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Check it out at: webug.physics.uiuc/courses/ie.html

Interactive Examples. Can Students Learn Concept-Based Problem Solving on the Web?. Check it out at: http://webug.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/ie.html. Mats Selen July 13, 2001. Cottrell Scholars Meeting. Overview. The Problem:

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Check it out at: webug.physics.uiuc/courses/ie.html

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  1. Interactive Examples Can Students Learn Concept-Based Problem Solving on the Web? Check it out at: http://webug.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/ie.html Mats Selen July 13, 2001 Cottrell Scholars Meeting

  2. Overview • The Problem: • When given a quantitative physics problem, most students immediately resort to an “equation manipulation” strategy to solve the problem. • Too many students see “concepts” and “calculations” as two totally separate and unrelated activities. • When given a quantitative question, most students will NOT think about the CONCEPTS that are involved. • When given a qualitative question, most students will never consider writing down an appropriate equation… math is NOT seen as a TOOL • Our Approach: • Create web-based instructional materials that will promote “concept-based” problem solving among our introductory students. • Interactive Examples (work by Gary Gladding) !

  3. Physics 101 Midterm Exam 1, Spring 2000 Why we should stress concepts: On this exam, the conceptual problems were worth about 30% of the total.

  4. Traditional Homework:

  5. Limited help available…

  6. Interactive Examples (Socratic Dialogue) Start by asking a numeric question(usually multi-step) when students click in “Help”…

  7. …”Help” results in a discussion followed by some multiple-choice questions that lead them toward the answer…

  8. This dialogue can take several steps…

  9. …these steps are designed toteach students problem solvingapproaches as well as physics…

  10. Eventually they get another (simpler) numeric question whoseanswer is needed to solve the primary numeric question.

  11. Clicking on “Help” again results in asimilar dialogue as the first time,although one level “deeper”. - Problems can be 4-5 levels deep - Eventually they get enough info to solve the problem.

  12. Once they get right the answer They get arecap And somefollow-upquestions

  13. Structure: • Base question is a quantitative problem (multi-step). • Students can request help which comes in the form of more questions. • Questions for which more help is always available. • Questions that must be answered correctly to get more help. • Students can opt to answer the base question at any time. • Eventually, enough help is given to solve the problem. • Once base question is answered correctly: • Full credit is given. • A Recap is given (Conceptual, Strategic and Quantitative Analyses). • Follow-Up Questions (optional, i.e. no credit) are asked.

  14. REAL Data: Student Logs • We record all student submissions on IEs: (the conversation)

  15. These data are very useful for education research: • For example, some questions we might ask ourselves are: • How “engaged” are students by the IE’s ? • How, exactly, are they learning? • These can be investigated by analyzing the student logs: • How much time do students spend on the IEs? • How well do the students do on their first response to M/C questions? • How deep into the IE do students go?

  16. Physics 102 Physics 101 How Much Time Do Students Spend on IEs?

  17. Physics 101 Physics 102 How Well Do Students Do on their First Response to M/C Questions?

  18. Physics 101 Physics 102 How Deep Do Students Go in IEs?

  19. Does IE Performance Correlate with Exam Performance? Compare Physics 101 Hour Exam grade with Indicators of IE participation Observe some correlation between (unclear how to interpret this). Will probably advertise this to students to encourage participation.

  20. Status • Algebra-based Courses at Illinois (Physics 101 and 102). • Approximately 60 IEs were used in these courses in Fall 00. • Very popular! • Used heavily in Physics 100. • Remedial class for at-risk students. • I.E. form most of the homework for this class. • Since Physics 100 has no lecture, IE’s are particularly useful since they provide some “give & take” type dialogue. • Will implement in calculus based sequence next.

  21. What Do Students Think About IEs? • Always Very Positive • Independent (OIR) Focus Group Study • 100% of students preferred IEs to the usual computer problems • The half that do the optional follow-ups felt they gained confidence • Our End of Term Surveys • 87% said that the interface was “very intuitive” or “reasonably intuitive” • How effective were IEs at helping you to develop a problem solving strategy? “very effective” (31%), “effective” (56%), “not very” (12%) • Direct Comment Facility from IE itself: • Low response, but 100% positive (very unusual for computer feedback) • “the drawn out explainations are much like a one on one learning environment and are very helpful not only in the problem but in the concepts behind it” • “if these interactive examples were not there to help me i would have gone insane trying to figure out these problems....and this makes me understand the problems much better than if i were to get help from someone in the class...i believe anyways...because this way i'm figuring it out basically on my own.…”

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