
Other Materials Test Review with Video Solutions
31
Other Materials Test Review with video solutions
Problem statement with diagram
Link to video solution
32
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

33
Log Data
34
WQS Video
  • Materials prepared by faculty
  • conversion to ASF and formatted by grad students
    and staff
  • lectures by faculty and graduate students
  • separate video and homework (original system)
  • converting to merged text/homework/video

35
Graduate Student Editing Video Files
36
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

37
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 of item directories placed in control
    file called wqs-dirs which is known to the wqs
    server and describes the section menu page

38
Faculty Preparing Materials
CD burner and blanks
food
coffee
39
Maple Source Homework Problem
Question Tag( Q_ )
SKIP Tags
Answer Tags ( A_ )
Correct Answer Tag
40
To create and post a simple wqs homework set
  • Source document is exported to html from Maple
    menu
  • exported html document is processed by Perl
    script to
  • create a file which describes the final
    document to the server
  • make an entry in a control file owned by the
    document creator which the system uses to locate
    the item and build the course menu

41
The data file which describes the final document
These correspond to tags in source document
These correspond to segments of html in
exported document which were delimited by the
tags
42
Sharing Materials
Ken made homework set number 8
Paul made homework set number 7
43
Lauras Ma123 Control File
44
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 as good or better than
    traditional

45
Control File for Joe Mahoneys Paducah, KY
Section of Ma322
Carl Eberhart created the homework for the Ma322
sections
46
Joe Mahoney and Avinash Sathaye did Videos for
MA322
47
Sharing
  • Instructor A can use instructor Bs entire menu
    simply by copying Bs control file (with
    permission)
  • Instructor A can use any item in instructor Bs
    menu simply by copying the corresponding entry
    from Bs control file (with permission)
  • In either case student email will be routed to A
    and activity logged to As students

48
Planned changes for Spring 2000
  • Re-written, expanded text as multimedia document
    including homework, videos, reviews, etc.
  • Continuous reporting of log data to students,
  • Full sets of CDs available to students in advance

49
Unified Format
Video link
LaTeX math formatting
50
Web homework is part of text in unified format
51
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

52
http//www.ms.uky.edu/wqs
  • Paul Eakin
  • Department of Mathematics
  • University of Kentucky
  • Lexington, KY 40606
  • paul_at_ms.uky.edu

53
Pictures/slides
  • Copies/scanned of a set of student wqs homework
  • page from book
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