Felix Kapp

Comparing Tool-supported Lecture Readings and Exercise Tutorials in Classic University Settings

Teaching in classic courses offers too little interaction between docents and students and should be improved. Addressed approaches include a range from Simple Voting Systems to Clickers and Audience Response Systems, and interaction and Student motivation may be improved therein. However, different university course settings are affected in different ways by these systems. Therefore, this paper presents a comparison of a selected range of these systems (implemented as tool kits) within two course settings, namely lecture readings and exercise tutorials. These tools are Audience Response Systems, Question and Answer Systems (Q&A Systems), Discussion Systems (Panels), as well as Virtual Whiteboard Feedback Systems. A synopsis of feasibility for different settings is provided and concluded with important results on the distinguishability of Q&A Systems and Panels.

Metacognitive Support in University Lectures Provided via Mobile Devices

Even though classical lectures at universities are criticized for lacking interactivity and treating students like passive receptors of information they are still very popular. Due to the big amount of students, interaction between teacher and students is difficult to realize. Several projects address this problem by offering technical solutions which aim at increasing the interactivity during classes or lectures â?? classic clicker-systems as well as solutions in which students use their own smartphones, netbooks or tablet-PCs. Based on research on self-regulated learning (SRL) processes we developed the already existing tools one step further: instead of only providing questions we designed Auditorium Mobile Classroom Service (AMCS) â?? a program which offers several possibilities to interact during a lecture. AMCS supports students to regulate their own learning process during the lecture. Learning questions are one core element to support them. On the basis of the results of the learning questions specific advices and hints are sent to the studentsâ?? smartphones or notebooks. The features increase the interactivity between the content and students and the interaction in the lecture hall. In the present article the program AMCS is described. Furthermore we report first experiences from a field test in a university lecture.

Graphicuss - Temporal Visualisation of Canvas Creation Processes.

The use of graphical models to describe complex topics is very common in teaching, helping students build an adequate model of knowledge presented. Often, students discuss open questions on-line in forums. Backtracking of errors conducted during the creation process is hard. The individual steps of developing a solution – the temporal information – are lost. Graphicuss combines concepts of textual discussion systems and graphical feedback systems. It fosters better discussions and comprehension through access to the temporal information of canvases. Especially self-regulated learning benefits from the addition of temporal information; students’ skill acquisition capabilities are amplified. Yet, an intuitive representation of temporal information is still required. Based on image and video processing, we investigated existing metaphors for temporal information. A series of user studies emphasises the differences of the metaphors in varying use-cases and strongly points at a candidate suitable and feasible for PCs as well as mobile devices.

Multi-level De-anonymisation for Initially Anonymous Discussion Systems in a Self-regulated Learning Environment.

Discussion systems are a valuable asset in attaining self-regulated learning. Beyond the limitations of oncampus classroom settings, they enable internal feedback, peer feedback as well as external feedback. A motivating factor to continued and frequent utilisation of such systems is anonymity. However, anonymity is a double-edged sword. On one side, it provides strong incentives to use discussion systems, on the other side it invites destructive behaviour such as trolling. Furthermore, strong students are discouraged from continued utilisation if they cannot attribute their contribution to themselves. We propose an initially anonymous discussion system, which enables retroactive de-anonymisation on multiple levels, namely with respect to the identity degree as well as the attribution dimension.

Graphicuss - Proposing a Graphical Discussion System.

In this position paper, we present an approach to a graphical discussion tool, namely Graphicuss. It combines known concepts of textual discussion systems (such as forums) and graphical feedback systems (such as virtual interactive whiteboards) into a single canvas-based application. Graphicuss aims at graphics-based or -enhanced discussions within a classroom setting. The goal is to allow all students to participate in such discussions, rather than only a selected few students at a physical blackboard/whiteboard presenting their work as a discussion base. The combination of text and graphics allows for better discussion of concepts through temporal correlation of text and graphics. Thus, Graphicuss applies known text-based discussion features (such as quoting) to the graphical level while adding temporal context. Rather than quoting/forwarding an invariable or only amendable image, Graphicuss enables quoting up until any point in time with changes/amendments thereafter. After presenting the conceptual ideas and a few comments on our prototype, we discuss a some preliminary findings with respect to interface design as well as storage requirements.