a scaled-down conference model for courses covering ever … · 2013-01-09 · ice. universidad de...

Computer science graduates are lifelonglearners in a technology-intensive environmentthat evolves rapidly (ACM-AIS, n.d.). Insuch a scenario, although the knowledge

Aula Abierta. ISSN: 0210-2773. Volumen 41. Número 1. Enero-abril 2013Julio Molleda, Rubén Usamentiaga, Juan Carlos Granda y Joaquín Entrialgo

A scaled-down conference model for courses coveringever-changing fields in computer science

undergraduate degree programs

Julio Molleda, Rubén Usamentiaga, Juan Carlos Granda y Joaquín Entrialgo

Universidad de Oviedo (España)

The ability to keep up to date in fast-evolving fields of knowledge is essential for all students, butit is especially important in computer science degree programs. However, few computer sciencecurricula provide courses covering these skills. In this paper, the effectiveness of a scaled-downconference model approach aimed to develop these skills is analyzed. The proposed model wasapplied to a core subject in the third year of the computer engineering undergraduate program ofthe University of Oviedo: Technology of Computers. The model is intended as a platform for theactivities related with creating a survey paper and a poster, and presenting them to a conferenceorganized in the course, while encouraging teamwork, critical thinking, decision making, time ma-nagement and communication skills. The model was applied in three academic years: 2007-2010,with 182 students, who voluntarily enrolled this methodology. The effectiveness of the model fordriving TC activities has been evaluated based on the feedback provided by students and the qua-lity of the papers and posters submitted to the conference. A slight improvement in overall stu-dent performance was noticed, and students assessed the methodology highly and reported thatthe new methodology had helped them to acquire the expected skills. Keywords: Constructivist learning, collaborative learning, teamwork skills, learning managementsystem, online learning.

Un modelo de conferencia reducido para asignaturas de contenido de evolución constante en ti-tulaciones informáticas. La capacidad de mantenerse actualizado en campos de conocimiento derápida evolución es esencial para todos los estudiantes, y más en informática. Sin embargo, en oca-siones esta habilidad pasa desapercibida en los programas que abarcan estos estudios. En este ar-tículo se analiza la eficacia de un modelo de conferencia destinado a desarrollar esta habilidad apli-cado a una asignatura de tercer curso de Ingeniería Técnica en Informática de la Universidad deOviedo, Tecnología de Computadores. El modelo se utiliza como marco de trabajo para desarro-llar un artículo y un poster, así como su presentación en una jornada de conferencia organizadaen la asignatura, mientras se fomenta el trabajo en grupo, el razonamiento crítico, la toma de de-cisiones, la gestión del tiempo y la comunicación. El modelo ha sido aplicado en tres cursos aca-démicos consecutivos, 2007-2010, en el que participaron un total de 182 alumnos inscritos de for-ma voluntaria. La eficacia del modelo ha sido evaluada en base a cuestionarios y a la calidad delos trabajos desarrollados. Se observa mejoría en el rendimiento de los estudiantes, que valoranla experiencia de aprendizaje de forma positiva, indicando que la metodología les ha ayudado aadquirir las competencias perseguidas en la asignatura.Palabras clave: Aprendizaje constructivista, aprendizaje colaborativo, habilidades de trabajo engrupo, sistema de gestión de aprendizaje, aprendizaje en línea.

Aula Abierta 2013, Vol. 41, núm. 1, pp. 85-98ICE. Universidad de Oviedo

ISSN: 0210-2773

Fecha de recepción: 22/11/2011 • Fecha de aceptación: 07/05/2012Correspondencia: Julio Molleda MeréUniversidad de Oviedo. Campus de ViesquesEdificio Departamental Oeste. C. P. 33204, Gijón (España)Correo electrónico: [email protected]

base acquired in the degree program remainsvalid, adaptability is one of the most essentialqualities for graduates (Sutherland & Crow-ther, 2006). Graduates have to be able to com-mand the latest improvements in technologyas soon as they become available. Therefore,skills on how to keep up to date in fast-evol-ving fields of knowledge must be addressed.In computer courses, students must also acqui-re collaborative and communication skills,among others. However, few computer scien-ce curricula provide courses to acquire theseskills.

Computing is not only a branch of theo-retical mathematics. As reported in ACM-IEEE(n.d.), all students of computing should acqui-re some understanding and appreciation of thefunctional components of a computer, theircharacteristics, their performance and theirinteractions. This understanding is based oncomputer architecture and organization, whichis closely related with technology (Hennessy& Patterson, 2011). Students must be provi-ded with knowledge of the technology of eachof the main components of a computer, suchas the processor, buses, memory, and storagesystem. These topics are included in the coreunits of the computer science curricula. Ho-wever, as rapid and revolutionary changes intechnology greatly affect both the designand the exploitation of a computer system, themost important skill to be addressed in a cour-se on computers’ technology is how to acqui-re knowledge about the improvements oftechnology.

A constructivist approach can be used asa means to teach skills on how to keep up todate in fast-evolving fields of knowledge.Constructivism is a learning theory focused onthe role of experience in student education, i.e.it explains the accumulation of human kno-wledge as an active construction of meaningbased on personal experiences (Duit, 1995).This learning theory encourages students towork in groups, which leads to a more effec-tive educational approach (Johnson, Suriya,Yoon, Berrett & Fleur, 2002). Therefore, ac-tive student participation is required. Severalmodels that require active student participa-tion and knowledge building instead of memo-

rization have been developed (Cole, 2009; Si-gala, 2007). Some of them are centered on theability of the student to acquire research andcommunication skills. Online platforms can beused to make it easier to implement construc-tivist approaches (Khalifa & Lam, 2002;Knuth & Cunnigham, 1993).

In this paper a scaled-down conferencemodel is proposed. The conference model isa constructivist approach aimed to teach rese-arch, collaborative and communication skills.In the full-scale conference model, students aregiven the task of planning and organizing aconference, including peer review, the confe-rence program and the presentation schedule.

In Tapper & Gruba (2000) a conferencemodel refined after three academic years ai-med to improve students’ communicationskills in computer science is presented. In thisapproach, students were charged with alltasks of both organizing and running a confe-rence, including peer review, publicity, web de-sign, conference program, and presentationschedule. The success of this work is qualita-tively estimated based on students’ feedback,reported to teachers after the conference.This success relies on the facts that commu-nication takes place for real purposes and realaudiences and peer-reviewed tasks encoura-ge constructive critiques amongst students.

In Borstler & Johansson (1998) the con-ference model is mainly used to improve stu-dents’ research, writing and communicationskills. The methodology used in this approachconsists of organizing the whole course likea real conference, with a call for papers, a sub-mission process, a program committee thatevaluates the submissions, the conference it-self and the proceedings with all accepted con-tributions. This work concludes that studentsneed help to narrow the topic of their work andto structure their presentations. Also the stu-dents had difficulties in presenting the contextof their work and focused on specific techni-cal details.

In the scaled-down conference modelproposed in this work teachers adopt the roleof the committees and the reviewers while stu-dents are asked to work in teams for proposalsfor written papers, posters and oral presenta-

JULIO MOLLEDA, RUBÉN USAMENTIAGA, JUAN CARLOS GRANDA Y JOAQUÍN ENTRIALGO86


A SCALED-DOWN CONFERENCE MODEL

tions. The proposed model is intended to fo-cus on teamwork, critical thinking, decision-making, time management and communica-tion skills while helping students with the dif-ficulties involved in organizing a conference.A web-based Learning Management System(LMS) to provide support for the students todevelop the activities as well as for the teachersto manage these activities is also described.

The scaled-down conference model appro-ach proposed in this paper is also intended toserve as a basis to migrate a technology ofcomputers course from the Spanish educatio-nal system to the European Credit Transfer andAccumulation System (ECTS) in a computerundergraduate program. ECTS is a learner-cen-tered system for credit accumulation widelyused in formal higher education and can be ap-plied to other lifelong learning activities (Eu-ropean Commission, n.d.). Thus, the activitiesin the proposed approach are learner-centered.

In this paper the effectiveness of a scaled-down conference model approach aimed to de-velop skills on how to keep up to date in fast-evolving fields of knowledge is analyzed. Theproposed approach was applied to a core sub-ject in the third year of the computer engine-ering undergraduate program of the Univer-sity of Oviedo, Spain. This subject is Techno-logy of Computers.

Technology of Computers (TC) is a coresubject in the third year of the computer en-gineering undergraduate program of the Uni-versity of Oviedo, Spain. A course in techno-logy of computers is not an end in itself, butlays the foundation for lifelong computing le-arning. In a course of technology of compu-ters, where the core units are mainly descrip-tive, the classic teacher-led lessons methodo-logy can result in a lack of student motivation.Furthermore, this methodology demands a gre-at effort on the part the student to achieve theexpected learning outcomes, and it does noteasily allow active student participation. Mo-ving TC from traditional teacher-centeredinstruction towards student-centered lear-ning, allowing students to construct kno-wledge from their own experiences, impliesdesigning activities that encourage knowled-ge building instead of memorization. The tran-

sition from the Spanish educational system tothe ECTS system provides a framework inwhich the migration of the subject can be ac-complished, setting up the learning activitiesaccording to the ECTS guidelines (Khalifa &Lam, 2002).

TC is a 4.5 ECTS credit subject with asyllabus divided into several blocks, coveringthe technologies involved in the developmentof the main functional components of a com-puter system, as seen in many texts about tech-nology of computers (Morley & Parker, 2010;Mueller, 2011). After a brief introduction tothe history of technology in computing, the firstblock covers the functional units and the tech-nologies related to the brain of a computer: thecentral processing unit. In the second block,the technologies involving the memory systemand the input/output interfaces of a computerare analyzed. The third block covers themain technologies of the storage system of thecomputer. Finally, the fourth block covers thevideo and audio technologies of the hardwa-re devices which make the computer a mul-timedia system. As prerequisite to the techno-logy of computers course students must havecovered most of the contents of the computerscience program, such as computer founda-tions, architecture and organization.

Method

ParticipantsThe students enrolled in TC voluntarily

chose to participate in the conference modelproposed in the course. A total number of 182students participated in the model in thethree academic years of its implantation: 73in 2007-2008; 55 in 2008-2009; and 54 in2009-2010. All of them were third-year stu-dents of the computer engineering undergra-duate program of the University of Oviedo.

Assessment instrumentsThe effectiveness of the conference model

for driving TC activities is evaluated based onthe feedback provided by students and the qua-lity of the papers and posters submitted to the con-ference. Student feedback is obtained through twoanonymous surveys based on a Likert scale. The

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first is carried out by the Vice-Rector for Profes-sors, Centers and Departments of the Universityof Oviedo. This survey consists of 6 items focu-sed on course content, evaluation criteria and pro-cedures. The second survey is carried out by theteachers of TC. This survey consists of 10 itemscovering personal perceptions about the metho-dology followed in the course, the proposed ac-tivities and the collaborative resources of theLMS. The performance of the students is analy-zed based on both the percentage of students pas-sing the subject and the marks obtained in the ac-tivities related with the conference model. In or-der to promote sincerity in the answers providedby the students, they participate voluntarily andanonymously. Prior to filling these questionnai-res, a motivational talk was conducted explainingthe purpose of the activity and its future use inresearch.

DesignThe scaled-down conference model for

driving some TC activities is designed basedon the proposed approach described below. Themodel covers activities related with the skillsthe TC student is expected to acquire. This ma-kes both their acquisition and the engagementin the subject more attractive. These activitiesconstitute 65 % of the final mark of the cour-se. The final exam is replaced by three writ-ten exams distributed over the course. Theseexams make up 35 % of the final mark of thesubject. Table 1 shows the workload of TC atthe University of Oviedo according to theECTS system and the proposed conferencemodel approach.

The scaled-down conference model appro-ach proposed in this paper follows the colla-borative learning methodology. The proposedapproach is divided into three main activitiesdesigned to be developed in collaborativegroups. Collaborative learning provides manyadvantages for the student, such as increasedmotivation, opportunities to develop criticalskills, and the potential for a social atmosphe-re where all students are afforded an oppor-tunity to share, consider, and challenge the ide-as of other students to construct new knowled-ge (Bruffee, 1999).

Secondary goals of the scaled-down con-ference model involve teamwork, criticalthinking, decision-making, time manage-ment, and communication skills. Several co-llaborative activities are designed to be deve-loped online, decreasing the need to coordi-nate schedules to meet with group membersdue to the nature of asynchronous group me-etings (McConell, 2000). The rest of the co-llaborative activities are designed to be deve-loped in the classroom for face-to-face studentcommunication in order to reduce the time ne-eded to make decisions.

At the beginning of the course, studentsare required to form teams and are providedwith a guideline of the activities. Grouping stu-dents to form effective teams is the first taskin the conference model approach. Several me-thodologies can be used to assign students toa team (Sancho-Thomas, Fuentes-Fernández& Fernández-Manjón, 2009). Although, seve-ral frameworks can be used to form groups ba-sed on the teaching methodology, such as that



Table 1. Workload of Technology of Computers course

Learning activity Estimated time

Lectures 1 contact hour/weekSeminars 1 contact hour/weekLaboratory 1 contact hour/weekTutoring 1 contact hour/week

Conference paper and work 3 non-contact hours/weekPractical work 1 non-contact hour/weekSelf-study 1 non-contact hour/week

Examination 5 hours/course


proposed in (Isotani, Inaba, Ikeda & Mizogu-chi, 2009), in the conference model approachproposed for TC the students are free to orga-nize their own teams.

At the end of the course, each team is as-ked to present the results of the collaborativeactivities in the classroom. The scaled-downconference model approach is designed so thateach team is immersed in the activities relatedto presenting a paper to a conference, while theyacquire the above-mentioned skills. Each teamis free to choose the topic of the paper, with thesolely limitation of being included in the sylla-bus of the course. The conference model requi-res each team to develop three main activities.The first one involves writing a survey paperin the native language of the team. The secondone involves creating a poster summarizing thetopic of the survey paper, written in a foreignlanguage. The third task involves presenting thepaper and the poster in a public session of theconference in the native language of the team.Figure 1 shows a schedule representing the ac-tivities for both students and teachers in the pro-posed scaled-down conference model for dri-ving a 16-week course.

Survey paperThe first main activity of the proposed sca-

led-down conference model approach invol-

ves collaborative writing of a survey paper.Once a team has been formed, a group crea-tivity technique, such as brainstorming, is usedin the presence of the teacher to find the mostexciting topic for all the members of the group.After the topic is chosen the team is requiredto send its purpose for the survey paper to theteachers of the course, who act as the organi-zing committee of the conference. If any po-tentially problematic issues are detected, theteam is required to refocus its work.

Once the purpose is accepted, the team isrequested to start writing a survey paper co-vering the topic chosen. The paper is requiredto summarize material gathered from many in-formation sources, such as books, Internet, andother papers, and it must be pitched somewhe-re between a personal essay and an encyclo-pedia article. Since writing a survey paper isa difficult task, each team is required to passseveral milestones during the course, whichlead to the final version of the paper.

The main goal of this activity is to givethe students skills on how to keep up to datein fast-evolving fields of knowledge, but thisactivity also encourages the acquisition ofother skills. The way a team works, with nosupervisor but the teacher, allows a leader toappear to drive the team in the accomplis-hment of the assignment. Therefore, leaders-

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Figure 1. Activities in the scaled-down conference model approach in a 16-week course

hip skills are also acquired. Collaborativelywriting a survey paper encourages criticalthinking and decision making to determinethe significance of whatever information theteam reviews. Furthermore, as the milesto-nes of the activity are scheduled from the be-ginning of the course, time management isa skill also acquired to achieve group effec-tiveness.

PosterThe second main activity in the proposed

scaled-down conference model is to developa poster which graphically summarizes the sur-vey paper written in the first activity. This ac-tivity can be overlapped in time with the pre-vious one. Although its development can bestarted at the beginning of the course, studentsshould not be required to do it until the mainbody of the paper has been reviewed by the te-achers.

This activity is intended for students to ac-quire critical thinking and decision makingskills, striving to link existing ideas in the to-pic related with the survey to express them inas comprehensible a form as possible. The pos-ter must be written in a language foreign forthe team. Thus, foreign language skills are alsotrained during this activity. The developmentof the poster is divided into several scheduledmilestones; thus, time management is anotherskill developed in this activity.

Oral presentationOnce the survey paper and the poster have

been developed, in the third main activity ofthe proposed approach, each team is requiredto prepare an oral presentation of their workin their native language. A public session isscheduled for each team to present their sur-vey to both the students and the teachers of thesubject. After the oral presentation, there is aperiod for questioning the team about the workpresented. In this activity, skills in oral com-munication are involved. This activity also en-courages self-esteem; many students feel un-comfortable in public speaking, to such a pointthat a very good project presented by a teamlacking confidence may be perceived as beingof inferior quality.

Intervention programStudents are instructed on relevant com-

munication skills, such as good manners in spe-aking, tone of voice, eye contact, gesture, bodylanguage and facial expression. These skillswere conducted in the tutoring hours at the be-ginning of the course. Students were asked tomake a short presentation of a concept of theirchoice, and the teachers comment on theirstrengths and weaknesses, encouraging wor-king on the latter.

Once the teams are formed, each team isprovided with some coaching strategies in thetutoring hours at the beginning of the course.These strategies include define milestones, pre-pare a good plan, associate the plan with in-dividuals, and use appropriate communicationmodes. Teachers comment on well-knownexamples of coaching experiences, and ask stu-dents to propose alternatives to some teamworkscenarios.

After that, teachers provide in the tutoringhours basic strategies to look for information.Since technological information is rapidly avai-lable through the web, these strategies aremainly focused on the Internet. In addition, stu-dents are instructed in how to check the vali-dity of such information, one of the weaknes-ses of the Internet. Furthermore, the analysisof citations and references is also covered inthese tutoring hours.

Once the team finished the survey paperand the poster, teachers provide guidelines onfielding questions, both listening to and addres-sing questions, in the tutoring hours. Criticallistening, which is essential to avoid misun-derstandings and mistakes, is an essential skillin which most students have received no pre-vious training.

Computer support for collaborative learningactivities in the scaled-down conference model

Student engagement in subjects based onteacher-led lessons has declined in recent ye-ars, as education undergoes a paradigm shiftmoving away from teaching-as-instruction to-wards student-centered learning (Jonassen,1993). In this shifting process, Web 2.0 tech-nologies, also known as social software tech-nologies, are very useful. Social software in-




cludes web applications such as blogs, wikis,social bookmarking, and discussion forums.With social software, users become producersrather than merely consumers of information.They are able to annotate and edit existing ma-terial to create new content as well as to useit in partnership with others (Cole, 2009). So-cial software makes information sharing andstraightforward collaboration possible (Bou-los, Maramba & Wheeler, 2006). In additionit is suitable for developing student-centeredand cooperative learning environments.

Using computers to support the collabo-rative tasks of the scaled-down conference mo-del described above can greatly reduce the timerequired in the activities for both the teachersin charge of the course and for the students en-rolled in it. In order to provide support for thestudents to develop their assignments, a web-based LMS can be adopted to foster online co-llaboration (Tan, Lin, Yang & Zhao, 2008). Inthe LMS, two social software systems can beused to support the collaborative activities ofeach team: a discussion forum and a wiki. The-se resources are extremely easy to use for com-puter undergraduate students. They should beused to encourage each member of the teamto coordinate different points of view, enhan-cing reasoning and higher order thinkingskills, which in turn promote shared knowled-ge construction (MacKnight, 2000). Further-more, these asynchronous discussion resour-ces facilitate student interaction (Pena-Shaff& Nicholls, 2004).

The discussion forum is intended to pro-vide a fast and easy communication and dis-cussion channel between all the members ofthe team as well as with the teacher. The writ-ten contributions in the discussion forummake the process of collaboration more trans-parent for the teacher and can be used to jud-ge both the group’s collaborative processand the contribution of the individual (Mac-donald, 2003). The discussion forum shouldbe a private resource available only to themembers of the team and the teachers of thecourse.

A wiki is a website that allows one or morepeople to build up a corpus of knowledgewhich can provide several pedagogical bene-

fits, such as evolutionary knowledge building,critical questioning and the ability to judge thework of others. Content is generated by im-proving or extending the contributions provi-ded by individuals as a collaborative collec-tion of interlinked web pages (Sigala, 2007),leading to incremental knowledge creation.The wiki resource in the LMS is intended toprovide an easy way to collaborate in the tasksof the team, such as the production of the sur-vey paper. The wiki is also intended for the te-acher to provide feedback on student genera-ted content. The wiki of each team should bea public resource in the LMS writable only bythe owner team.

These resources were allocated in the vir-tual campus of the University of Oviedo, sin-ce the students are used to use this campus forthe rest of the subjects of the undergraduateprogram. Furthermore, this platform guaran-tees an access control where the students areidentified, so teachers can track the participa-tion of each team and each member of theteam. While presenting the requirements of themodel, teachers encouraged students to makeuse of these resources. However, no additio-nal motivation is required since computer en-gineering undergraduate students tend to useonline platforms very frequently.

Procedure and validationIn this section the teaching experience appl-

ying the proposed scaled-down conference mo-del described in Section 2.2 for driving theTechnology of Computers course described inSection 1 is presented. The proposed approachis evaluated after three academic years (2007-2010) of teaching TC following the proposedapproach. In previous academic years (2005-2007), teachers had noted an increase in thedrop-out rate, coinciding with a drop in the ave-rage marks. The methodology used in 2005-2007 followed the traditional teacher-led les-sons with a compulsory final exam and someinformal group activities to try to develop te-amwork skills. In 2007-2008, teachers adop-ted the scaled-down conference model appro-ach described above for driving TC activities.

In the academic years in which the pro-posed approach was applied, a pretest was

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conducted prior to starting the activities re-lated with the conference model. The aim ofthis pretest was two-fold. First, to evaluatethe computer skills of each student relatedwith the resources available in the LMSsystem selected for the course: Moodle (Mo-odle, n.d.). Second, to evaluate factors suchas learning motivation and attitude towardslearning. In these three academic years the re-sults of these pretests show no considerablevariations. Thus, in this teaching experiencea similar level of computer skills and attitu-des towards learning of all the students en-rolled in the course are supposed.

At the beginning of the course the studentsare required to organize themselves into teams.In the proposed model they are free to orga-nize their own teams of four people. Studentsare provided with guidelines on how to wri-te an academic paper, how to scan the litera-ture and how to browse the Internet to find va-luable references for the topic to be covered.

At the end of the course all the surveyswritten by the students are published in a fi-nal compilation as the proceedings of the con-ference. The best papers ranked by the teachersof TC are included as valuable readings for thestudents enrolled in the course in subsequentacademic years. The students are informed thattheir papers may be published in these proce-edings at the beginning of the course and thisserves as extra motivation to develop a highquality paper.

Furthermore, at the end of the course pos-ters are voted by all the students and the tea-chers in terms of originality, quality and rele-vance to learning specific concepts in techno-

logy of computers. The best ranked posters areprinted and exhibited in a public area of theUniversity, where they can be viewed by allthe members of the undergraduate community.Knowing that their poster may be exhibitedacts as extra motivation for each team to de-velop a high quality product.

Results

Although it is not realistic to determine atendency, the proposed approach seems toachieve good results in terms of reducing thedrop-out rate. Figure 2 shows the drop-out rateof students enrolled in TC in the academic ye-ars 2005-2010. In the first two academic ye-ars the ratio is based on the number of studentsattending the final exam. In the last three aca-demic years, since there is no compulsory fi-nal exam due to the application of the propo-sed conference model approach, the ratio is cal-culated based on the number of students atten-ding all the evaluation activities of the subject.

Table 2 shows the student performance inTC in the academic years 2005-2010 using afive-point grade scale. For the academic ye-ars 2007-2010 the average of the marks obtai-ned by the students in each activity, as well asthe marks in the written exams are shown. Thesurvey paper is 50 % of the mark for the con-ference model activities; the poster is 30 %;and the presentation is 20 %. Since the newteaching methodology based on student-cen-tered activities aims to motivate the studentsto complete all the activities of TC, the marksobtained by students in the conference modelactivities improved each year. However, the



Figure 2. Drop-out rate of students enrolled in Technology of Computers


final marks obtained by the students did notshow significant variations because of themarks achieved in the written exams. Studentstend to focus their effort on the activities re-lated with the conference model, while redu-cing their effort in preparing for the writtenexams. Fig. 3 shows the distribution of the stu-dent performance in the academic years 2005-2010.

At the end of each academic year, befo-re the students know their final marks in thecourse, the Quality Technical Unit of the Vice-Rector for Professors, Centers and Depart-ments of the University of Oviedo requests thestudents to fill out anonymous questionnairesas feedback for the undergraduate program de-velopment. These questions focus on coursecontent, evaluation criteria and procedures. Ta-ble 3 shows the results of the questionnairesfor TC, and the average of the results of thequestionnaires for all the subjects in the third

year of the undergraduate program (3Y) inwhich TC is taught. Each criterion is shownfor each academic year on a five-point scale,where 1 means strongly disagree and 5 meansstrongly agree. Two facts become clear: first,TC students’ assessment is higher when thesubject is taught based on the conference mo-del approach. Therefore, based on students´feedback, the proposed approach for drivingTC activities seems to be successful. Second,since the assessment provided by students forall criteria clearly outperformed the averageassessment for the rest of the subjects in theacademic year the methodology used in TC isperceived as successful by the students.

The questionnaires given by the QualityTechnical Unit of the Vice-Rector for Profes-sors, Centers and Departments are common forall the subjects in the undergraduate program.These questionnaires do not take into accountthe specific methodology followed in TC. The-

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Table 2. Summary of student performance in Technology of Computers, academic years 2005-2010 (marks out of 5)

Activity 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010

Survey paper - - 3.94 3.84 4.32Poster - - 3.81 3.93 3.90Oral presentation - - 4.27 4.50 4.86

Conference activities - - 3.97 4.00 4.30Written exams - - 3.77 2.84 2.82

TC subject average 3.48 3.10 3.87 3.42 3.56

TC: Technology of Computers[0-1,5): Failure, [1,5-2,5): Weak, [2,5-3): Acceptable, [3-3,5): Good, [3,5-4,5): Very Good, [4,5-5]: Excellent

Figure 3. Grades of the students enrolled in Technology of Computers, academic years 2005-2010

refore, at the end of the course the students ofTC were asked to complete an additional ques-tionnaire of ten items related with the activi-ties developed in TC and with the collabora-tive learning resources provided in the subject.This questionnaire is also completed before thefinal marks of the course are provided to thestudents. Table 4shows the average of each

question in the academic years in which theconference model is followed for the TC ac-tivities: 2007-2008 (the additional question-naire was completed by 65 students of 95 en-rolled), 2008-2009 (47 of 66 enrolled), and2009-2010 (36 of 63 enrolled). The results areshown on a five-point scale, where 1 meansstrongly disagree and 5 means strongly agree.



Table 3. Technology of Computers and 3rd year of the undergraduate program detailed assessment (ratings out of 5)

Criterion 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010TC 3Y TC 3Y TC 3Y TC 3Y TC 3Y

Course contents 4.14 3.67 3.94 3.41 4.71 3.54 4.83 3.88 4.60 3.4Course activities 3.58 3.11 3.59 2.91 4.50 3.15 4.29 3.78 4.00 3.5Course evaluation criteria 3.96 3.75 3.97 3.43 4.70 3.59 4.86 3.76 4.27 3.1Course evaluation procedure 3.88 3.40 3.59 3.15 4.92 3.34 4.82 3.67 4.06 2.9Teacher knowledge and lessons 3.72 3.74 4.01 3.12 4.80 3.62 4.63 3.98 4.53 3.7Student learning 3.43 3.46 3.59 2.91 4.62 3.27 4.50 3.49 4.05 3.1Average 3.78 3.52 3.76 3.15 4.71 3.42 4.65 3.76 4.25 3.2

TC: Technology of Computers3Y: All the subjects in the third year of the undergraduate program in which TC is taught

1: Very bad, 2: Bad, 3: Neither good nor bad, 4: Good, 5: Very good

Table 4. Summary of student survey for Technology of Computers subject, academic years 2007-2010 (ratings out of 5)

# Question 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010

1 The methodology followed in the course encouraged and motivated me to develop the proposed activities 4.87 4.79 4.52

2 The methodology helped me to acquire teamwork and time management skills 4.83 4.55 4.61

3 The methodology helped me to acquire oral and written communication skills 4.27 4.13 4.02

4 The methodology helped me to acquire skills on how to keep myself up to date in technology of computers 4.95 4.80 4.87

5 The teaching activities proposed in the subject encouraged learning technology of computers 4.89 4.75 4.91

6 The LMS helped me to develop the proposed activities 4.52 4.67 4.477 The discussion forum helped me to exchange information

and express opinions about the survey paper 4.31 4.03 4.238 The discussion forum helped me to exchange information

and express opinions about the poster 4.07 4.41 4.119 The wiki helped me to collaboratively

develop the survey paper 4.12 3.71 3.8710 The wiki helped me to collaboratively develop the poster 4.21 4.07 3.98

LMS: Learning Management System1: Strongly disagree, 2: Disagree, 3: Neither agree nor disagree, 4: Agree, 5: Strongly agree


Students highly assessed the methodology fo-llowed in TC (see question #1 in Table 4), andconfirmed that the new methodology helpedthem to acquire the expected skills (see ques-tions #2, #3, and #4). The students’ perceptionabout how the proposed activities encouragetechnology of computers learning received avery high evaluation in the three academic ye-ars (see question #5). The students also asses-sed highly the Learning Management Systemprovided to develop the team activities propo-sed in the subject (see question #6). Al-though the global assessment of the LMS ishigh, when each module is independently as-sessed its assessment was lower. The discus-sion forum seems to be the most useful tool,while the wiki does not seem to be as usefulas teachers expected for the development ofthe team assignment (see questions #7, #8, #9,and #10).

Discussion and conclusion

Undergraduate and graduate programsmust provide students with skills on how tokeep up to date in fast-evolving fields of kno-wledge. Technology, a blend of science and en-gineering, is an ever-changing topic in com-puting. This issue must be taken into accountin computer science programs, especially ina course of technology of computers. The coreunits of a technology of computers course aremainly descriptive and are often taught follo-wing the classic teacher-led lesson methodo-logy, leading to a lack of interest and motiva-tion in the students attending the lessons. Inthis paper, a scaled down conference model ap-proach for the students to acquire skills on howto keep up to date on technology in a techno-logy of computers course is proposed and eva-luated. The approach is intended for the stu-dents to acquire these skills while developingteamwork, critical thinking, decision ma-king, time management, and communicationskills. A web-based Learning ManagementSystem has been adopted to provide supportfor the students to develop the activities pro-posed in the model, as well as to foster onli-ne collaboration through resources such as dis-cussion forums and wikis.

The conference model approach is beingapplied to a technology of computers courseof an undergraduate program in computerscience in the School of Computer Engineersof Oviedo (University of Oviedo, Spain). Theteaching experience after three academic ye-ars was evaluated. Although only a slight im-provement in overall student performance wasnoticed, several conclusions arise from the te-aching experience. Students assessed the me-thodology highly and confirmed that the sca-led-down conference model helped them to ac-quire the skills trained in the course. The ques-tionnaires completed by the students indica-te that the assessment of both their own lear-ning and the teacher-focused lessons increa-sed with the described methodology. Thequestionnaires also indicate that the online co-llaborative resources provided to support thedevelopment of their team assignments shouldbe improved, especially the wiki, which didnot receive as positive an assessment as expec-ted by the teachers of the subject.

Considering students’ feedback gatheredfrom the general and specific questionnaires,it seems that the proposed scaled-down con-ference model as a platform for technology ofcomputers is successful since students’ percep-tion of their learning is very high and the as-sessment in comparison with the rest of the sub-jects in the same academic year is favorable.

The conference model proposed in this pa-per encouraged students to acquire the expec-ted skills in the course, as in Borstler & Johans-son (1998) and in Tapper & Gruba (2000). Ho-wever, in the proposed model, since the tasksof organizing the conference relies on teachersrather than students, the latter can focus on thetasks designed to acquire the expected skillsof the course. Also, avoiding students deve-loping management tasks allows a flexiblescheduling of the course, unlike the strict sche-duling followed in Tapper & Gruba (2000).Furthermore, in Borstler & Johansson (1998)and in Tapper & Gruba (2000) all the tasks arefocused on the student to acquire writing andcommunication skills, while in the proposedscaled-down conference model the skills ac-quired by the student also cover how to keepup to date in fast-evolving fields of knowled-

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ge, which is of vital importance in in compu-ter science degree programs.

Therefore, the proposed scaled-downconference model proved its adequacy forcourses covering ever-changing fields in un-dergraduate degree programs of computerscience. The increase in the workload for theteacher using this conference model approachis significant. However, teachers gained fromthe new course structure, such as in the super-vision tasks of the student’s assignments.Taking this increase into account, future work

includes a new design for the described appro-ach in which some of the tasks related with re-viewing the surveys and the posters could becarried out by peers, encouraging students lo-oking for information beyond the scope of itsown teamwork context. Future work also in-cludes scheduling a public presentation of thepapers, rather than a presentation to studentsenrolled in the subject. Thus, communicationwill take place for real purposes and real au-diences, motivating students to refine theirwork.



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