Education/Collaboration:Break out summary

HCC Retreat

4/7/00

Perception of Inclusion in a Community

• How to integrate students– by interests– randomly– dormitory (Oxford model)

• On-line interactions– e.g. "Ask Dr. Math" (http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/) at the

Math Forum (http://forum.swarthmore.edu)

• People just observing can feel included (listserves, e-mail)

Richer Capture of Learning Spaces at Many Levels

• Campuses-- intra and inter campus collaboration networks

• Classrooms-- breaking up lectures for rapid 5-10 min. computer mediated class interactions

• Office Hours-- let students outside the door have access to answered questions

• Tutorials/discussion-- TA has access to most discussed questions

• Lounges-- opportunistic learning with smart boards and machine matching of remote groups

• Cafes-- access to course materials, improved visibility of instructors leads to perceived accessibility by students

Increase Feedback: real time controls

• Student response dials:– far left = red = "slow down I'm confused!"

– far right = green = "I understand please speed up!"(anywhere in between accordingly)

– Similarly, car pedals: break, ok, speed up

• Individual or aggregate time function reported to faculty

• Question validation/ranking, polls, quizzes

• e.g. Stanford's Televised Video Instruction shows that mediated use of video tapes can improve student learning over live classroom instruction

Timely Feedback: not all interaction has to be real time

• Hyperlinks to educational materials and digital libraries can be made as instructor discovers them

• Instructor reviews classroom data at end of semester to improve course materials

• Data is recorded for fast indexing of course materials by students (e.g. highlighting difficult areas for later viewing of taped lecture videos)

Information Overload?

• Need for improved filtering/search– Can students self moderate their questions? – When should professors listen to the class and

who should they listen to?– Give students multiple means of expression--

green/red switch on their desk, icons on chat boards, vote for questions

– Epiphany Management Tools (local and global)– Inequity Management Tools!

Peer Learning

• Moderating (but challenges for maintaining threaded discussions in large groups)

• How to recognize good questions/answers by students

• Teaching is just as instrumental to learning as listening

• Student Organizations/Social Activities

What to Teach?

• Don’t overly emphasize technology– More can be less– Particular technologies change

• Failures-- Petrosky• Project collaboration• What role should non-academic experiences play in

developing life skills? – design team competitions– student organizations