The SCALE Efficiency Projects

Lanny Arvan l-arvan@uiuc.edu

Associate Director, SCALE http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/

Very Brief History

Finished 3rd year of Original Grant Last year SCALE supported about 80 ALN

courses with 8500 students per semester– ALN courses across the board

First year experience, capstone, in the middle large class, small class science, engineering, humanities, social science

9 Efficiencies Projects (targeted)

Efficiency Projects by Categories

Productivity Increase/Grading of Homework

All Automated Grading Some HumanGrading

Grad Assistants BIO 122, (Cyb), Deanna RaineriCHEM 101, 102, 107, 108 (Cyb),Steven Zumdahl, Chris JonesECON 102 (Mal), Larry DeBrock

SPAN 210 (Mal),Anna Maria Escobar,Diane Musumeci

Faculty ECE 110 (Mal), Tim TrickSTAT 100 (Mal), John MardenCHEM 331(WCT), Pat Shapley

ECON 300 (Mal),Lanny Arvan, Pin NgMATH 285 (C&M),Jerry Uhl

Lessons About Online Quizzes Students generally positive. They like

– Repetition till they get it right (Mistakes ok) Random questions or random numbers

– Enforced deadlines - Server based. CDs can’t do this

Some things students don’t like– Slow response time to submissions– Hints that are vague or inappropriate– Help from online TAs (with FC conferencing)

They expect the programs to be self-contained.

Other Sources of Productivity - Econ 300 Traditional section 60 students, GA grader

– Not much interaction out of class– Homework not taken seriously

ALN sections (180 & 60 students)– Undergraduate peer tutors

Many office hours - online and F2F Undergrads act as graders - “problem specialists”

– Students organized in teams– Problem set solutions become the threads

Other Sources of Productivity Increase - SPAN 210 Fall 97

– 2 ALN sections (40 students) Met once a week “Diary posts” in FirstClass where other students

made responses. Instructors acknowledged quality of posts but did not make written responses

– Other sections traditional (20 students) Met three times a week

Spring 98 - All ALN

Other Sources of ProductivityBIO 122 Virtual Labs

– Animations to simulate actual labs– CyberProf quizzes– Fewer wet labs for GAs to supervise

Less grading of lab notebooks Savings on lab materials

– Much of the productivity increase captured by the GAs

Other Sources of Productivity - Differential Equations (C&M) NetMath - Distance Learning via phone, e-mail,

Timbuktu and peer mentors Apply NetMath approach to “subset” of on-

campus C&M students– Totally self-paced course– Instructor time limited to writing and evaluating

exams– Popular with some engineering students who carry

high loads.

Amortizing Development Costs Case Study - ECON 300

– Development costs measured via SCALE grant Course release, summer support, student programmers

– Savings in operating costs via larger section size?– Q: How many semesters till cost recovery?– A: Depends on: (1) Allocation of faculty cost (2)

Compensation for larger section? (3) Discount factor

Objective Performance Comparisons Very difficult to do controlled experiments

– Lock-in to the teaching approach– Ethical Issues

Campus Policy - if two alternative approaches are used students must be able to self-select

Faculty don’t want to be shown up

– Cross sections preferable to time series Changing the teaching approach may change

what is sensible to be tested

Evidence We Have

Span 210 (First semester implementation)– 2 midterms and a final (no significant difference)

Span 210 (Second Semester - All ALN)– Comparable Final - significantly better than the fall

Stat 100 (Mature ALN)– common questions on 1 midterm - ALN beat non-

ALN

More Evidence

ECON 300– Common exam questions on two midterms and

a final.– No significant difference between Ng’s (new to

ALN) section and Arvan’s (designer of ALN approach section

Where Are We Headed?

More SCALE Efficiency Projects– Spanish Project– Curricular Embrace in MicroBiology– Remedial Physics for students with week

preparation Articulating a vision of change that is not too

threatening.– GA employment reduced (finance new hires in IT

support?), Faculty employment intact