Hard to believe this course is over. Relief (it's been HARD work) and really sad (it has been EXCELLENT, so many new ideas, people). Wondering what happens now...
The presentation.... drum roll .....
Presentation
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Initial Prototype – Revision 2
Background
In South
Africa there are a number of factors that contribute to mathematics being
regarded as a killer course at first year level. Students view mathematics as
collection of recipes to be rote learnt (Mji,2003). Disadvantaged
students in South Africa are generally unprepared (Davidowitz & Rollnick,
2010) and face severe financial constraints (Mdepa & Tshiwula, 2012).
The majority of students have no intention of becoming mathematicians and struggle
to relate to mathematics (Leitze, 1996). These factors combined with a
traditional teaching approach results in first year mathematics being a rite of
passage for many.
Learning
Problem
Students
employ a recipe like approach when solving mathematics tutorial problems
indicating that they have not integrated this new information into their
knowledge structures. Engagement with the content is limited to ensuring
the correct steps are followed and students see these problems as being
disconnected from their desired fields of study.
Educational
Goals
- Facilitate a deeper exploration of the mathematical concepts via asynchronous collaborative learning
- Develop an appreciation for the applicability of mathematical content by exploring real world examples
- Initialise a reflective practitioner approach to problem solving by having to constantly review their group’s work over a period of time
Task.
We will
use a collaborative learning (Smith & MacGregor, 1992) approach where
students work together in groups to understand and solve a real world
problem. Collaborative learning is based on a social constructivist
approached and is used in variety of forms in classrooms and lectures.
This type of learning environment enables students to explore topics more deeply
than in traditional situations (Smith & MacGregor, 1992). In these
environments students challenge and adapt their existing knowledge frameworks
and integrate the new knowledge. This approach is frequently used in a
variety of science and engineering contexts and can be used in a basic
classroom environment with no computing devices (Marshall, 2007) or be employed
in a technology rich environment such as a SCALE-UP classroom (Beichner, 2008).
The
lecture is not the primary knowledge building location for students.
Students require time to process the information and integrate it into their
knowledge structures and this generally happens in the library, where they live
etc. Collaborative learning can thus be deployed in an online, asynchronous
manner (Ben-Zivi, 2007. Minocha & Thomas, 2007. Lipponen, 2002) and can
then facilitate active engagement in their major or primary learning
spaces. This environment allows the student to review, explore and
process before engaging again with the content and group
members.
The
students will function in assigned groups. As an initial task students
will be asked to work on a single qualitative aspect of modern or historical
mathematics. They will be required to repeatedly review content that is
posted online by group members and add, edit and comment as they see
necessary. Part of this work will be in a supervised computer laboratory
and support will be provided to ensure that all students have developed the
necessary digital skills. The lecturer will initially facilitate the
collaborative process and will provide clear details regarding the assessment
strategy, group member expectations and conflict resolution procedures.
Following
on this the students will be given a min-project/long-assignment that requires
the application of mathematics (Martin and Premadasa 2010). This will
also be required to cover a component of the work that has not been formally
covered in lectures yet. Each group will be given a single problem. There
will be a variety of problems and each problem will have different aspects
ensuring that no groups will have an identical problem. The students will work
on this collaboratively (review, edit, modify, comment) over 4-5 weeks and
produce an edited document as the final outcome. This will include an
analysis of the problem, a detailed solution and an attempted computational
approach. Group members will meet formally once a week. A tutor or
lecturer will be in attendance for part of this time. Marks will be
assigned for milestones achieved, the final product and for a final
presentation by a random group member.
These
tasks will contribute to the assignment/tutorial component. The impact of this
task will be measured using the “Conceptions of Mathematics
Questionnaire”(Crawford et al 1998) and “Approaches to Studying Questionnaire”
(Richardson 1990), “Experiences of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire”(Ramsden
1991), course evaluations and interviews of selected students.
Affordance
Matching
The
affordances of the task were assessed using Bowden (2008) as a guide. The
following affordances were added:
Math-ability
- the ability to use mathematical symbols directly in the wiki.
Edit-ability
- the ability to view the current version of the document only.
Revision-ability
- the ability to review changes in the content.
Message-ability
– the ability to leave note for group members that does not form part of the
document
Table 1:
Affordances required by the task
Affordances
|
Required
|
Read-ability
|
√
|
View-ability
|
√
|
Listen-ability
|
|
Watch-ability
|
√
|
Write-ability
|
√
|
Edit-ability
|
√
|
Math-ability
|
√
|
Revision-Ability
|
√
|
Draw-ability
|
√
|
Speak-ability
|
|
Video-produce-ability
|
|
Resize-ability
|
√
|
Move-ability
|
√
|
Playback-ability
|
|
Accessibility
|
√
|
Record ability
|
|
Synchronous-ability
|
|
Message ability
|
√
|
Browse-ability
|
√
|
Search-ability
|
√
|
Data-manipulation-ability
|
|
Link-ability
|
√
|
Highlight-ability
|
|
Focus ability
|
|
Permission-ability
|
√
|
Share-ability
|
√
|
The
affordances of the task was then compared to the various tools available.
Table 2:
Affordances of Tools vs Task
Affordances
|
Blog
|
Chat
|
Forum
|
Wiki
|
Task
|
Read-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
View-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
|
Watch-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
|
Write-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
Edit-ability
|
√
|
√
|
|||
Math-ability
|
√
|
√
|
|||
Revision-Ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
Draw-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
|
Resize-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
||
Move-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
||
Accessibility
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
Message-ability
|
√
|
||||
Browse-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
Search-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
Link-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
|
Permission-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
Share-ability
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
From
table 2 the wiki is the obvious choice and has a history of use in education
(Augar, 2004. Ben-Zvi, 2007). A message-ability will be required for
students to communicate ideas and briefly behind their modifications.
This will be similar to a chat or forum tool. The choice of wiki type is also
crucial as not all wikis are math or chat enabled.
Deployment
Context
This task
will be used in one of the two first year mathematics classes for academic
development students in the science faculty. The class size is
approximately 150. Based on the trend observed over the past few years
only a fraction of these students would consider becoming mathematicians.
The majority of these students are not English first language speakers.
The
asynchronous collaborative environment provides an ideal platform for these
students to engage with their peers in a ‘safe’ environment. The
nature of this activity also allows students with the space needed to think
about aspects of the problem before re-engaging with the content and their group
members.
Challenges
During
semester 2 of 2012 details of this task will be explored and if possible a
pilot project will run during November/December. The challenges include:
- Developing and refining the assessment details
- Developing the facilitation skills required for this environment amongst the teaching staff
- Development of the problem details for this task.
- Assessing the need for a glossary component
Future
projects
- Broadening collaboration to include national and international student projects
- Collaborative textbooks
- Adobe connect interviews to address motivational issues
- Concept mapping from both lecturer and student perspective for deeper understanding
- Reflective learning journals via blogs
- Flipping the classroom using vodcasting
- Integrating the use of 3D visualisation software
References
Augar, N.
Raitman, R. Zhou, W. (2004, December) ‘Teaching and learning online with
wikis’, Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference, Perth, Australia: 95-104
Beichner,
R. (2008) ‘The SCALE-UP Project: A Student-Centered Active Learning Environment
for Undergraduate Programs’, BOSE Conference on Promising Practices-Innovation
in Undergraduate STEM Education, Washington, DC.
Ben-Zivi,
D. (2007) ‘Using Wiki to promote Collaborative Learning in Statistics Education’,
Technology Innovations in Statistics Education, Center for the teaching of
Statistics, UCLA, UC Los Angeles
Bower, M
(2008). ‘Affordance Analysis – matching learning tasks with learning
technologies’, Educational Media International, 45(1): 3-15
Crawford,
K. Gordon, S. Nicholas, J. Prosser, M. (1998) ‘University mathematics students'
conceptions of mathematics’, Studies in Higher Education, volume 23 (1): 87-94
Davidowitz,
B. Rollnick, M. (2010) ‘Adjustment of underprepared students to tertiary
education’, in Rollnick, M. (eds) Identifying Potential for Equitable Access to
Tertiary Level Science. Springer: 89-108
Leitze,
A.R. (1996) ‘To major or not major in mathematics? Affective factors in the
choice-of-major decision’, in Kaput, J. Schoenfeld, A. Dubinsky, E. (eds) CMBS
Issues in Mathematics Education 6:83–100
Lipponen,
L. (2002) ‘Exploring Foundations for Computer-Supported Collaborative
Learning’, Proceedings of CSCL 2002: 72-81
Martin,P.
Premadasa,K. (2010), ‘effective use of Wikis in College Mathematics Classes’,
Journal on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, Volume 8(6): 76-78
Marshall,
D. Lesai, M. Schroeder, I. (2007, December) ‘Making the Tacit Explicit:
Accessing the Discourse of Physics’, For Engineering and Science Educators,
Volume 11, 4-6.
Minocha,
S. Thomas, P. (2007, December) ‘Collaborative Learning in a Wiki Environment:
Experiences from a software engineering course’, New Review of Hypermedia and
Multimedia, volume 13 (2): 187-209.
Mji, A.
(2003) ‘A three-year perspective on conceptions of and orientations to learning
mathematics of prospective teachers and first year university students’,
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, volume
34 (5): 687-698
Ramsden,
P.(1991) ‘A performance indicator of teaching quality in higher education: The
Course Experience Questionnaire’, Studies in Higher Education, volume 16 (2):
129-150
Richardson,
J. (1990) ‘Reliability and replicability of the Approaches to Studying
Questionnaire’, Studies in Higher Education, volume 15 (2): 155-168
Smith, B.
MacGregor, J. (1992) ‘What is Collaborative learning’, Goodsell, A. (eds)
Collaborative learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education, National Center on
Postsecondary Teaching, Learning and Assessment, University Park, PA: 10-29
Wandisile,
M. Tshiwula, L. (2012, January) ‘Student diversity in South African higher
education’, Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, Volume 13, Special
Issue: 19-33
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