SLE: Student Learning Environment
Nathan Campbell Lisa Doan
Kirill KireyevMalte Winkler
DLC 2006 Project
Clicker Question!
• What is more important and why?
A. Design
B. Learning
C. Collaboration
D. None of the above
E. All are equally important
Challenges of Large Lectures
• Difficult to gauge students’ understanding and engagement
• Students hesitate to ask questions– Stall large class– Personal embarrassment
• No peer discourse– Lacking useful elaboration– Less engaging– Stern, anti-social atmosphere
Opportunities of Large Lectures
• Large lectures are prevalent and inevitable
• Can we positively exploit:– Large body of knowledge?– Diversity of opinions?– Teaching assistants?– Existing technologies (laptops)?
Clicker Question!
• Are clickers effective?
A. Yes – they help me gauge how much I’m learning
B. No – I get attendance points and don’t care about getting the right answer
C. Other answer
Clickers
• ProsPros:• Inexpensive• Easy to use• Instructor learns
about students’ performance
• Students test their skills
• Peer discussion
Clickers (cont)
Cons:• One-way communication
– Students can’t ask questions– Students can’t give feedback
• No justifications for answers• No means to store questions/answers in context
FEEL (DLC 2004)
FEEL (Cont)
Pros• Students can ask
questions– Anonymously– No interruption
• Students may “support” other’s Q’s
• Students give feedback– e.g. “Lecture Too Fast”
Cons• Distracting
– Overloads instructor
• Limited student discussion
• Not integrated with notes, context
Clicker Question!
Do you remember what some of our design issues were (from our IR Presentation)?
A. Yes, they are… (answer in reasoning box)
B. No. I am lame and forgot all of them.
C. What presentation?
Technology Design Issues
• Balance online vs. face-to-face– How to integrate?
• Structured (WebCT) vs Unstructured (wiki)– Freedom may be messy, overwhelming
• General vs. specific• Mediation?• Support flexibility, evolution
– Users will use in different ways
• Sensitive to context, time
Making Collaboration Successful
• Shared motivations, common goals• Adequate incentives• Positive interdependence• Symmetry of ignorance
– Diversity of opinions, backgrounds
• Flexibility, opportunities for creativity• Establishing team goals, deadlines, roles• Regular synchronous meetings• Social relationship building
Our Design Goals
• Build on previous projects– Student’s inquiries, feedback
• Leverage the TAs time, knowledge
• Students can ask questions– Others give “support” vote
• Raises question’s importance
– Instructor sees “confusion level”
• Incorporate note-taking
Our Design Goals
• Justifications for answers– Carl Wieman does this “by hand”– Students become exposed to opinions, justifications
• Stimulates thinking• Promotes engagement• “Beaten Path”
– Provide submitted justifications during the questions• Catalyses discussion
– Incorporate into grading • extra credit• attendance
Student Learning Environment (SLE)
• Incorporates feedback, clickers
• Uses the ubiquity of computers
• Professor is minimally informed
• Students choose participation level– Can integrate with notes and context
SLE
Notes
Clicker Questions
Random Justifications
Students’
Questions
Current
Questions
What is “L3D”?
Student’s View
Students’ Questions
Answer/ Discuss
Ask Questions
Justifications
Notes
TA’s View
SLE: Instructor’s View
• Try to make Instructor’s UI minimally distracting
“Confusion” Level
Ask Clicker Quesionts
Architecture
• Web Application– Portable– No installation required
• PHP pages
• Dynamic content via Ajax
• XML data persistence
• Authentication
Future Work: End-User Design
• Lecturer– Create animations, interactive demos– Images/charts/pages– Applets, AgentSheets
• TA’s– Gather statistics
• Students– Integrate into email, calendar, chat– Personal profiles/pages
Other Future Work
• More robust Interface
• Integrate with presentation, multimedia
• Better note-taking system
• Timeline reflecting notes, questions
• Chat?
Conclusions• Large lectures are a challenging
environment...– Can’t get rid of them
• Yet many opportunities exist
• Technology may make large lectures more– informative– engaging– collaborative
Clicker Question!What did you think of the SLE?
A. Awesome! B. Brilliant!
C. Flippin’ sweet!
D. How can I be as cool as you guys?
E. OK, but you should add some features…