Sahana Murthy

Using introductory labs to engage students in experimental design

The Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) engages students in processes mirroring the practice of science. Laboratories play a central role in this learning environment. Students in ISLE laboratories design their own experiments to investigate new phenomena, test hypotheses, and solve realistic problems. We discuss various issues associated with implementing these labs in large enrollment introductory physics courses. We present examples of experiments that students design, include a sample of student work, and discuss issues related to the choice of experiments for design and practical implementation. We also review assessment techniques and show results of students’ acquisition and transfer of some laboratory-related abilities.

Effect of think-pair-share in a large CS1 class: 83% sustained engagement

Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is a classroom-based active learning strategy, in which students work on a problem posed by the instructor, first individually, then in pairs, and finally as a class-wide discussion. TPS has been recommended for its benefits of allowing students to express their reasoning, reflect on their thinking, and obtain immediate feedback on their understanding. While TPS is intended to promote student engagement, there is a need for research based evidence on the nature of this engagement. In this study, we investigate the quantity and quality of student engagement in a large CS1 class during the implementation of TPS activities. We did classroom observations of students over a period of ten weeks and thirteen TPS activities. We determined patterns of student engagement in the three phases using a real-time classroom observation protocol that we developed and validated. We found that 83% of students on average were fully or mostly engaged. Predominant behaviors displayed were writing the solution to the problem (Think), discussing with neighbor or writing (Pair), and following class discussion (Share). We triangulated results with survey data of student perceptions. We find that students report being highly engaged for 62% during Think phase and 70% during Pair phase.

Think-pair-share in a large CS1 class: does learning really happen?

Think-pair-share (TPS) is a classroom active learning strategy in which students work on activities, first individually, then in pairs and finally as the whole class. TPS allows students to express their reasoning, reflect on their understanding and obtain prompt feedback on their learning. While TPS is recommended to foster classroom engagement and learning, there is a lack of research based evidence in computer science education on the benefits of TPS for learning. In this study, we investigate the learning effectiveness of TPS in a CS1 course. We performed a quasi-experimental study and found that students who learned via TPS performed significantly better on a post-test than students who learned the same concept via lecture. We also conducted a survey and focus group interviews to understand student perceptions of learning with TPS. The majority of students agreed that TPS activities helped improve their conceptual understanding. From an instructors point of view, TPS was useful to address the challenges of a large class, such as students tuning out or getting distracted and was easy to implement even in a large class.

Using system dynamics to model and analyze a distance education program

Significant investments are being made into distance education programs around the world. Yet there is no clear understanding of the effectiveness of such programs, or what makes a distance education program successful. This is in part because the analysis of a distance education program involves studying the behaviour of a complex interactive system. It is therefore worthwhile identifying a suitable tool for a theoretical study of such systems. One such tool is system dynamics modeling, a powerful approach to understand the behaviour of a complex system over time. In this paper, we present a system dynamics simulation model of a distance education program at a leading engineering institute in India. We describe how the model is constructed from the individual components of the program and how a system dynamics approach is used to analyze the program. The results of the simulations helped us plan future investments of the distance education program.

Development of Scientific Abilities in a Large Class

This paper describes our instructional and research efforts to help students in a large‐enrollment (450 students) introductory laboratory course develop abilities used by practicing scientists. We focus on the ability to design an experimental investigation. We provide sample tasks, scoring rubrics and evidence of student improvement.

Clicking away the distance from education

While distance education is becoming increasingly popular, it suffers from the problem of a lack of real-time interactivity between the instructor and the students, as well as an absence of peer interaction between students. A technique used in face-to-face classrooms to improve student-teacher interaction and promote peer discussion among students is the use of clickers, or student response systems. In this paper we describe the adaptation of clickers in distance education for a multiple classroom environment. We discuss the design and development of a distributed architecture for the implementation of a student response system for multiple remote classrooms. We report on a pilot implementation and discuss problems faced and solutions implemented.

Design labs: Students’ expectations and reality

In a study reported in PERC 2004 the authors described how introductory physics labs in which students design their own experiments help them develop scientific abilities. These include the ability to design an experiment to solve a problem, to collect and analyze data and to communicate the details of the experimental procedure. The goal of the present study is to investigate the social aspect of student learning in these labs: whether students’ expectations are consistent with the goals of the labs, whether student assessment of their learning in the labs matches the goals, and whether students perceive the labs as helpful in learning useful skills.

Effect of active learning using program visualization in technology-constrained college classrooms

Multiple studies report that Computer Science (CS) instructors face problems on how to integrate visualizations in their teaching. This problem gets compounded for instructors in technology-constrained classrooms that are common in developing countries. In these classrooms, students are not able to interact with visualization directly; instead, their interaction is mediated by the instructor who alone may have access to the visualization. In the current study, we contrasted learning outcome from integrating program visualization at two different engagement levels in instructor-mediated classroom setting. The two levels were “Responding” (prediction activity with visualization) and “Viewing” (watching visualization with instructor commentary) as per Naps’ taxonomy. The study was conducted for a programming topic of medium complexity. We found the strategy of prediction with visualization (“Responding”) led to statistically significant higher active behavioral engagement and higher perception of learning among students than the strategy of watching the visualization with instructor commentary (“Viewing”). We also found statistically significant higher cognitive achievement in terms of the rate of problem solving for the “Responding” group, if the students had prior training in active learning. This study can serve as a reference guide to design effective integration of visualizations in instructor-mediated classrooms.

Identifying Learning Object Pedagogical Features to Decide Instructional Setting

Despite the abundant availability of Learning Objects as valuable teaching-learning tools, their use amongst teachers and college instructors is limited. An important reason for this is that instructors are not easily able to search and retrieve the LOs which map to their instructional goals. LO metadata only partially addresses this problem since existing metadata does not contain all the necessary pedagogy related information. In this paper we identify the pedagogical features of an LO, and use them to classify an LO for the appropriate instructional setting. We also test our classification scheme of LOs in electrical engineering domain available in the OSCAR LO repository. Lastly we suggest metadata tags based on these pedagogical features that LO repositories can use for search and retrieval of LOs for specific educational goals.

Model for Rapid, Large-Scale Development of Learning Objects in Multiple Domains

Over the past few years, learning object (LO) repositories have become valuable educational resources in a variety of instructional settings. However, there is a lack of detailed documentation about the actual process to be adopted under different conditions to create such a repository. The commonly established process adopts a synchronous model in which there is continuous face-to-face communication between the various members of the team - the subject matter experts, the instructional designers, the code developers and the reviewers. The synchronous process has resulted in the production of good quality LOs but in restricted domains and in small numbers. This model is not suitable to scale the LO production process up along numbers and across multiple domains without compromising on quality. In this paper we propose an asynchronous model for rapid, large-scale development of LOs in multiple science and engineering domains at the tertiary level of education. We document the problems encountered in adopting a synchronous model of LO production, present a comparative analysis of different asynchronous models, and detail out the methodology for the successful asynchronous model that we adopted.