UTILIZING THE TABLET PC TO ENHANCE GROUP WORK IN A LEARNING COMMUNITY Christelle Scharff Jonathan Hill
[email protected] [email protected] Pace University Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems New York, NY 10038
Eugene Richie
[email protected] Pace University Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, English Department New York, NY 10038
1. ABSTRACT This analysis focuses on an experiment in which Tablet PCs were introduced as both a central feature of the pedagogy and as a catalyst for group work in a Learning Community that linked an introduction to computing and a critical writing course for freshmen non-computing majors. In this paper, we explore Learning Communities as models for the dissemination of technology. We discuss the two paired courses in our Learning Community and highlight some of the Tablet PC group settings and activities we developed as possible solutions to the problem of needing better ways to use technology in group settings. We also analyze the lessons learned from our experiments with group work by presenting the results of the gathered data. In addition, we suggest the possible next steps for the project. 2. CONTEXT AND PROBLEM STATEMENT 2.1. Learning Communities A significant pedagogical development in higher education has been the advent of the Learning Community. “In higher education, curricular learning communities are classes that are linked or clustered during an academic term, often around an interdisciplinary theme, and enroll a common cohort of students” [2]. Learning Communities allow the faculty involved to plan their respective curricula (and common assignments) so that students will have planned and supervised opportunities to discover a variety of connections within a single discipline and between disciplines. Introduction to Computing courses have proven to be particularly valuable courses to partner with because of the increasing reliance on computers in every academic discipline. 2.2. Group Work and Peer Review Collaborative models have been widely adopted in higher education [1]. Universities are required to prepare students for the workplace where teamwork skills are in high demand. Common issues related to group work include change of conventional learning style, group work perception, tensions, group assessment, competition, group dynamics, decision making, negotiations, and group organization. Initial work on using Tablet PCs for peer review has been investigated in some computing-education environments [3], but has possibilities for use in the teaching and practice of writing too.
2.3. Problem Statement Our study was inspired by the need to find better ways to engage students with technology, infuse technology into student group work, and produce dynamic interaction between students and their instructors and with each other. Tablet PCs were an intriguing option that had not been well tested in this type of classroom environment. In the remainder of this paper, we describe the Learning Community Film and Computing: Real and Virtual Identities that linked an introductory course in computing and an English course. We present the Learning Community approach as a model that promotes connections between courses and furthers interdisciplinary collaboration and the dissemination of technology. We give examples of group activities the students engaged in, explain our assessment approach, and summarize our findings and the lessons learned. We focus on the assessment of peer review, which provided a particularly meaningful use for Tablet PC’s in this combined course. 3. SOLUTION EMPLOYED 3.1. The Film and Computing Learning Community Introduction to Computing Course: The Computer Information Systems course CIS 101 is a foundation core course required for all undergraduates (around 2000 students a year) who are not matriculated as Computer Science or Information Systems majors. The course is organized around the following topics: spreadsheets using Excel, designing and creating Web pages in HTML and JavaScript, and discussing ethical issues in computing. Critical Writing Course: The Critical Writing English course ENG 120 is also a foundation core course required for all undergraduates. It emphasizes the development of argument and analysis in response to a variety of literary and nonfiction works, and students learn and practice traditional and Internet research techniques as well as the integration of quotes and the use of effective documentation in their own essays. The Film and Computing—Real and Virtual Identities Learning Community: The pairing that is the focus of this paper, Computing and English, coupled an introductory computing course for non-computing majors with an English course. This Learning Community looked at the impact of computers on daily life and explored cultural issues connected with personal identity, virtual personalities, corporate security, hackers, games, and forensics portrayed in TV series, movies, and literature. Students had access to novels and screenplays about computers, and were able to view as well all or part of works such as The Matrix; 2001: A Space Odyssey; The Net; Hackers Minority Report; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; and the TV series CSI. 3.2. Use of the Tablet PC Through our Microsoft Research Tablet PC grant, we were able to provide this Learning Community composed of 21 students with 5 HP 4200 Tablet PCs – one Tablet PC per group of 4-5 students. In the Learning Community environment, the Tablet PCs became the central pedagogical instrument for classroom communication including instructor’s lectures, faculty-tostudent review / feedback, student group work, student-to-student peer review, and students’ presentations. Using the Tablet PC, the Learning Community developed a new model for peer
review of essays that could be extended to other writing courses as well as to approved courses in the University Writing Enhanced Course Program, which encourages writing across the curriculum. This CIS 101 course and instructor are also approved for core Writing Enhanced course credit. The Tablet PCs were used by instructors to lecture using PowerPoint and NetMeeting and to send feedback to the students on Windows Journal lab assignments, essays, and PowerPoint presentations. Students used the Tablet PCs in group settings during 70% of the class time. The group assignments that were jointly graded by the professors of the Learning Community are described below. The group activities included taking and summarizing notes for the group in Windows Journal and sharing them on Blackboard or by email, proposing Web Site designs in Windows Journal, creating and administering a survey on field-trips organized as part of the Learning Community, receiving and giving peer-review on essays, Web site designs and HTML / JavaScript code using annotations and notes, and delivering PowerPoint presentations with NetMeeting. Classroom Group Exercises in Windows Journal: Students worked on two Windows Journal group assignments where they had to research topics of the Learning Community. They were given a Windows Journal document with questions on identity and cyber-crimes, and they had to summarize their answers as a group in the same document. They converted their handwriting into text in a Word document and discussed the result in the blog http://pacetablet.blogspot.com/. These group exercises helped them to exchange perceptions about the topics of the Learning Community. Essay Writing and Peer Review: At Pace University, faculty who teach Writing Enhanced courses are encouraged to provide students with a writing rubric or checklist so that assignment requirements are clear. They also require revised drafts of writing assignments. Students are encouraged to work at improving their writing through submission of first drafts of an assignment. These first drafts are then returned to students with comments and suggestions for improving the final version of the assignment. We used this technique not only in writing, but also with the other assignments given to the students, such as the surveys and Web sites. Students worked on an essay in which they had to choose a use of computers within the movie The Matrix that has an effect on a character’s identity and analyze how that effect on a character relates to a similar experience in their own lives. Students submitted a first draft that was peer reviewed using two types of feedback: annotations handwritten on the essay and notes summarized in a Windows Journal document. Annotations and notes were guided by a set of questions designed around the English professor’s criteria for the essay. Students had different roles in the group: driver (who operates the Tablet PC and records annotations and notes) and navigator (who supports the driver in giving the feedback). The author of the survey took on a navigator role and made comments about the draft, just like any other navigator. There was one driver in each group and the other members were navigators, each with a paper-copy of the essay. The reviews were posted as attached documents in a discussion forum in the class Blackboard to share with students from all other groups after the review session (with the names of the driver and navigators). So, students’ essays were provided with comments and suggestions for revision before they submitted their final drafts to the professors. Web Site Design: This common assignment engaged students in creating a Web site in HTML/JavaScript that examined the ways computers are portrayed in a chosen movie or TV
series, focusing as well on each movie’s depiction of real and virtual identities. Each student in the group had a specific writing assignment. Each group used a Blackboard sub-group area to share the documents they had to produce (with drafts). The Web site designs were drawn in Windows Journal. The Web site design and HTML/JavaScript code were peer reviewed using the same model as used for the essays. Each group was also required to make a group presentation of their Web site to the whole class on the themes of the essays and on the highlights of the Web site design process. Survey Project: Groups of students developed surveys on their perceptions of the field-trips of the Learning Community. They designed three attitudinal surveys on the field visits to the Museum of the Moving Image and Holographic Studios, and on the lecture by a NYPD Officer and computer security expert on the lack of anonymity on the Internet. The surveys were then administered in class to the other students using the Tablet PC. Each group used a Microsoft Word document to gather the answers to the survey as the survey was being administered. This facilitated the summary of the results in an Excel spreadsheet. During the Survey Project, students were also required to make a presentation to the whole class about the results and significance of their survey data. 4. EVALUATION The main goal of our assessment plan was to evaluate the impact of using the Tablet PC in CIS 101 groups in terms of its effect on quality of group work and peer review with just one Tablet PC for a group of 4-5 students. Data measuring student perception, group and individual productivity, work quality, group cohesion and student interest in the adoption of the Tablet PC was gathered through online (Zoomerang) surveys, the blog http://pacetablet.blogspot.com, discussion threads in Blackboard, and analysis of students’ assignments. The class was composed of 21 freshmen (12 Business and 9 Arts and Sciences majors). We determined that 76% of the students had never heard about the Tablet PC prior to the class. We administered an entry survey and a series of online surveys on the general perception of the Tablet PC in the activities of the Learning Community and group work, on peer-review, on the use of Windows Journal for Web design, on ways to improve Windows Journal features, and on the use of the Tablet PC for administering surveys. Only the results of the peer review project are shared here because of lack of space. Survey Results on Peer Review Using the Tablet PC: Of the total students, 62% had already done (paper) peer review in high school; 85% of the students found that it was valuable to get and give Peer Review using the Tablet PC; 100% of the students preferred the annotation feedback directly on their essay (rather than the notes feedback in Windows Journal). Students used different colors (77%) and highlighting (54%) in the annotations. Of the students, 38% preferred paper feedback rather than Tablet PC feedback. The reasons advanced for paper preference were that students are more familiar with it, using paper is more available and reliable, and “with paper, you can flip pages [instead of scrolling].” The reasons for Tablet PC preference were that using Tablet PCs was more enjoyable, permitted users to share work easily by email, organized annotations and notes better, and allowed the use of different colors for different types of comments.
Students’ Feedback on Peer Review Using the Tablet PC: “Using [the Tablet PC] to mark papers had its ups and downs. [It] made marking papers easier, allowing us to change colors, highlighting parts of the essay, and adding comments […]. A con is that it is time consuming and writing it by hand would probably be much faster. I think I learned a lot more about my essay through the annotations, because the annotators would mark directly where I needed improvement. As a group, we definitely helped each other with the essays because we were able to tell the author where the essay was lacking in information or where there was too much” (student1). “I think that using the Tablet PC was a fun and a cool way to edit papers, but […] the experience would be much better if each group would have more than one Tablet PC” (student2). Professors Comments on Peer Review Using the Tablet PC: Our impressions about this experience are in accordance with the feedback that was obtained through the survey and the blog. The key is to find a balance in what the students are asked to do so that the initial enthusiasms of using annotations, for example, is not diluted by having too many tasks that feel too mechanical after a while (as with long lists of notes that might cover the same areas annotations had before). Some repetition is good to give them opportunities for more articulate and detailed feedback. Compared to our experiences with peer review that used only paper or only Word track-changes and comments, we believe that using the Tablet PC created a more lively and exciting learning environment for the students. Like the students, we felt there may be considerable additional benefits with the use of more Tablet PCs per group, which we intend to further investigate. After grading, we noticed that the final drafts of the papers were much improved in focus, development, and editing, and that the Tablet PC peer review was thus remarkably effective in getting the students to revise their essays based on thoughtful responses. 5. FUTURE WORK Based on our preliminary promising results, it is our intention to try to encourage the adoption of our essay peer review model and to further disseminate the use of the Tablet PC in University Learning Community settings by involving English, Business and Science professors. We also intend to collaborate more closely with professors who require revision of writing in their approved courses in the University Writing Enhanced Course Program. We plan to share the complete assessment results, and continue our research on the Tablet PC’s impact and effectiveness for group work in introduction to computing courses and other courses in the Computer Science Curriculum, including courses on programming, software engineering, and database design. 6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work has been undertaken under the auspices of the Microsoft Research Tablet PC Grant Program. We would like to thank Dr. Jane Chu Prey of Microsoft Research, Dean Susan Merritt, Prof. Jimmy Chin, Sokharith Sok and Richard Tsui for their support. 7. REFERENCES [1] Burdett, J. (2003) Making Groups Work: University Students' Perceptions. International Education Journal, 4 (3), 177-191. http://iej.cjb.net. [2] LCC (2004). Learning Community Commons. http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu. [3] Perez-Quinones, M. A. and Turner, S. (2004) Using a Tablet-PC to Provide Peer-Review Comments. Technical Report TR-04-17, Computer Science, Virginia Tech. http://eprints.cs.vt.edu/archive/00000694.
