Development of an Integrated Local/Distant Mathematics Instruction

Program:A Progress Report

Paul EakinDepartment of MathematicsUniversity of Kentuckypaul@ms.uky.edu

The work described here is a collaboration among:

Dan Chaney Paul Eakin Carl Eberhart K.K. Kubota Mike McKenna

Mary Bond Jody Fast Laura Spencer

The developers freely share the software, texts, instructional materials, methodologies, etc. produced in this project for non-commercial educational or instructional use.

Development Strategy: Develop on-campus versions of courses

which employ the distance learning tools and techniques intended for distance learning

Unify DL and on-campus instructional development

Advantages:

Permits DL development with “safety net”

Provides conventional course as reference frame for comparison

Spreads development cost over both local and distant instruction programs.

Program Philosophy as Aphorism:

If we can’t make it work

locally we have no hope

of making it work at a distance

Implementation Strategy:

Take a large enrollment course and develop “on-campus” distance learning version

Add/modify technology incrementally Compare results, costs to concurrent

conventional course and make certain two experiences are fully equivalent

Don’t offer off-campus until on-campus issues arising on-campus are fully resolved

Development Platform:Ma123

3 semester hour intro calculus course General studies course Approx 1200 students per semester in

sections of about 35 first-day enrollment Course generally not considered a success

– poor success rate (over 30% dropout or fail)– poorly prepared students– low student/faculty satisfaction

Ma123: Fall 1999

23 “traditional sections” of about 30– taught by TA’s, PTI’s, and Faculty

7 experimental sections of about 30– taught by 2 faculty and 2 TA’s

Instructors were volunteers, students were not.

Fall 1999 Format: Traditional

Commercial hardbound text ($70) Undergraduates employed as homework

graders ($350 per section) 3 (uniform) midterm examinations plus

final Class meets three hours per week of

formal lecture by instructor

Fall 1999 Format: Development

“Free” text (html, softbound copy from bookstore ($6) )

web-based homework system formal lectures on Internet and CD 3 (uniform) midterm examinations plus

final class time (3 hrs per week) used for

recitation, collaborative work, ad hoc lectures at instructor’s instruction

Current Results in Ma123: Quite comparable to “traditional”

Grades Student Satisfaction Drop-out rate about 10% higher Success with non drop outs higher

Results (continued)

weaker students have lot of trouble with video-based lectures (compliance)

Strong correlation scores/attendance/compliance

High level of acceptance, success among compliant students

Problems/issues/conclusions: Very few problems with web-based homework, providing for video

– lab setup (viewers, sound)

– off-campus bandwidth

– length students forgetting/confusing passwords

“Too much data”

Effort: Preparation of materials takes about four times the

effort as simply teaching the traditional on-campus class

Takes significantly less work to conduct individual section

Ma123 Close to “break even” on net instructional effort this semester with seven sections – plus staff time and capital costs

Linear Algebra definitely at break-even on net instructional time with four sections

Description:

Student View Faculty User View Materials Development Process

Primary Student Interface: Instructor’s Web Page

syllabus links to html text links to chat system and FAQ systems links to “WQS” system for course

materials (e.g. homework, review materials, video lectures, etc)

Student Interface: Instructor’s Web Page (part 1)

System tutorial

Course syllabus

Visual class rolls

Exam schedule

Class Roll:

Instructor’s Web Page (part 2)

Link to wqs system server

Student emailsfrom homework systemwith responses

Links to lecturenotes for videolectures

Responses to Student Questions:

Page referencesparticular assignment

Student query

Instructorresponse

Instructor Web Page (part 3)

Link to onlinetext

Link to wqssystem

Links to lectureslides for videolectures by chapter

WQS System: current login screen

Students selectvideo lecturesmenuor their class homeworkmenu

Group logins andwork are encouraged

Typical Section Menu

Chapter 1 homework

Review for test II

Homework Page: Current Format

Problem and answers

Systemresponse

Email window

Student answer

System answer

Most students print the problem sets out and record their solutions or solutions from class

directly on the printouts

Video Lectures Menu

Lecture Slides (html)

Video of lecturesegment (10-30 min)

How students view the videos

Other Materials: Test Review with video solutions

Problemstatementwithdiagram

Link to videosolution

Data Logs

Every student action is logged with time stamp

All activity credited to each member on group login

Total number of answers submitted (right or wrong) correlates very well with performance on tests

Log Data

WQS Video

Materials prepared by faculty lectures by faculty and graduate students tapes converted to ASF and edited by

grad students and staff separate video and homework (original

system) text/homework/video merged in next

edition

Graduate Student Editing Video Files

WQS and Video Lecture Materials Preparation

Materials developed by faculty using a variety of standard tools (e.g. Maple, LaTeX, Perl).

Individual item described by a file called “data” in directory specific to item. It describes how construct the item.

locations placed in control file called wqs-dirs which is known to server and describes the section menu page

Faculty Preparing Materials

coffeefood

CD burner andblanks

WQS CDs

Natural corollary of HTML format– easily made at faculty desk, cheap

Originated through necessity Strongly favored by upper-level students

who tend to live off-campus Not used much by lower level students

who tend to live on campus

Maple Source: Homework Problem

Question Tag:( Q_ )

“SKIP”Tags

Answer Tags:( A_ )

Correct Answer Tag

To create and “post” a simple wqs homework set:

Source document is exported to html from Maple menu

exported html document is processed by a Perl script to:– create a “data” file which describes the

final document to the server– place an entry in a control file which

describes the menu

The “data” file which describes the final document

These correspond to tags in source document

These correspond to segments ofhtml in exporteddocument which were delimited bythe tags

Sharing Materials: Paul’s control file

Paul madehomework setnumber 7

Ken madehomework setnumber 8

Laura’s Ma123 Control File and class menu

Other Experiment: Linear algebra Same system Use standard text (Strang) 4 of 6 sections (one at community college

200 miles away)– Instructor there helped make videos in

summer

Works very well– excellent compliance– to date results better than traditional

Control File for Joe Mahoney’s Paducah, KY Section of Ma322

Carl Eberhart created the homework for the Ma322 sections

Joe Mahoney and Avinash Sathaye did Videos for MA322

Sharing: Instructor A can use instructor B’s entire

menu simply by copying B’s control file (with permission)

Instructor A can use any item in instructor B’s menu simply by copying the corresponding entry from B’s control file (with permission)

In either case student email from A’s students will be routed to A and activity logged for A

Planned changes for Spring 2000 Re-written, expanded text as multimedia

document including homework, videos, reviews, etc. (unified format)

Continuous reporting of log data to students,

Full sets of CDs available to students in advance

Unified Format:

LaTeX mathformatting

Video link

Web homework is part of text in unified format

Unified Format

Puts all services (text, video lecture, homework, reviews, etc.) on one page

Moves “login” to end of process: gets students immediately to the subject matter

Nicer text through use of LaTeX Shorter video segments Development more complex

http://www.ms.uky.edu/wqs

Paul Eakin

Department of Mathematics

University of Kentucky

Lexington, KY 40606

paul@ms.uky.edu

Pictures/slides

Copies/scanned of a set of student wqs homework

page from book