Session W1J
Work in Progress - Tablet PCs in Interactive Undergraduate Mathematics Carla Romney Boston University, Metropolitan College, Science and Engineering Program, Boston, MA 02215 Boston University School of Medicine, Division of Graduate Medical Sciences, Boston, MA 02118
[email protected] Abstract - Students who struggle to learn mathematics often do not engage in problem-solving during class and feel that learning mathematics is a solitary undertaking. We now use Tablet PCs in a networked undergraduate classroom configuration that allows students to view and annotate the instructor’s Powerpoint slides in real time and also participate in interactive problem-solving. Students save their own annotated slides for subsequent review. Using a standard course management system, the instructor posts a synchronized and searchable file that contains an audio recording of the class (student and instructor comments) as well as the instructor’s annotated slides. Twenty students participated in the pilot class, College Algebra and Trigonometry. Student attendance, retention and performance were better in the Tablet PC enriched course than in the previous three years. The evaluation of the instructor was unchanged. Index Terms – Mathematics Instruction, Tablet PC, Undergraduate Education SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL FEASIBILITY OF THE PROJECT
Students often struggle to learn undergraduate mathematics because they are required to process information effectively from lectures so that they can solve new problems using the content that they have learned. In typical mathematics classes, students copy information from the board or from a professor’s slides into a notebook rather than processing the information in a way that will lead to retention and deeper learning. While students in the humanities and social sciences often take notes directly on a laptop, this is difficult for most mathematics courses due to the highly symbolic content of the lecture. It is very time-consuming and cumbersome to format equations in Microsoft Word’s Equation Editor or in LaTeX and most students do not use these programs during lectures. Thus, students in most introductory mathematics courses still write notes by hand. When students have difficulty in a mathematics class, they often opt to drop or withdraw from the class rather than risk a low grade. These students often abandon their plans to enter quantitative disciplines such as the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Since there is a tremendous national need to produce a mathematically literate populace, we seek to retain students who evince interest in fields that
depend on mathematical understanding and problem-solving skills. Students in conventional “chalk talk” or Powerpoint slide-based mathematics classes do not engage in significant problem-solving during class because they are primarily concerned with recording in written form the comments made by the instructor as well as the content on the instructor’s slides or board work. Liberating students from their role as scribes allows students to focus on understanding the material presented in class [1]. A second limitation of conventional models of mathematics instruction stems from the difficulty in integrating student work into the lecture format. When an instructor incorporates problem-solving exercises for students to work on during class, most students write in their own notebooks and then the instructor presents the solution or guides students to discover it. Some instructors look at their students’ work, but this is not typical in introductory classes because they are often too large for this approach to be feasible. In order to address these concerns and enhance student learning, Tablet PCs seemed to be an ideal solution since they permit students to use a stylus to write on the screen rather than relying on keyboarding as the primary means of data entry. Using Tablet PCs in mathematics classes, students can handwrite their notes in an electronic form. Similarly, the instructor can distribute Powerpoint slides and students can use the Tablet PC to take notes directly on the slides. This reduces the need for students to focus on simply recording information. Tablet PC technology can also facilitate interactive problem-solving and peer critiquing during lecture [1]. With networked Tablet PCs, students can transmit their work on problems to the instructor for display as part of class discussion. Students engage in peer-critiquing and learn from the mistakes and correct approaches used by their classmates. An interactive Tablet PC classroom seemed likely to provide a novel means to minimize the difficulties faced by mathematics students, so we sought to determine whether using a problem-solving approach with these laptops would improve student engagement, performance, and retention.
978-1-4244-4714-5/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2009, San Antonio, TX 39th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference W1J-1
Session W1J PRELIMINARY RESULTS Twenty students enrolled in the Tablet PC based College Algebra and Trigonometry course in Fall 2008. The Tablet PC classroom was constructed with both Ethernet and wireless networking capabilities and ran Classroom Presenter 3.0, a software package produced and freely distributed by the University of Washington (http://classroompresenter.cs.washington.edu/), to permit real time bi-directional data transfer. Students obtained the instructor’s Powerpoint slides at the beginning of class through a broadcast to all computers [2]. Students saved the Powerpoint slides to their own Flash drives and took notes by writing directly on the slides. Students were also given problems to solve during class and they submitted their responses anonymously to the instructor. The instructor saw all solutions and selected representative correct or incorrect responses to facilitate discussion and highlight important issues. Camtasia Studio 5.0 was used to produce videos of the lectures that consisted of the instructor’s annotated slides, all student work viewed in class, and completely synchronized audio that captured both the instructor and student comments. All lectures were converted to Adobe Shockwave/MP4 files and they were posted on the CourseInfo site immediately after class. Students accessed the class recording as often as needed to review the material. Preliminary results indicate that this intervention has been beneficial. Student attendance was better (99% in 2008 vs. 96% in three prior years, retention was better (100% in 2008 vs. 93% in three prior years), and student performance was better (0 withdrawals and 1 C- in 2008 vs. 5 withdrawals, 5 D, and 3 C- grades out of 56 students in 2005, 2006, and 2007). The evaluation of the course was unchanged (score of 4.81 out of 5 in 2008, vs. score of 4.83 out of 5 in three prior years). The utilization of the CourseInfo site was much higher, with 4884 hits in 2008 and 3117, 1096, and 2708 hits in the three prior years. We intend to track these students throughout their undergraduate years to look for long term changes in retention (especially in science and engineering) and academic performance.
measure of student engagement. The course evaluations that were completed by students on the last day of class were also assessed to determine whether the introduction of this technology affected students’ perception of faculty. IMPORTANCE TO THE EDUCATION COMMUNITY This technology may be extremely beneficial in fields in which graphics impede notetaking and/or facilitated discussion of student problem-solving strategies is important. For example, non-Roman alphabet courses (e.g., Arabic, Hindi, and Chinese), fine arts courses in which features of images are important, science and engineering courses that are mathematics-based, and even medical school courses such as physiology, histology, and anatomy may benefit from the use of Tablet PCs. This technology can be used not only in face-to-face instruction but also in online and distance education, growing segments of the higher education marketplace. PROJECT STATUS This project is now in its second semester and another instructor is teaching Calculus I to the students who took College Algebra and Trigonometry in Fall 2008. He has complemented the problem-solving emphasis with Mathematica simulations to enhance understanding through interactive visualization. Tablet PC-based Calculus II is scheduled to be taught in Summer 2009. This project has also spawned similar initiatives at Boston University School of Medicine. For example, in Seminar in Clinical Research, the instructor uses a single Tablet PC and the students use this computer when they make their presentations of research papers. The classes are recorded from Powerpoint using Camtasia Studio 6.0 and the MP4 files are posted to the CourseInfo site to allow students to review the class material. While the experience to date supports the value of a networked classroom, students may also benefit when an instructor uses a stand-alone Tablet PC for teaching.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES AND EVALUATION PLAN
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Tablet PC mathematics classroom at Boston University was used for one mathematics class in Fall 2008. A pre-test about student attitudes towards math and prior computer use was administered during the first class. A post-test with the same questions was administered during the last class. Student and instructor performance were evaluated and compared to data collected from three prior years. While the textbook edition changed from 2007 to 2008, the revisions to the text were minor and the content covered was identical. Unbeknownst to students, the two in-class exams and the final exam had been previously administered to prior classes taught by the same instructor using a conventional “chalk talk” presentation style in 2005, 2006, and 2007. CourseInfo site utilization was tracked as a
Tablet PCs were provided by a grant from Hewlett Packard’s Technology for Teaching program in 2007. A 2008 Boston University Provost’s Grant for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarship permitted students and faculty to collaborate on the development of the course materials. REFERENCES [1] Huettel,L,G, et al. “Using Tablet PCs to Enhance Engineering and Computer Science Education”,The Impact of Tablet PCs and Pen-based Technology on Education: Beyond the Tipping Point, [Prey, J, C, et al., eds.] Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, IN, 2007, 59-66. [2] Anderson,R, et al. “Use of Classroom Presenter in Engineering Courses”, Proceedings of the 35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2005.
978-1-4244-4714-5/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2009, San Antonio, TX 39th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference W1J-2
