Help for Choke Points in Pre-Calculus (Grades 10 - 14) May 6, 2004

1. Wisconsin Mathematics Council Help for Choke Points in Pre-Calculus (Grades 10 - 14) May 6, 2004 Marty Schuh, mschuh@uwc.edu Hal Schlais, hschlais@uwsa.edu

2. Support These activities are supported by: • A National Science Foundation Proof of Concept Grant: DUE-0231508 • A Grant from the University of Wisconsin System – Learning Technology Development Council

3. Goals This project intended to produce: • pre-calculus modules to target conceptual hurdles • a prototypical process faculty can use for finding or creating instructional materials using SCOs • a prototypical collection of SCOs identified from existing precalculus content on the web • case studies of each of the instructional participants

4. Participants PI: Hal Schlais, Director of Learning Technology Development - UW System Co-PIs: Robert Hoar, UW-La Crosse Tom Peneski, UW-Colleges (Sheboygan) Team: Jeff Baggett, UW-La Crosse Karl Kattchee, UW-La Crosse Patricia Nelson, UW-La Crosse Terry Nyman, UW-Colleges (Fox Valley) Marty Schuh, UW-Colleges (Manitowoc) Paul A. Sundheim, UW-Colleges (Waukesha)

5. Fast Timeline • Funding and team selection began in June of 2003 • Team attended “SCO-Days” • Materials found and assembled in July and August • New (fall) team members briefed • Materials “tested” in fall classrooms • Additional materials developed in fall • Materials and process are assessed

6. Module Building Process • Faculty identify “choke points” in pre-calculus • Search digital libraries and other sources for “assets” related to the choke point • Eisenhower National Clearinghouse • MERLOT • Others • Augment found assets with additional content to create a common look for modules called Shareable Content Objects (SCOs) • SCOs to be placed in a repository • Used for instruction in a number of ways

7. Choke Points UW Colleges • Log Properties • Algebraic manipulation of logs and exponential equations • Horizontal stretching and periodicity UW-La Crosse • Right triangle vs unit circle trig • Radians vs Degrees • Trig identities Open • Inverse Concept

8. Finding Assets • Goal was to utilize existing learning objects to build Sharable Content Objects to address pre-calculus choke points • Observations • lots of material available on the web • rarely exactly what you want • often not public domain, difficult to modify, or incompatible • best search tool was Google

9. The Modules • The instructional design (TCP): • Textual: background mathematics necessary to understand the central concept • Conceptual: gizmo + investigations to learn about a particular concept • Practical: self assessment or practice section T C P

10. Repository www.compute.uwlax.edu/precalc

11. An example

12. Example Module

13. Example Module

14. LMS The SCO’s found and/or created by the team were placed into the Desire2Learn Learning Management System. Tracking and assessment features of D2L were utilized in assessing student usage.

15. Observations • One of the goals was to define a process by which the average math instructor could assemble and use a module • Building a module around existing gizmos can be done with only a little knowledge of an HTML editor • Building gizmos is technically demanding • An open-source gizmo repository would help

16. Collaboration • There are benefits to collaboration • Working with others within the system • Access to experts • There are challenges too • Our team was spread out • Face-to-face meetings • Weekly conference calls • Email • Desire2Learn

17. New Look • More Readable • Easier Navigation • Less Content per Page • Input from Instructional Designer

19. Future Plans • Development of “How-to” module • Expansion beyond pre-calculus • Expansion beyond mathematics • Develop a system wide Repository • Ensure appropriate Standards are maintained • Open Source (Editable) • Sharable (Platform/Server independent/LMS friendly) • Properly “tagged” (Make them easy to find) • (Nearly) Self Contained www.compute.uwlax.edu/precalc