Collaboration in Educational Settings

1. Collaboration in Educational Settings Nathan Campbell Lisa Doan Kirill Kireyev Malte Winkler

2. Traditional Instruction • “Sage on Stage” • Limited interaction, participation • Hard to ask questions • Cramming for tests • Shallow understanding • Low retention rate • Competitive grading discourages cooperation • Not taught how to find information • Material not personally interesting, relevant

3. Why Collaboration? • Solve large problems • Teaches valuable “people” skills • Self-empowerment, responsibility, self-expression • Attitudes towards learning • “When you teach, you learn” • Synergy of ideas, “symmetry of ignorance” • Cognitive Dissonance Theory • Learning by resolving disagreements

4. Why Computer-aided Collaboration? • Easy to organize/visualize information • Special Technological capabilities • Interactivity, connectivity • Helps mediate opinions (everyone is heard) • Work remotely • Reach out to wider audience • Contribute at any time • Store information, discussions for later access • Fun

5. Clickers

6. FEEL (DLC 2004)

7. Collaborative Tools Universidad de Vigo, Spain

8. Collaborative Tools Georgia Institute of Technology

9. Handheld Applications “Ecosystem” “Match-My-Graph”

10. Handheld/Wireless Applications • ClassTalk – asking questions • Multiple choice, text, numerical • ImageMap – interactive images • Maps, graphs, photos • Probeware – physical measurements • Participatory simulations • Tracking student’s movement, position • Exploratorium – interactive museums

11. Collaboration: Challenges • Re-structuring educational practices • Creating supportive environment • Non-competitive • Open-ended creative projects • Re-thinking grading policies • “Free-rider” problem • Scheduling overhead • Teaching collaboration skills

12. Technology Design Questions • Balance online vs. face-to-face • How to integrate? • Structured (WebCT) vs Unstructured (wiki) • Freedom may be messy, overwhelming • General vs. specific • Mediation? • Support flexibility, evolution • Users will use in different ways • Sensitive to context, time

13. Making Collaboration Successful • Shared motivations, common goals • Adequate incentives • Positive interdependence • Symmetry of ignorance • Diversity of opinions, backgrounds • Flexibility, opportunities for creativity • Establishing team goals, deadlines, roles • Regular synchronous meetings • Social relationship building

14. Challenges of Large Lectures • Difficult to gauge students’ understanding and engagement • Students hesitate to ask questions • Stall large class • Personal embarrassment • No peer discourse • Lacking useful elaboration • Less engaging • Stern, anti-social atmosphere

15. Opportunities of Large Lectures • Large lectures are prevalent and inevitable • Can we positively exploit: • Large body of knowledge? • Diversity of opinions? • Teaching assistants? • Existing technologies (laptops)?

16. Pros Pros: Inexpensive Easy to use Instructor learns about students’ performance Students test their skills Peer discussion Clickers

17. Clickers (cont) Cons: • One-way communication • Students can’t ask questions • Students can’t give feedback • No justifications for answers • No means to store questions/answers in context

18. FEEL (DLC 2004)

19. Pros Students can ask questions Anonymously No interruption Students may “support” other’s Q’s Students give feedback e.g. “Lecture Too Fast” Cons Distracting Overloads instructor Limited student discussion Not integrated with notes, context FEEL (Cont)

20. Technology Design Questions • Balance online vs. face-to-face • How to integrate? • Structured (WebCT) vs Unstructured (wiki) • Freedom may be messy, overwhelming • General vs. specific • Mediation? • Support flexibility, evolution • Users will use in different ways • Sensitive to context, time

21. Making Collaboration Successful • Shared motivations, common goals • Adequate incentives • Positive interdependence • Symmetry of ignorance • Diversity of opinions, backgrounds • Flexibility, opportunities for creativity • Establishing team goals, deadlines, roles • Regular synchronous meetings • Social relationship building

22. Our Design Goals • Build on previous projects • Student’s inquiries, feedback • Leverage the TAs time, knowledge • Students can ask questions • Others give “support” vote • Raises question’s importance • Instructor sees “confusion level” • Incorporate note-taking

23. Our Design Goals • Justifications for answers • Carl Wieman does this “by hand” • Students become exposed to opinions, justifications • Stimulates thinking • Promotes engagement • “Beaten Path” • Provide submitted justifications during the questions • Catalyses discussion • Incorporate into grading • (e.g. extra credit)?

24. SLE Clicker Questions Student’s View Notes Random Justifications Students’ Questions What is “L3D”? Current Questions

25. Students’ Questions TA’s View Ask Questions Answer/ Discuss Justifications Notes

26. SLE: Instructor’s View Ask Clicker Quesionts • Try to make Instructor’s UI minimally distracting “Confusion” Level

27. Architecture • Web Application • Portable • No installation required • PHP pages • Dynamic content via Ajax • XML data persistence • Authentication

28. Future Work: End-User Design • Lecturer • Create animations, interactive demos • Images/charts/pages • Applets, AgentSheets • TA’s • Gather statistics • Students • Integrate into email, calendar, chat • Personal profiles/pages

29. Other Future Work • More robust Interface • Integrate with presentation, multimedia • Better notetaking system • Timeline reflecting notes, questions • Chat?

30. Conclusions • Large lectures are a challenging environment... • Yet many opportunities exist • Technology may make large lectures more • informative • engaging • collaborative