Experience from diverse courses and approaches
guides the development of a
web-based high school chemistry teacher project.

C. Ansorge, D. Brooks, W. Glider, C. Horn, J. Partridge, W. Udell

ACS New Orleans
August 22, 1999
DivCHED
Paper

Doubletree
Crescent A
10:45 AM

Abstract

This talk deals with faculty experiences related to the delivery of instruction over the WWW. It covers a wide range of approaches.1. An undergraduate course is delivered remotely. In-classroom activities are 'streamed' with a very brief delay to students at remote sites. Distant students contribute questions to the class via a chat mode that is monitored in real time by the instructor and an assistant. 2. A course is managed using WWW courseware and on-line testing for distance students. Taped video from live classes is compressed and 'streamed' within a few hours of class time. 3. A traditional large lecture science class makes very extensive use of 'supplementary' Web materials. The most important common feature of these three approaches is the commitment of the teachers to incorporating active learning strategies into their instruction and instructional materials. Also especially noteworthy is the very substantial amount of teacher time required to bring this about. The ways in which the various lessons learned from these early experiences are being incorporated into a new distance program aimed at high school chemistry teachers will be described.

There is dissatisfaction with the level of high school chemistry teacher content knowledge in the US.

Offering a chemistry major to preservice teachers doesn't help. IF a teacher has the equivalent of a major, they most likely will take an ‘industrial’ job. The starting salary differential usually is something like $12K US in the US.

Main Themes of This Project

1. Many schools are participating. If you represent a college with a graduate program, and you support teachers, you, too, can participate.

For the first three years, no cost to the teacher.

After that, teachers will get a large bill, say $200 US, which will be forgiven if they complete the course in a predetermined time. Actually, they will be billed. Well find a company to sponsor the project and, when the teachers complete on time, they'll receive a scholarship in the amount of the bill.

There are no serving costs for the administering school.

 

2. Eighteen courses are available, and there is a curriculum for each.

 

'National' High School Chemistry Curriculum

There is a concept used in instruction called pedagogical content knowledge. This deals with not just ordinary content knowledge, but also knowledge of how to teach that.

For example, it would involve knowing good experiments or demonstrations to illustrate a point, or common student misconceptions and strategies for overcoming them.

Overall Lesson Structure

5 Traditional Content
1.5 Content integration (biol, physics, ...)
1 Math integration
3 Teacher resources
1 CBL
0.5 Calculator
1 Simulation
1 At home experiment
0.5 Writing
0.5 Industry application

3. Much of the testing is automatic.

A teacher finds a mentor in a participating program. The mentor logs on, and, together with the teacher, they set objectives and testing formats. The formats determine how much essay reading will be involved.

The teachers receive some materials — but delivering Web materials is not what we are about.

They receive tests. Repeatable tests. The tests provide immediate feedback. Records are made of automatically gradable materials. Essays are e-mailed to graders.

This system permits selection of objectives by participating teachers and students.

It is an open access system. Copyrighted materials are protected. However, exams are available on demand anywhere at any time. The exams are graded, and feedback provided. For essay questions, model responses are returned.

Much of our work centers around Web-teaching.

Dated book deals with research. Updated version due in spring, 2000. Research based.

There is an inevitability about Web use in teaching. MUCH of the current study is not likely to survive tests of time. The reason is that the metacognition about using the Web is emerging and developing. When was the last time you instructed your students in the use of a telephone?

Multimedia Learning

Imagine cloning an exact copy of this document. Visitors to either document should experience the same learning. There will be small variations.

Now, take part of the text of document B and change it by replacing it with a carefully prepared media piece containing the same knowledge.

Research based predications. In general,

That's just about never what teachers do. Instead, they put in lots of media. More often than not, and especially when help from designers is sought, the media become interactive and demand student inputs often. In these cases, about 0.5 SD improvement is experienced when media are used. "Effects of Hypermedia Versus Traditional Instruction on Student's Achievement: A Meta-Analysis," Yuen-kuang Cliff Liao, Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 30, 341-359 (1998).

By comaprison, mastery learning will get over 1 SD, and approach 2 SD.

Bloom, B. S. Human characteristics and school learning; McGraw-Hill: New York, NY, 1976.

Active Learning

Examples from Geometry (Java Sketchpad)

Colby College Stereochemistry

Circular motion (Tom Koch)

Faculty Time. I.

Faculty Time. II.

ALL of those of us involved will tell you that developing Web stuff takes time.

Throwing a course up using some of the new software packages seems to be lots easier. We at UNL are using CourseInfo by Blackboard with very good luck.

Student Usage

"As presented here, this Web Study Page is intended to complement the required textbook, not replace it. The average Web Page accesses during a semester per student was 3 to 5 times per week. Some students regularly accessed the Web Pages more than 10 times per week while others used it no more than once a week. Over 60% of students accessed the pages and printed them without actually looking at them on the computer screen. Some students (35%) accessed the pages and read them before printing. The minority of students (less than 5%) interacted with the Web Study pages on the computer while reading the textbook. In total, greater than 75% of the students did use the printed study materials as a complement to their study of the textual materials. Unfortunately, up to 25% of the students relied solely on the Web Study Pages as their preparation for class. This group of students has not done well in the course as reflected in poor in-class discussion and examination scores. "

Jim Partridge

Lecture Section of General Biology
250 students enrolled - Fall 1997

Classroom Activities included:

Purpose of General Biology Course Web Page

  1. Provide students with instant access to course mechanics, policies, and grades.
  2. Provide students with self paced, interactive learning activities (tutorials) designed to help student learn basic biological concepts. Tutorials include Drag and Drop Concept Maps, Interactive Image Maps, video, and animation's.

Web Activities include:

Data Collected in 1997 via student surveys and automated data collection from the web server.

General Usage: 89% of the students reported using the web page at some point during the semester where as only 33% reported attending Supplemental Instruction.

Tutorials:

Usage of the web site increased greatly 3 days prior to the exam date and actually peaked on the exam day. Exams were given in the evening. During this time period, the most frequently accessed were: practice exams, current course grades, and tutorials. Out of the nine tutorials available, % participation ranged from 8 - 40%

Currently analyzing data from fall semester to assess the impact of web tutorials on student success in the course. Automated tracking of students through the web site as well as their activity within specific tutorials has been carried out.

Bill Glider

Student Usage

AP Chemistry Descriptive Questions

Results:

1. There are about 9 answer sets delivered for every ten question sets.

2. Web site use relative to the 99 AP exam

Total 1999 Exam hits = 19744
AP Exam Date = 5/16/99
One day prior, 1336 hits, 6.8%
One week prior, 3849 hits, 19.5

Submitted for publication -- Brooks, Crippen, Abuloum

Student Learning

"Students taking statistics class at a distance where streamed video on demand was available were not at a disadvantage in the class. In fact, the means on all three examinations for students enrolled in the "distance" class were higher than those students completing the traditional class on campus.

There were 14 students enrolled in the distance class and 26 who were in the traditional class. The exams used in the class were ones I had previously used and all had high reliabilities. These were 25-30 item multiple-choice exams.

I have streamed video available for the introductory stat class this fall that has been placed on CDs. There will probably be three or four CDs with around 25 hours of video available for viewing (640x480 or 320x240)."


Chuck Ansorge

Teacher's Web Site Usage

Kent Crippen set up a site for parents and students in his high school chemistry classes.

1. Time of Day Usage

2. Pattern of Hits over Time

3. Pattern of hits (days of week)

4. ISPs.

Submitted for publication -- Crippen and Brooks

Contacting the Authors:

Dave Brooks
Chuck Ansorge
Jim Partridge
Bill Glider

Prepared 8/20/99

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