Teaching professional knowledge to XL-classes with the help of digital technologies

Transcription

1 Theme 1: Changing Demands for Professional Learning Influence of digital technologies on professional knowledge emerging in practice Teaching professional knowledge to XL-classes with the help of digital technologies Valerie Stehling 1, Ursula Bach 1, Anja Richert 1, Sabina Jeschke 1 1 IMA - Institute of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering ZLW - Center for Learning and Knowledge Management IfU - Institute for Management Cybernetics Faculty of Mechanical Engineering RWTH Aachen University (Germany) valerie.stehling@ima-zlw-ifu.rwth-aachen.de, ursula.bach@ima-zlw-ifu.rwth-aachen.de, anja.richert@ima-zlw-ifu.rwth-aachen.de, sabina.jeschke@ima-zlw-ifu.rwth-aachen.de Abstract How can the systematic use of digital technologies affect a lecture of 1500 or more students? Moreover, to what extent will it affect the learning outcomes of the students? At RWTH Aachen University, subjects like Mechanical Engineering have to cope with a very high number of students each semester currently the number lies at approximately 1500 with an estimated increase up to 2000 in the next semester. In order to create an interactive learning environment despite these difficult conditions, the IMA/ZLW&IfU (Institute of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering, Center for Learning and Knowledge Management and Assoc. Institute for Management Cybernetics) of the RWTH Aachen University is currently developing a pilot scheme that includes the application of Audience Response Systems in lectures with such large numbers of student listeners. The implementation of the described system demands a redesign of the lecture with special regards to the content. Questions have to be developed that allow the students to interact with the lecturer as well as each other. This variety of questions ranges from multiple-choice questions to the inquiry of calculation results etc. When giving students the chance to actively take part in a lecture of the described size by answering questions the lecturer asks with the help of technical equipment which could in the easiest case be their own mobile phones the lecturer creates a room for interaction. In addition to that he has the chance to get an immediate insight into the perceived knowledge of his or her students. This in turn enables the lecturer to react to obvious knowledge gaps that obstruct successful learning outcomes of the students. An additional benefit hoped for is that the attention of the students which is a difficult issue for lecturers that face lectures with such a large number of students might be kept at a higher level than average. The described redeployment of a lecture of the mentioned size is expected to bring about an enhancement of the quality in teaching of professional knowledge. The presumptions made in this paper will be surveyed and thoroughly analysed during and after the realization of the project.

2 Initial Situation Fig. 1: Large Class at RWTH Aachen University ( RWTH Aachen University is a highly ranked university especially in the fields of engineering mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, industrial engineering etc. It therefore attracts a vast amount of students which in the past has lead lecturers to the challenge of having to teach a rising number of students in already large classes each semester. This is even enforced by the German G8 or Gy8 concept which reduces studying in school from now 13 to then 12 years. In addition to that the conscription in Germany has been abolished which currently but temporarily leads to an even higher enforcement of increasing numbers of students. This means that by 2013 universities in NRW (Northrhine-Westfalia) will face an additional amount of student applications of around Universities face not only the challenge of having to prepare themselves infrastructurally, the design of their lectures has to be customized as well. Shifting from Teaching to Learning: A special challenge for large classes With the previously pointed out development in mind: How can requested criteria of the Bologna Process like the student centered approach and an emphasis on skills in other words a shift from teaching to learning be considered when planning a lecture with more than 1000 listeners? It is, this has to be said in advance, neither our aim nor any given possibility to split the large lectures into small groups. Lectures in the classical sense serve the purpose of conveying scientific findings and general content that the students need to be able to transform this knowledge into practice in specially designed laboratory or exercise courses. However, current research shows that motivation and attention of students during a classical ex-cathedra lecture decreases drastically already in early stages of the lecture [14]. First outcomes of a current monitoring survey by the ZLW conducted in classes of the engineering sciences show that at RWTH Aachen University most large lectures still have their focus on the teaching aspect rather than promote learning: Students are often passive consumers of knowledge. This of course only goes for the lecture itself most of these classes have additional exercise courses or labs in which the students get the chance to work together on a subject in small groups. Previous research however shows that one way to gain a certain level of learning in a lecture is to give the students the chance to learn actively not only in these additional exercise courses but also in the lecture itself [6]. Davis e.g. states that

3 students learn best when they are active participants in the education process [4,5]. Of course, when talking of lecture sizes beyond a seminar size, this task is a special challenge to every lecturer [1,17]. Some of the aspects making active learning in a large class a special challenge can be summed up as the following: - Speaking in front of a large class is often frightening for students. They might compromise themselves when giving a wrong answer. - Large classes are loud. The level of noise can quickly become very high once the attention of the students starts to diminish. When answering a question in a large class the answer is often overheard because it is too loud in class. - Even when the lecturer frequently asks questions in his or her class, he or she still cannot involve all the students at the same time. [1,7] However, finding a solution to this challenge is not that simple. At the IMA/ZLW&IfU, several projects currently deal with the advancement of teaching and learning to an excellent level taking on both perspectives the teaching perspective as well as the learning perspective (e.g. ELLI Excellence in Teaching and Learning in the Engineering Sciences; ExAcT Center of Excellence in Academic Teaching for more information see: TeachINGLearnING.EU ( a project dealing with teaching and learning concepts especially in the engineering sciences funded by the Stiftung Mercator and the Volkswagen Foundation and also conducted by (amongst others) the ZLW has as one of its goals set up competitions in an open innovation -approach. These competitions give students the chance of influencing the learning environments and settings the university offers them. One of these competitions has covered the subject of large class management and how it can be improved. 31 ideas were handed in by students and ten of the proposed ideas concerned the lack of interaction between teachers and students during or after class. Some of these proposals suggested the use of technology to help overcome fears of speaking due to the size of the class or even admitting that one did not understand the subject matter the lecturer has just explained. Findings of Andersen et al. affirm this appraisal. In their pilot study 6 out of 12 students state that in large classes they feel apprehensive of participating [1]. Proposed ideas in the competition mentioned above range from the IDIOT (I DId not get it)-buzzers to classic Audience Response Systems. These offer the possibility to either (in the first case) be able to press a button when a student feels that something has not been explained thoroughly enough or to (in the second case) send questions to the teaching assistant during class that he can either immediately react to in the following lecture.

4 Response systems a possible teaching method for XL-classes? The described ideas suggested by students show that coherent to current research results and requests for a change in didactics addressed towards university teachers there is a demand for active learning and interaction in class. According to modern age students or in Prensky s words digital natives [13], (new) technologies e.g. in the form of Response Systems can be a means to improve the learning outcomes of students. Jeschke in this context talks about the potential of new media in education [8]. Prensky even states that our students have changed radically and that today s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach [13]. And this statement leads us to the same conclusion Ketteridge comes to: That change in education is inevitable as institutions invent and reinvent themselves over time and space [12]. Using classroom communication systems (CCS) is not a recent innovation the first popular CCS Classtalk was developed in Writing about the appropriate application, the benefits and downsides of using CCS in class is therefore neither a brand new issue. Of course, since 1985, Response Systems have been improved and advanced as have digital technologies in general. However most research on this topic up to now is dealing with CCS or RS in classes with up to approximately 500 students so regarding the particular aspect of the as previously described XL-sized classes is definitely interesting. Fig. 2: Poll Everywhere in use at the MIT ( Evaluations of best practices from universities worldwide show that the application of Response Systems (RS) in lectures has led to e.g. higher motivation of attendance [16], more attention of the students during class [14] and even higher knowledge acquisition than in conventional (non-interactive) classes [14]. According to Sellar RSs ( ) have been found to be of particular benefit when working with large groups where communication is challenging ( ) [15]. It will be very interesting to see whether this will become evident in classes with up to 2000 students as well. Use of Technology equals Learning? Technology doesn t inherently improve learning [3]. This proposition stated by Beatty does not come out of the blue: Some teachers might be thrilled by the new technology in their classroom but do not use it properly and efficiently due to a lack of pedagogical or didactical conceptualization. Kerres also states that digital media are no Trojan horses that can be brought into an organization (or situation such as a class) and unfold their effect overnight

5 [10]. Kay and LeSage reinforce these statements by stating that ( ) the integration of an ARS into a classroom does not guarantee improved student learning but that it is the implementation of pedagogical strategies in combination with the technology that ultimately influences student success [9] According to Kerres [11] universities need for an individual media strategy that ensures an appropriate use and a successful outcome of innovations in teaching by new media. This strategy should at least cover four topics of change: - Reform of teaching: Which (new) contents of teaching do we want to convey? Reform of teaching methods: Which (new) methods of teaching and learning do we aim for? - Production of media supported learning environments (inclusive the development of a didactical concept and (if necessary) the development of media) as well as the distribution of the media. - Designing the personnel and structural conditions for the successful usage of media (HR measures). - Extension and backup of the infrastructure (hard- and software, installment, attendance, fosterage). [11] The following chapter will deal with the first two of Kerres as well as other topics, which are especially relevant for this particular paper. Conceptual Design There are many best practices to look at when redesigning a lecture to give an appropriate room for the use of Audience Response Systems (ARS) possible. Considering the fact that most of these best practices will have to cope with much less students than RWTH Aachen University, a creative solution needs to be found to ensure that the benefits of the Response System become effective. The conceptual design of the implementation of a clicker system in the lecture of information technology in the engineering education at RWTH Aachen University with currently approximately 1500 students will be described in the following subsections. Every lecture is unique due to its specific content, so there is no prototype solution for a conceptual design when introducing RS into large classes. Neither can the conceptual design described in the following sections act as a prototype solution. Along with the first two topics Kerres [11] sees as indispensable, a few other items need to be considered when planning to introduce Response Systems in this particular large class. 1. Reform of teaching: new contents; methods of teaching and learning 2. Production of media supported learning environments; distribution of the media 3. Financing 4. Motivation for using clickers student/lecturer approach 5. Roll-Out, Evaluation and Adjustments

6 These topics will in the following be discussed against the background of the implementation of a Response System in the previously described lecture Information technology in mechanical engineering teaching approximately 2000 students. 1. Reform of teaching Contents and Methods When planning to introduce a Response System in a lecture, it has to be considered that clicker questions take up a certain amount of time of the lecture. The content of the original lecture thus has to be adjusted to this. And the more clicker questions you as a lecturer ask, the more time for the usual content you will have to give up. According to Beatty, this is a step in the right direction: An instructor cannot and should not explicitly address in class every topic, idea, fact, term, and procedure for which students are responsible. Instead, use class time to build a solid understanding of core concepts, and let preclass reading and post-class homework provide the rest. [3] It is not conducive, however, to overload a lecture with clicker questions and turn it into a quizzing lecture. Clicker questions need to be carefully planned and placed. Beatty et al. state that classroom response systems can be powerful tools ( ). Their efficacy strongly depends on the quality of the questions [2]. Crews et al. also state that using clickers in the same way every lecture can become monotonous to the students and therefore become counterproductive. Instructors should be prepared to implement clickers for different purposes throughout the semester ( ) [4]. Examples named here are discussions (pre-, during and post-), quizzes, competitions between groups, student generated questions etc. [4]. Several types of questioning seem appropriate and conducive for the described lecture in the engineering sciences. For example: Since the lecture deals with (amongst other subjects) programming and basics of software engineering it surely is interesting and helpful for further planning processes to get to know your audience better. This can for example be achieved by asking the students in the first lecture which computer languages they already know. Additionally it can be a benefit to ask multiple choice questions and later discuss the answers given. Beatty states that the focus when quizzing the audience should not lie on the correctness of the answers but on the reasoning behind it [3]. He also appeals to the right responses when right or wrong answers are given: How we respond when right or wrong answers are given is crucial. A full spectrum of answers should be drawn out and discussed before we give any indication which (if any) is correct [3]. One very important element here is the wow factor : By arranging questions cleverly, making mistakes can create an opportunity to learn and considering that mistakes are made anonymously and possibly by a lot of other students too it might therefore lose its negative connotations in class. Considering that at RWTH Aachen University the use of clickers in class is not a common and well-known teaching method (neither to the students nor to the lecturers), the changes in teaching should not be rushed. Teachers and students need a certain amount of time to learn their new role [3] in the lecture: Participants of a more interactive, student-centered approach [6]. This might additionally cause an initial fear or discomfort on both ends. Especially students might react negatively in the beginning: while the teacher has already had

7 a chance to accustom to his new role in the planning process, students begin with this process at the beginning of the first lecture. Usually, before they see the actual benefits for themselves like a better learning outcome or understanding, they see the downsides : they need to prepare before the lecture in order to perform well in these mini-tests which they might think is the purpose of using Response Systems [3]. On the other hand, lecturers in the described class at RWTH Aachen University will benefit from an expectable rather positive attitude of the students towards technology anchored in their own choice to study mechanical engineering. This is an additional benefit to the assumption that young students today can be described as digital natives or in terms of Wim Veen: Homo zappiens [18]. Considering these aspects, we can assume that using this new technology in class will feel natural and intuitional to the students and the playful element [18] participating will have a strong motivational effect on them. Summing up it is necessary when designing contents and methods for a teaching approach using Response Systems it is highly important to keep a sharp eye on pedagogical as well as learning goals. According to Beatty these learning or pedagogical goals include - drawing out students background knowledge and beliefs on a topic, - making students aware of their own and others perceptions of a situation, - discovering points of confusion or misconception, - distinguishing two related concepts, - realizing parallels or connections between different ideas, - elaborating the understanding of a concept, - exploring the implications of an idea in a new or extended context [3]. These pedagogical goals should be achieved by using the playful element of clickers in the lecture and promoting learning as something that can be fun, too. 2. Production of Media For the lecture, a simple and accessible software is being rented to ensure a very high access rate. The software, Poll Everywhere is designed in a way that every student owning any mobile phone, wifi-device or laptop can participate. The screenshot (Fig. 3) below shows the three steps it takes to start a poll in class.

8 Fig. 3: Screenshot 1: How it works ( When you as a lecturer design a poll, you first have to choose which sort of poll you want to use: You can either ask a multiple choice question or let the audience answer a question freely with any text reply (see Fig.4). If you have decided to ask a multiple choice question, you can type in the question and the possible answers and set the options for participation (see Fig.5). Fig. 4: How to create a new poll [15] Fig. 5: Installing a poll via Poll Everywhere (

9 Having finished this you can show the students your question and the possible answers including the possible ways of participation (see Fig.6). Those students who do not own a smart phone or wifi-device but own a simple mobile phone that supports text-messaging can easily participate by texting their answer to a displayed phone number. Fig. 6: Example of a poll ( For those students owning neither a wifi-device nor a simple mobile phone, there still is the possibility of actively contributing to the answer by grouping together with their fellow students and discuss a possible answer. This would also serve a positive side effect of enhancing subject-related discussions between students. Once having opened a poll you can then watch the votes rise in real time as they are received. So in the classic sense of a Class or Audience Response System, this technology - allows an instructor to present a question or problem to the class, - allows students to enter their answers into their devices (mobile phones, laptops etc.) and - instantly aggregates and summarizes students answers for the instructor. [3] The essential advantage of this software compared to other Response Systems is that students do not have to buy special hardware and accordingly the university does not have to provide devices in class which would be a huge financial burden when lecturing classes of thousands of students. Students are not charged for voting on Poll Everywhere; however, if they vote by text message then standard text messaging charges apply [15]. 3. Financing By introducing a Response System into a lecture the person responsible for the organization and content of the lecture has to make several expenditures. It will cost time, effort and of course money. Usually the lecturer, the institution or the faculty has to pay for the software or application. In the described case the fees are according to class or audience sizes. The bigger expenditure is the amount of time (in terms of staff costs) to adjust or redesign the lecture to the application of clicker questions. As previously described clicker questions need to be carefully designed and should always be strongly tied to a specific learning goal. Current research shows that this is one of the most challenging tasks when introducing clickers into any class and therefore takes up most of the preparation time.

10 One advantage of poll everywhere is that due to technical development no clicker hardware or device has to be bought neither by students nor by the university. This is a huge financial improvement especially in large classes which also has an impact on student participation in online polls in class students easily forget to bring their clicker devices to class, because they only use it for class, but the probability of students forgetting to bring their mobile phones is rather small. At RWTH Aachen University and especially the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering the commitment to advance new concepts in teaching and learning is extraordinarily high. Projects like The "Students in Focus" Future Strategy ( as well as previously described projects like ELLI, TeachING- LearnING.EU, ExAcT etc. currently put a lot of time and effort into finding and establishing innovative teaching designs. Additional funding for the described careful preparation of the desired implementation this paper deals with has been raised in a special Exploratory Teaching Space -Call named IGEL (Interactive Large Classes for Excellent Teaching) to enhance excellence in teaching ( 4. Motivation Clicker Systems or the implementation of such into a lecture (as every other change process) is as has been pointed out always conjoined by at least financial and temporal aspects. Therefore, the positive aspects of the redesign have to prevail to build up a motivation to take these burdens upon oneself (oneself being the lecturer, the institution, faculty or even university). These positive aspects or advantages should be predominant for the lecturer as well as for the students. If you want a Response System to fulfill its purpose and increase interactivity by promoting a two-way-flow of communication between the speaker and the audience [15], both ends need to be on board. To point out that an implementation of the described Response System is worth all the cost and effort, the following graphs will sum up the most advantages and disadvantages found by review of literature in the field of Response Systems. These are separated into benefits and disadvantages for the teacher on the one hand and the student on the other. benefits of clickers for the student interaction with the lecturer without fear of compromising oneself immediate feedback possibility to actively check their learning outcomes outside of exams be an active participant in class anonymity enhancement of learning classroom experience more enjoyable benefits of clickers for the lecturer identification of knowledge gaps identification of shortcomings of the lecture [7] student engagement keeps students focused and involved higher attendance better control of the learning progress

11 Evaluations of lectures that are already working with RS in class show a few challenges and downsides aroused by the introduction of RS. These will be summed up in the following chart. It is noticeable, though, that there are a lot more positive aspects on either the student as well as the teacher side. disadvantages of clickers for the students equipment/ software functioning equipment accessibility costs occurring when only option of contributing for the student is a text message disadvantages of clickers for the lecturer clicker questions take up time pre and during class the implementation itself costs time and money equipment/ software functioning diversion by using technical devices in class One argument that has not been mentioned in this paper before but is often discussed is that students are or might be diverted [14] by using their technical devices mobile phones, laptops etc. in class is not steady. One of the results of the monitoring survey conducted in large classes of engineering sciences described earlier in this paper is that most students use their phones or laptops during class for texting and social networks anyway so why should a lecturer not take advantage of this and use it for educational purposes? 5. Roll-Out, Evaluation and Adjustments Since the lecture in which the Response System is going to be introduced is held in the second semester of the engineering sciences and therefore only takes place in the summer term, the research on this topic is still in progress. First clicker questions will be introduced from the first lecture date of the summer semester To secure and check the outcomes of the implementation of a system that enhances a new teaching and learning approach in XL -classes and whether previously found results from other universities can be acknowledged, the implementation must be concomitantly evaluated. First evaluations are planned for the middle of the summer semester 2012 during the pilot study by questioning both the students and the lecturer to get a first insight on the perception of the new approach. A conclusive and detailed evaluation will follow at the end of the semester. Considering that all lectures at RWTH Aachen University are being evaluated by the students each semester, we expect to see changes in this evaluation so we can come up with a first rating whether the approach also works for groups of the described size or not. Results of the evaluations and perceived outcomes (acceptance, estimated learning outcomes, participation, attention etc.) from the pilot study will be published as well.

12 Limitations and future Prospects Due to the fact that the paper deals with research still in progress we cannot yet give any valid recommendations or report learnings from the implementation process. These findings will as previously mentioned be published later. However, by conducting this accompanying study, we expect to find out by analyzing the evaluation sheets whether Response Systems are an appropriate means for advancing interaction and subsequently enhancing student learning and attention in class. The benefits and disadvantages collocated by reviewing previous literature as well as simple estimations in this paper will be revised for the special case of XL -classes according to the findings in our evaluations. References [1] Anderson, Richard J. et al. (2003): Promoting Interaction In Large Classes With Computer-Mediated Feedback. Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Proceedings. [2] Beatty, Ian D. et al. (2006): Designing effective questions for classroom response system teaching. American Journal of Physics, Bd. 74, 1, S. 31. [3] Beatty, Ian D. (2004): Transforming Student Learning with Classroom Communication Systems, in: EDUCAUSE, Research Bulletin, Volume 2004, Issue 3. [4] Crews, Tena B. et al. (2011): Clickers in the Classroom: Transforming Students into Active Learners. ECAR Research Bulletin 9. [5] Davis, B. (1993): Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. [6] Fies, Carmen/ Marshall, Jill (2006): Classroom Response Systems: A review of the Literature. Journal of Science, Education and Technology, Bd. 15. [7] Hasler, Béatrice et al. (2009): Annotated Lectures : Student-Instructor Interaction in Large-Scale Global Education. Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 7(5). [8] Jeschke, Sabina 2004: Mathematik in Virtuellen Wissensräumen IuK-Strukturen und IT-Technologien in Lehre und Forschung. Online: [9] Kay, Robin H./ LeSage, Ann (2009): A strategic assessment of audience response systems used in higher education. Australsian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(2), [10] Kerres, M. (2003): Wirkungen und Wirksamkeit neuer Medien in der Bildung. In: R. Keill-Slawik & Kerres (Eds), Education Quality Forum. Wirkungen und Wirksamkeit neuer Medien. Münster: Waxmann. [11] Kerres, M. (2004): Zur Integration digitaler Wissenswerkzeuge in die Hochschule. In: Kruse, Elke et al. (Eds): Unbegrenztes Lernen Lernen über Grenzen? Generierung und Verteilung von Wissen in der Hochschulentwicklung. Münster: LIT-Verlag. [12] Ketteridge et al. (2002): The effective academic, in: Hartley, Peter (Ed) (2005): Enhancing Teaching in Higher Education.

13 [13] Prensky, Marc (2001): Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. In: On the Horizon. MCB University Press, Vol.9, No.5. [14] Scheele, N. et al. (2004): Die interaktive Vorlesung in der Praxis. DeLFI 2004: die 2. e-learning Fachtagung Informatik, Tagung der Fachgruppe e-learning der Gesellschaft für Informatik e.v. (GI), September 2004 in Paderborn. P-52, [15] Sellar, Melanie (2010): Poll Everywhere. Standard Review. The Charleston Advisor, January Online: pdf?expires= &id= &titleid= &accname=rwth+aach en+hochschulbibliothek&checksum=c72e182e1a83a266c ec9ba75 [16] Trees, A.R./ Jackson, M.H. (2007): The learning environment in clicker classrooms: student processes of learning and involvement in large university-level courses using student response systems. Learning, Media and Technology, Vol. 32, No.1, pp [17] University of Maryland (2008): Large Classes: A Teaching Guide. Center for Teaching Excellence, online: [18] Veen, Wim (2006): Homo Zappiens. Growing up in a digital age.