Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 08:01:48 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: DR- Begin Discussion of Paper 4 - End Paper 3 Discussion CHEMCONF '96 New Initiatives in Chemical Education An On-Line Symposium, June 3 to July 19, 1996 Sponsored by the American Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Education Organized by: Donald Rosenthal, Department of Chemistry, Clarkson University, and Tom O'Haver, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Maryland at College Park. It is Tuesday, June 18, 1996. I wish to thank Loretta L. Jones for submitting her paper. Discussion of Paper 3 is now over. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There will be additional time for General Discussion between July 15 and July 19. Also, no activities are planned on Saturday and Sunday, June 22 and June 23. Those wishing to engage in casual General Discussion of Symposium related topics may do so via CHEMCONF. >From 8 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time (EDST) today until 8 AM EDST on Thursday, June 20 you have an opportunity to discuss Paper 4: "Development and Delivery of Chemical-Education Hypermedia Using the World-Wide Web" by Brian M. Tissue Your discussion and questions should be sent to: CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU or CHEMCONF@UMDD.BITNET In order to insure that this On-Line symposium functions smoothly PLEASE READ THESE BRIEF INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The SUBJECT LINE can be useful in keeping track of various discussion threads. For example: P4 - GJ - D - JS - Prelab Assignments P3 indicates the message pertains to Paper 3. GJ are the initials of the sender - George Jones D - JS identifies discussion (or an answer) of a question from JS A brief (less than 40 character) description of the content or discussion thread. Please do not append or include a long quotation from the paper or a previous question or discussion message. Quote only a few lines and place a ">" at the beginning of each quoted line. CHEMCONF IS NOT TO BE USED FOR SENDING GENERAL MESSAGES OR EXTRANEOUS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ QUESTIONS. ^^^^^^^^^ Be courteous to others in your responses and your e-mail practices. Please make your comments and questions carefully reasoned and succinct. Send one long message rather than several short messages. (Let's try to maximize Quality/Quantity.) If you wish to sign off, change your mail options, retrieve files, etc. remember to send such request to: LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU or LISTSERV@UMDD.BITNET and NOT CHEMCONF. (Listserv commands were provided when you signed on and are available on the World Wide Web.) Thomas O'Haver (University of Maryland, Phone: (301) 405-1831 e-mail: to2@umail.umd.edu), symposium co-chair, is managing the CHEMCONF Listserv and the World Wide Web site (The URL is http://www.wam.umd.edu/~toh/ChemConf96.html). Please contact Professor O'Haver about Internet problems. Donald Rosenthal Symposium Co-Chair and Chair, Committee on Computers in Chemical Education Clarkson University Phone: 315-265-9242 E-mail: ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 08:34:45 -0400 From: Brian Tissue Subject: Re: P4 - GM - SQ The Index > The web browser shows that the student has looked at >all the pages, in the index, but that is not the same as showing >that the student has mastered the information there. > Perhaps one could force the student to go through a gate, >a cgi-program-based quiz question, similar to those in the >Pre-Labs, but at the end of each instructional web page. >Passage through the gate could be displayed in the Index, for >the information of the student, instead of simple presence at >the web-page. Yes, some type of feedback is needed for any kind of stand-alone tutorial. Self-evaluation questions are not the same as a discussion between student and instructor, but they are better than no feedback at all. I think the type of hypermedia design that you describe is possible using frames, cgi programs, or JavaScript. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 08:41:19 -0400 From: Brian Tissue Subject: Re: P4 - GM2 - SQ >I am writing in regard to the presentation >entitled Development and Delivery of Chemical-Education >Hypermedia Using the World-Wide Web, by Brian M. Tissue. > >> Four of 23 students answered agree or strongly agree for >> the statement I would prefer to have the computer exercises >> delivered by CD-ROM rather than over the internet, on the >> end-of-semester survey. > >a. Do you know why they answered in that way? Only one student made a comment, and that was "I dislike WWW, files I can handle." My best guess is that using CD-ROM would have been more convenient for some students who had a computer at home, but had to use a computer on campus to access the internet. The limitation of CD-ROM delivery for these types of prelabs is that there is no way to monitor that the students actually did the assignments on time. >b. Were the students who agreed to this Question >ones who finished only a few of the Pre-Labs >(and presumably did poorly in the course)? > >c. Were there any students who did well in the course >but who did not like the web-site presentation >or Pre-Labs? If so, what were their reasons? The surveys were anonymous so I can't correlate their responses with course performance. My feeling is that the students who were most positive about the prelabs found them beneficial because they took them seriously and thought about the content and self-evaluation questions. I don't know if the prelabs helped some students who might have struggled otherwise. Answering that question will take a structured study with a control group. Brian > >******************************************************* >Gerald Morine, Chemistry Dept., Bemidji State University, >Bemidji, Minnesota 56601-2699 USA gmchem@vax1.bemidji.msus.edu >http://bsuweb.bemidji.msus.edu/~chemdept/home.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 08:57:51 -0400 From: Brian Tissue Subject: Re: P4 - DR - SQ The Role of WWW Materials in Courses >P4 - DR - SQ - The Role of WWW Materials in Your Instrumental > Analysis Course and in Other Courses > >1. In your CHEM 4114 - Instrumental Analysis Course there was a > textbook and reading and homework assignments from the textbook. > There were three exams which covered specific chapters from the > textbook and presumably the final examination covered textbook > material (?). The laboratory experiment instructions were in > laboratory handouts. > > The course grade was determined as follows: The course and grading followed a typical structure: > 40 % Laboratory Notebook (Lab experiments ?) The notebook grade was based on their lab write-ups and their answers to questions in a lab handout. > 30 % Three Examinations (Textbook and lecture based) The exams were based primarily on lecture material, which covered the same concepts as the text and lab experiments. > 15 % Final Examination (Textbook and lecture based ?) The final was the ACS Instrumental Analysis standard exam, which covered many more topics than the course. The class average was 38 out of 75. > 5 % Homework (Textbook based) The homework consisted of end-of-chapter problems from the text. Assigning homework was a futile attempt to get the students to do the reading assignments. > 10 % Prelab exercises (WWW, textbook and lecture based ?) The prelab assignments replaced prelab lectures and quizzes. The self-evaluation questions were based on the WWW tutorials, and grading was based only on completion. > You indicated that 75 % of the students completed the prelab > assignments before the beginning of their lab session. > > a. Was there any correlation between laboratory and course > performance and completing the prelab assignment before > beginning a laboratory experiment? Yes there was, but I don't think it was due to a cause and effect relationship. The students who took the prelabs seriously worked hard in all aspects of the course. > b. What fraction of the WWW material was intended for remediation? > What fraction was enrichment? > What fraction duplicated information contained in the textbook > or laboratory instructions? The prelabs were not directly meant for remediation, but contained hyperlinks to remedial material, e.g., the spectroscopy prelabs contained links to documents on the electromagnetic spectrum, Beer's law, etc. There were some hyperlinks to related material, but none of the content available last year was what I think of as enrichment material. The prelab content duplicated the material in the lecture and the text, although in a different style. Because the students must do some of the labs before the related material is covered in lecture, the prelab tutorials provide a condensed introduction to the underlying concepts of the lab experiments. The prelabs provide a conduit to connect the lab and the lecture. I also wanted the prelabs to prepare the students to physically do the lab experiments, although this goal is where the content was weakest. > c. Why was so little use made of the question-and-answer page? > Would the question and answer process been more successful > if this correspondence was between the student and instructor > rather than being public? I think for several reasons. The class was small and most of the students knew each other, and the students met often enough in lecture and lab to get answers in person from me, the TAs, or other students. This class of students was also not very familiar with the WWW, which should not be a problem in the future. About half of the questions I received came via e-mail and the rest were asked in person and I transcribed them to the web page. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 09:56:19 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: P4 - JM The Role of WWW Materials in Courses >>P4 - DR - SQ - The Role of WWW Materials in Your Instrumental >> Analysis Course and in Other Courses >> Brian Tissue's answers raise some interesting questions. Has anyone used WEB forms rather than e-mail replies for receiving student questions or testing their understanding. One could require answers to short questions as part of prelabs that were automatically sent via the Web either with a form or via e-mail and since the sender's address is available you know if the student was actually logged in under their own account to reply --- making it more difficult to have one person reply for the whole class. Web Forms would also prevent simple copy and paste but this becomes obvious in smaller classes. I had my students volontarily look in on Brian's pages last term --- with interesting results -- the best students had all read at a far greater deapth already, a few students in the middle of the class found them very useful, and the poorer students for whom they would have been the greatest benefit didn't bother. The incentive of compulsion, submitting answers for specific credit or even simply as part of the requiremet for having "completed" an experiment may be necessary. I have used e-mail questions to me (or the class list) and answers from me individually --- posting both to the class if I thought them to be informative, and removing the student's identification if I thought it wuld be embarasing. Interstingly, it worked well in instrumental analysis but not so well in Inorganic Chemistry, though in the later case their was less compulsion to get them onto computers than in the former where they had to use software on the network etc. as part of labs and assignments. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Adjunct Professor of Computer Science Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1. Phone (905) 688 5550, ext 3402 FAX (905) 682 9020 e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca http://chemiris.labs.brocku.ca/staff/miller/miller.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 09:26:44 +0000 From: "Loretta L. Jones" Subject: (Fwd) Lecture-free classes Theresa, I received this message. He'd like information from both of us. Hope you are doing well. Loretta ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 09:01:32 -0400 From: GKULM@AAAS.ORG (GKULM) Subject: Lecture-free classes To: lljones@bentley.univnorthco.edu Cc: aahlgren@AAAS.ORG (AAHLGREN) Dear Dr. Jones, Your comments in the chem conferences were forwarded to me by A. Ahlgren. I am especially interested in a reference to Theresa Zielinski's lecture free classes. I am preparing a AAAS Project 2061 book, Blueprints for Reform which contains chapters on teacher education and higher education. One of the issues in both chapters is the use of large lectures in teaching science, and alternatives to it. A reference to work such as yours would be helpful. Would you please forward published references to me? Incidentally, Linda Sand-Guest of the RMTEC (Rocky Mountain Teacher Education Collaborative) is consulting with us on this, if you are involved in that project. Thanks for your help. Your approach sounds great. Gerald Kulm Program Director Loretta L. Jones Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of Northern Colorado Greeley, CO 80639 lljones@bentley.univnorthco.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 11:43:20 -0400 From: "Jeff Davis (CHE)" Subject: Re: (Fwd) Lecture-free classes An excellent little book is "Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom" by Charles Bonwell and James Eison. It is a ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report (No. 1, 1991) published by The George Washington University. There are lots of references contained therein also. Jeff Davis On Tue, 18 Jun 1996, Loretta L. Jones wrote: > Theresa, > > I received this message. He'd like information from both of us. > > Hope you are doing well. > > Loretta > > > ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- > Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 09:01:32 -0400 > From: GKULM@AAAS.ORG (GKULM) > Subject: Lecture-free classes > To: lljones@bentley.univnorthco.edu > Cc: aahlgren@AAAS.ORG (AAHLGREN) > > Dear Dr. Jones, > > Your comments in the chem conferences were forwarded to me by A. > Ahlgren. I am especially interested in a reference to Theresa > Zielinski's lecture free classes. > > I am preparing a AAAS Project 2061 book, Blueprints for Reform which > contains chapters on teacher education and higher education. One of > the issues in both chapters is the use of large lectures in teaching > science, and alternatives to it. A reference to work such as yours > would be helpful. Would you please forward published references to > me? > > Incidentally, Linda Sand-Guest of the RMTEC (Rocky Mountain Teacher > Education Collaborative) is consulting with us on this, if you are > involved in that project. > > Thanks for your help. Your approach sounds great. > > Gerald Kulm > Program Director > > Loretta L. Jones > Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry > University of Northern Colorado > Greeley, CO 80639 > > lljones@bentley.univnorthco.edu > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 11:49:55 -0400 From: James Herron Subject: Re: Loretta Jones' Comments about Cooperative Learning On Mon, 17 Jun 1996, Loretta L. Jones wrote in response to Patricia Mabrouk: > . . . > For some topics, inspired by Theresa Zielinski's lecture-less > classes, I have discarded lecture entirely. Student receive "guided > reading" assignment sheets ahead of time, listing sections to read > in the book and containing exercises related to the readings. A more > difficult problem follows. When students come to class, they > collaborate on the exercises, helping and correcting one another. They > can ask questions of me or anyone in the room. Then they tackle the > harder problem, which groups must work on their own. Selected > homework assignments must be turned in with the completed > assignment sheets, and students earn points for completion. This > simple, but highly-structured technique has been very popular with > students. These comments, which I liked very much, reminded me of my experience with the Intermediate Science Curriculum Study (ISCS), a laboratory-centered, individualized, self-paced science program for grades 7-9 that was developed in the 60s and is still used in some schools. I directed the field trial in Indiana and spent considerable time sorting out important differences between classrooms in which ISCS seemed to be effective and classrooms in which it wasn't. My operational definition of "effective" was this: When I visited classrooms I would go to a group of students (usually 2 or 3) working together and began a conversation by asking, "What are you doing?" In those classrooms that I called effective, the response and subsequent conversation went something like this: "We're trying to find out how surface texture affects the force required to overcome friction." "Why are you doing that?" "Well, we've been studying forces and various factors that affect the force needed to move an object. A couple of days ago we investigated how the mass of an object affects the force needed to get it moving and learned that the heavier an object, the greater the force required to move it. Now we're continuing our experiments with forces by investigating friction." "And what will you do next?" "Well, there are several things that we could do. . . ." In these classrooms students always seemed to have the current activities clearly connected to previous lessons and were apparently constructing a story about the physical world and how it behaves. But that was not the case in all classrooms. In other classrooms the conversation went more like this: "What are you doing?" "Activity 7-8." "Why are you doing that?" "Well, we did Activity 7-7 yesterday, and this one is next." "And what will you do next?" "Activity 7-9 if we finish this one today." Students in these classes could seldom relate the work that they were doing to anything else in a manner that I would call meaningful. They were just doing their chores. Both classrooms that I describe were following a "cooperative learning" format, but there were significant differences in what was being learned. Why? There is no simple, 25-word answer, but it seemed that one important difference was the manner in which teachers interacted with students on a daily basis. In the "ineffective" classrooms, teachers spent the majority of their time checking student responses to questions that were asked in their "response books"--questions MEANT to focus student attention on important aspects of activities but usually answered mechanically with little thought. (On several occasions I saw students lined up to have their books checked by the teacher. While the teacher was checking a book at the front of the line, students in the back of the line were filling in blanks by looking at books the teacher had just marked.) All of the attention was given to the number of right answers the student had recorded. There were seldom any questions about the reasoning used to arrive at an answer, the relationship between the answer to a question and ideas that had been developed earlier, or the implications of the infor- mation for events that take place outside of the classroom. By contrast, in the "effective" classrooms, teachers spent most of their time listening to group discussions and watching students as they did their experiments. The teacher would interrupt to probe the students' understanding of connections between what they were doing and what had been done before. They asked students to defend their reasoning, suggest why an idea might be important, what else they thought might be true, based on what the student had just figured out, etc. These teachers seldom "graded" response books, but they did notice when a student had recorded an incorrect answer and asked probing questions to understand why he/she was confused. Grading was usually influenced by the teacher's qualitative judgement, based on these conversations, about each student's understanding of the concepts and principles under investigation. I take time to share these remarks because I believe that they focus on the reason that a great deal of research indicates that learning is greater in classrooms that emphasize cooperative, group learning than it is in straight lecture classes while there are other studies that produce contradictory results. It is difficult (though not impossible) to carry out the probing interactions that characterized my "effective" ISCS classrooms. Such opportunities abound in less formal settings in which students are cooperating to solve a sticky problem (but there is no assurance that students or teachers will capitalize on those opportun- ities). It takes a great deal of trial and error learning before we get maximum results from a new instrument in the lab, and the same kind of trial and error learning is required before we get maximum value from a new teaching strategy in the classroom. J. Dudley Herron, Chair Department of Physical Sciences 123 Lappin Hall Morehead State University Morehead, KY 40351-1689 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 19:26:31 EDT From: Ascanio DiPippo Subject: Re: your mail Nothing has changed: The first time you teach a course, nobody understands it. The second time you teach a course, the students understand it. The third time you teach a course, you understand it. !! Rocco ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 06:01:41 -0600 From: Loretta L Jones Subject: Re: (Fwd) Lecture-free classes Thanks to Jeff Davis for mentioning the booklet on active learning. Another publication that may be of interest to ChemConf participants is Science Teaching Reconsidered: A Handbook, a publication of the Committee on Undergraduate Science Education, National Academy of Sciences. This is a new publication that reviews many of the new approaches in college teaching. There is also a videotape. Loretta Jones ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:19:56 -0600 From: Loretta L Jones Subject: Re: Loretta Jones' Comments about Cooperative Learning On Tue, 18 Jun 1996, J. Dudley Herron wrote: > These comments, which I liked very much, reminded me of my experience with > the Intermediate Science Curriculum Study (ISCS), a laboratory-centered, > individualized, self-paced science program for grades 7-9 that was developed > in the 60s and is still used in some schools. Because the reform of curriculum and teaching tend to be cyclical, perhaps it is time for another look at ISCS, with an eye to implementing these ideas at the high school and college level. How can one get a look at these materials? Or are there later versions available? > It takes a great deal of trial and error learning before we get > maximum results from a new instrument in the lab, and the same kind of > trial and error learning is required before we get maximum value from a new > teaching strategy in the classroom. This may be the reason many good approaches, such as those described in the ISCS classrooms, sometimes do not survive. The first time using a new technique in teaching, even a good one, can be devastating, because one is inexperienced. Our first experiences with cooperative learning in a lecture hall were somewhat humbling. Students did not understand why we were asking them to work in groups in class and, even though reaction was generally positive, we received comments such as, "The problem with this class is that we do all the work, instead of the teacher." They did not get the point. It is not easy for either college faculty or high school teachers to be trained in new teaching methodologies and most of us never received training in teaching of any kind. Thus, we found it was important to support each other, so that we could get past the first year. The second year was a breeze by contrast, and then, as Ascanio DiPippo wrote, "The third time you teach a course you understand it!!" Discussion groups such as ChemConf have been very helpful and can serve as that support group when we are attempting to implement change. As Amy Phelps has said, "There is no _small_ change in a classroom." Thanks to Dudley for sharing that bit of pertinent history. Loretta Jones ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 10:01:57 -0400 From: Brian Tissue Subject: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses My paper hasn't generated much discussion so I want to throw out a couple of topics that I was hoping would come up eventually. I get the impression that some administrators are pushing technology into education because they think it will be more cost-effective than traditional teaching methods, i.e., they can replace personnel costs with hardware costs. My experience is that using computer technology actually creates more work for educators. I'm not a wannabe Luddite, I think chemistry graduates need computer and network skills, so the more computers we get in the labs the better. But if there are conflicting rationales among administrators and educators for applying technology, will these conflicts clash at some point? It's a reasonable assumption that faculty numbers, at least at state-supported institutions, will not keep pace with increasing student enrollment. If the extra time and effort required to use technology means that educators can teach fewer students, will administrators at some point say these computers are not saving us any money and we're not buying anymore? Assuming that doesn't happen, my second question is where has computer or network technology really worked well, either in terms of cost-effectiveness or learning effectiveness? If student-faculty ratios are going up, can technology used in the right places help maintain a reasonable level of education. The main reason I'm developing prelab assignments to replace prelab lectures is that I don't give prelab lectures. Spending lots of time on undergraduate teaching is Harry Caray (a midwestern variation hari-kari but much more painful) for assistant professors around here. I don't think the prelabs are as effective as me being in the lab, but reality is that I'm not in the teaching lab. The TAs do a reasonable job of getting the students through the labs, but not at a level of inquiry that a professor could force on the students. Interactive hypermedia has the capability to ask inquiring questions and provide some feedback. How well it can be integrated with other teaching methods to achieve effective learning I think is still an open question. Brian *************************************************************** Prof. Brian M. Tissue phone: (540) 231-3786 Department of Chemistry FAX: (540) 231-3255 Virginia Tech e-mail: tissue@vt.edu Blacksburg, VA 24061-0212 http://www.chem.vt.edu/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 12:25:23 -0400 From: AAHLGREN Subject: Re[2]: (Fwd) Lecture-free classes Please add to this reference list of helpful books the one I mentioned in an earlier posting without the publisher: J. Dudley Herron The Chemistry Classroom: Formulas for Successful Teaching American Chemical Society 1996 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 14:30:03 -0500 From: "Dr. David Ritter" Subject: Re: Loretta Jones' Comments about Cooperative Learning On Wed, June 19, 1996, Loretta Jones wrote: >On Tue, 18 Jun 1996, J. Dudley Herron wrote: >> These comments, which I liked very much, reminded me of my experience with >> the Intermediate Science Curriculum Study (ISCS), a laboratory-centered, >> individualized, self-paced science program for grades 7-9 that was developed >> in the 60s and is still used in some schools. > >Because the reform of curriculum and teaching tend to be cyclical, >perhaps it is time for another look at ISCS, with an eye to implementing >these ideas at the high school and college level. How can one get a look >at these materials? Or are there later versions available? > Many years ago (too many :-) ?) I spent a semester doing my student teaching in an ISCS classroom; it was a wonderful experience. I have thought for some time that the same self-discovery philosophy would work very well for a general chemistry program at either the high school or college. My vision for this would utilize an expert computer system in place of the ISCS textbook. Groups of students would work along a self-paced program of self discovery through the expert system. Each group of students would travel a somewhat different route based on their answer to various questions from the computer; these questions would be similar to Dudley Herron's questions that he described asking the ISCS students: what have they learned, what should come next, etc. Various excursions and enrichments similar to the ISCS program (would steal from Harvard Project Physics philosophies, too) would be available, and be implemented based on student questions, speed, performance, etc. Would this be interesting? Has computer and multimedia capability evolved far enough to do this? David Ritter Department of Chemistry Southeast Missouri State University c617scc@semovm.semo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 16:24:05 -0500 From: CHEMISTRY Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses Prof. Brian M. Tissue wrote: >My experience is that using computer technology >actually creates more work for educators. You have obviously put a lot of work and time into constructing your instructional web sites. Once constructed, however, they will require much less time to keep up to date. If one has sixty students in a class, answering sixty pieces of email can quickly become burdensome, both in terms of time and tolerable levels of tedium. With automated cgi or java programming, the computer can simply display a prelab-quiz score list for the instructor. In other words, the computer becomes the Teaching Assistant, but not the Professor. >The TAs do a reasonable job of getting the students through >the labs, but not at a level of inquiry that a professor could >force on the students. I agree that the combination of computer and Professor (via email) can produce a HIGHER quality educational experience than the physical presence of a half-educated and inexperienced TA provides. >I get the impression that some administrators are pushing >technology into education because they think it will be more >cost-effective than traditional teaching methods, i.e., they >can replace personnel costs with hardware costs. Some faculty fear instructional television for the same reason. The administrators I talk to speak about serving non-traditional students, who are too far from campus or are working during traditional campus hours. There are also benefits for faculty at smaller institutions, since their students can supplement limited local course offerings with courses offered by distance-learning techniques. >Spending lots of time on undergraduate teaching is >. . . hari-kari . . . for assistant professors around here. That is very sad. Maybe you need new administrators. ******************************************************* Gerald Morine, Chemistry Dept., Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Minnesota 56601-2699 USA gmchem@vax1.bemidji.msus.edu http://bsuweb.bemidji.msus.edu/~chemdept/home.html ****************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 18:06:50 -0400 From: reeves Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses But if there >are conflicting rationales among administrators and educators for applying >technology, will these conflicts clash at some point? It's a reasonable >assumption that faculty numbers, at least at state-supported institutions, >will not keep pace with increasing student enrollment. If the extra time and >effort required to use technology means that educators can teach fewer >students, will administrators at some point say these computers are not >saving us any money and we're not buying anymore? As an administrator/teacher trying to implement educational technology, I can tell you that dangers you suggest are real, and can only be remedied by having excellent teaching faculty become administrators, and direct the thrust in the introduction of technology. I think there are places where technology can help reach more students, so that a professor can lecture effectively to large classes, particularly if (s)he uses the new technologies effectively. But the overwhelming lesson of this conference so far is that small group interactions and active learning need to be incorporated into any strategy that hopes to do a better job teaching someone chemistry. For a dozen reasons, most already stated by other conference participants, graduate students are key candidates to work with these small groups, if they are taught to be teachers, and if they take their teaching seriously. Its my responsibility as a professor teaching a large class to interact with my students in small groups, and to interact often with my lab instructors/teaching assistants as well. It is our responsibility as educators of graduate student teaching assistants to see that they are given the teaching training and that they really spend half their time teaching (our TA's pay for 20 hours a week of our graduate students time with only six hours of that in the lab.) We always get into trouble when teaching is the thing we do to support ourselves, but research is how we really spend our time. By trying to make the teaching assignment as light as possible for graduate students, we are instilling that same screwed up ethic in them. I think that we can find a formula, involving graduate students and professors, that will serve more students better, and possibly even save the state a buck or two. But it will take a partnership of professors, graduate students, and possibly even community college and public school teachers to make it happen. And every one in the partnership has to see great teaching as one of their ultimate goals. Jimmy Reeves, Director The Center for Teaching Excellence University of North Carolina at Wilmington 601 S. College Rd. Wilmington, NC 28403 910-395-3034 910-350-4000 fax http:\\cte.uncwil.edu reeves@uncwil.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 23:15:23 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: p4,tjz,d,cost effectiveness/learning effectiveness Brian wrote " my second question is where has computer or network technology really worked well, either in terms of cost-effectiveness or learning effectiveness?" In reply. Since I started requiring students to do all pchem reports using spreadsheets and wordprocessing the quality has gone up. I mean quality in terms of treatment of data and understanding of concepts. When freed from the tedium of the repetitive computation and graphing students are more willing to redo their work and make sure it is correct. Furthermore the aesthetic aspect of computer prepared documents makes the process more enjoyable. This is important when attempting to keep students motivated. Brian also wrote " If student-faculty ratios are going up, can technology used in the right places help maintain a reasonable level of education." With respect to cost effectiveness there is an interesting essay at http://192.52.179.128/program/nlii/keydocs/massy.html The title is Using Information Technology to Enhance Academic Productivity By William F. Massy and Robert Zemsky a shorter version of this essay appeared in Educom Review, January/February issue 1996 p 12-14. In addition We are, after all, at the very beginnings of using the Internet for education. There was a wonderful experiment in this area sponsored by the Computers in Chemical Education Committee of the Division of Chemical Education. A brief description of the trial run that occurred in preparation for the Spring on-line undergraduate course can be found at http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/dpapers/flm_news.htm Finally, I must believe my eyes. In my experience most students enjoy working with technology especially upperclassmen and women. They respond to active learning sceanarios when they understand and see that it works. It takes time and energy from the teacher to get this across. Some are very responsive others only modestly so. If we want perfection we will have a long wait. Theresa ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 09:24:21 -0400 From: John Woolcock Subject: Re: P4 - JW - D -BT: The Role of WWW Materials in Courses Brian Tissue wrote: >My paper hasn't generated much discussion so I want to throw out a couple of >topics that I was hoping would come up eventually. I get the impression that >some administrators are pushing technology into education because they think >it will be more cost-effective than traditional teaching methods, i.e., they >can replace personnel costs with hardware costs. My experience is that using >computer technology actually creates more work for educators. I'm not a >wannabe Luddite, I think chemistry graduates need computer and network >skills, so the more computers we get in the labs the better. But if there >are conflicting rationales among administrators and educators for applying >technology, will these conflicts clash at some point? Absolutely, there will be (or alreay are?) conflicting rationales. Since many administrators (and faculty) are almost completely focused on the *delivery* of instruction, it is not hard to see why they might fall into the type of logical trap you describe. There are at least three major tasks in teaching: 1. instructional design: creating the materials and methods of instruction 2. selection and organization of instructional strategies for a course 3. instructional delivery and maintanence of the course The first task is only now being recognized as a legitimate part of faculty professional development and the second is usually placed under the label of "academic freedom". Until we demand that these other tasks become a formal part of our job description and reward structure (tenure, promotion, etc.) we will be placing ourselves in a no-win situation, making us appear obsolete in the minds of the individuals that control our salaries. John Woolcock IUP Chemistry Dept. Indiana, PA 15705 woolcock@grove.iup.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:07:59 -0400 From: Ray Johnson Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Reply to: RE>P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses Brian Tissue writes: >My experience is that using computer technology actually creates more work >for educators..... I am greatly impressed with the quality and quantity of the hypermedia that Brian has at his web site. I wondered if he might indicate the amount of time spent developing these materials and if he envisions the development of web sites where materials such as these might be collected for sharing by all interested faculty. This would keep us from "each having to reinvent the wheel" for the courses that we teach. It would greatly decrease each persons development time and encourage the use of hypermedia in teaching. Ray Johnson Hillsdale College ray.johnson@ac.hillsdale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 10:42:20 -0600 From: "John W. Moore" Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses Brian and others, Brian Tissue's comment included this statement: >some administrators are pushing technology into education because they think >it will be more cost-effective than traditional teaching methods, i.e., they >can replace personnel costs with hardware costs. This is an excellent point and one that I have worried about a lot. I agree that administrators may be interested in technology for the wrong reasons, and that it may result in problems later on. I guess my hope is that if enough good software and multimedia materials are developed by a few people who spend a lot of time, the materials can be used by a lot of people who will not need to spend much time to get them to work. Brian's materials are one example, there are lots of others published by JCE: Software. The web allows for much wider dissemination, possibly with less hassle for the user, and I think will help the problem. We are currently developing a set of multimedia materials for introductory labs that are independent of the specific lab being done but applicable to most of the techniques used in introductory (high school and general chemistry) labs. This will be available over the web eventually. I hope most people will be able to use it without spending more than a few percent extra time the first semester and little or no extra time after that. I think a lot of these materials address Brian's second point: >my second question is where has computer or network technology >really worked well, either in terms of cost-effectiveness or learning >effectiveness? If student-faculty ratios are going up, can technology used >in the right places help maintain a reasonable level of education. Of course my answer to this latter question is, yes--technology used appropriately can help maintain a reasonable level of education. Indeed it can improve education quite a lot. John John W. Moore Professor of Chemistry University of Wisconsin-Madison 1101 University Avenue Madison, WI 53706 Phone: 608-262-5154 FAX: 608-265-8094 Email: JWMoore@macc.wisc.edu World Wide Web: http://www.chem.wisc.edu/people/faculty/moore.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 12:08:54 -0400 From: Brian Tissue Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW >I am greatly impressed with the quality and quantity of the hypermedia that >Brian has at his web site. I wondered if he might indicate the amount of >time spent developing these materials and if he envisions the development of >web sites where materials such as these might be collected for sharing by all >interested faculty. This would keep us from "each having to reinvent the >wheel" for the courses that we teach. It would greatly decrease each persons >development time and encourage the use of hypermedia in teaching. > >Ray Johnson >Hillsdale College >ray.johnson@ac.hillsdale.edu I started writing hypermedia tutorials in Oct. 93 and have probably spent the equivalent of 1-1.5 calendar years developing the material. Several other contributors have added another 6-12 months of effort, and a half-time research assistant has been on the project for almost 2 years. Overall the educational tutorials represent approximately 3 person-years of work. I'll also add that developing stand-alone hypermedia is more like writing a text than developing lecture notes. The ability to share material over the internet is one of its greatest strengths. The question of who pays to maintain (not to mention develop) freely available material is still an open question. I moved the analytical chemistry hypermedia to a commercial service provider so I could solicit sponsors to try and make the site self-supporting. Whether or not this mechanism is viable remains to be seen. Some publishers I think are using a subscription model, based either on direct payment or associated with the purchase of a text. The related comment by Gerald Morine that maintenance of electronic material takes much less time than its initial development is true, but maintaining material in an electronic form will still take more time than updating lecture notes, etc. on paper. A figure that takes 1 minute to scribble down on paper takes much longer to produce on computer. I personally think the advantages of having teaching material in an easily distributed electronic form warrants the extra effort. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:20:14 -0600 From: Loretta L Jones Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses On Thu, 20 Jun 1996, John W. Moore wrote: > I guess my hope is that if enough good software and multimedia materials are > developed by a few people who spend a lot of time, the materials can be used > by a lot of people who will not need to spend much time to get them to work. My question is, if the materials are made avaliable through the web, how are those few people going to be supported by those of us who make use of the materials? What are the most promising avenues of fostering the application of talent to the production of needed materials and rewarding it? Must we increasingly depend on government grants? If so, will that reduce the availability of materials to choose from? Or are you imagining a subscription service for interactive materials? In that case, how will on-line journals differ from on-line instructional materials, or shall we see them begin to merge (for example, "Here are the animations we used---try them---and here are the results") Looks like that was more than one question! Loretta Jones ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 15:48:28 -0400 From: reeves Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses >My question is, if the materials are made avaliable through the web, how >are those few people going to be supported by those of us who make use of >the materials? What are the most promising avenues of fostering the >application of talent to the production of needed materials and rewarding >it? Must we increasingly depend on government grants? If so, will that >reduce the availability of materials to choose from? Or are you imagining a >subscription service for interactive materials? In that case, how will >on-line journals differ from on-line instructional materials, or shall we >see them begin to merge (for example, "Here are the animations we >used---try them---and here are the results") > >Looks like that was more than one question! > >Loretta Jones > Loretta et al, A colleague of mine (actually a former Chem Ed regular now turned Assistant Provost) commented that the work some of us do developing instructional technology applications parallels the work any researcher does developing and carrying out experiments, both in time and skill. If faculty could be convinced that a peer reviewed piece of instructional technology that appears in J Chem Ed is as valuable as any traditional peer reviewed article, we'd at least be rewarded with the usual academic carrots. It might be that a follow-up or companion article discussing the educational research done in conjunction with the use of the technology would be expected to ensure that J Chem Ed continue to archive it. Of course, this research need not necessarily be done by the author of the technology. I also think that under those circumstances, J Chem Ed would be within their rights to insist that documentation for the technology be included when the ed technology is published so that the reader can implement it reasonably easily. On a related subject, John Moore is probably right that the review process and associated record keeping, error checking, etc. makes a WWW Journal just as costly as a paper one. On line journals will have to charge subscription fees if they are to be of quality. And I believe that people will pay for quality on WWW, just like they do now in the print world. (Incidentally, doesn't the wealth of information (and misinformation) on the WWW only reemphasize the fact that our job is to help students learn to turn information into knowledge.) At UNCW, we have implemented some cost (and time) saving suggestions for the review process in the on-line journal "Effective Teaching" (http://cte.uncwil.edu/et/) which we're doing for the North Carolina Colloquy for College and University Teaching, a group with representatives from all sixteen campuses of the UNC system. The journal accepts articles on all aspects of educational research, and each article is peer reviewed by faculty from three different UNC schools. The process is a automated so that the reviewer can submit the review form electronically (CGI scripts), and the section editors have WWW based forms for the submission of materials. We'd certainly be interest in feedback and good ideas. Jimmy Reeves, Director The Center for Teaching Excellence University of North Carolina at Wilmington 601 S. College Rd. Wilmington, NC 28403 910-395-3034 910-350-4000 fax http:\\cte.uncwil.edu reeves@uncwil.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 14:09:55 -0700 From: Bob Bruner Subject: P4 - bb - related question: Web literacy I'd like to toss out a related but peripheral issue. At the moment we can't provide 'net access to all our students, so TISSUE's paper is premature. (If all goes according to plan, we will have 'net access last fall.) However, many of out students do have their own access. Further, we will probably be able to provide limited access before we get anywhere near the more sophisticated ideas of Tissue. What I'd like to do is to help our students discover that the WWW is a useful and interesting -- and complicated and confusing -- resource. My question is, How should we do this? I ended up preparing a 2 page handout with some suggestions for things to try. But as I developed this, I found it hard to decide what I really wanted. I certainly wanted to avoid making the web seem like just another place to look up answers. I wanted them to see some neat stuff. I wanted them to realize that the Web has its own complications, but has benefits. I also recognized that our students would approach the web with a wide variety of experience levels, and attitudes. My handout had several parts, with the suggestion to look it over and do whatever you wanted in any order. The parts ranged from fairly specific items (Go to this site, and look up... -- preferably with a little clicking on sub-pages required.) to very open ended (Find something interesting, probably using a search engine of your choice, and tell me what you found.) I did get some good feedback, but clearly only reached a few students at this time. I think I know some improvements for next year. However, I would like to hear others' experiences and suggestions. (I'd be happy to e-mail anyone the handout from last spring. Just specify whether you want ASCII text or a Word DOC file. ASCII should work fine.) Bob Bruner UC Berkeley Extension and Contra Costa College bbruner@uclink4.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 11:12:43 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses J Reeves wrote >Loretta et al, > A colleague of mine (actually a former Chem Ed regular now turned >Assistant Provost) commented that the work some of us do developing >instructional technology applications parallels the work any researcher does >developing and carrying out experiments, both in time and skill. If faculty >could be convinced that a peer reviewed piece of instructional technology >that appears in J Chem Ed is as valuable as any traditional peer reviewed >article, we'd at least be rewarded with the usual academic carrots. It >might be that a follow-up or companion article discussing the educational >research done in conjunction with the use of the technology would be >expected to ensure that J Chem Ed continue to archive it. Of course, this >research need not necessarily be done by the author of the technology. I >also think that under those circumstances, J Chem Ed would be within their >rights to insist that documentation for the technology be included when the >ed technology is published so that the reader can implement it reasonably >easily. Having served on and chaired our University wide P & T committee, pedagogical research and publication was counted as "research" when diseminated to and used by coleagues -- i.e. course notes sold to students did not count, but a textbook did, as did an article in a Refereed Jounal such as J Chem. Ed. -- materials published on the Web would have to be documented with monitoring software that they were being used by others as opposed to having hits from Search Engines. Tha is one problem with simple raw data on Web hits. I have a sumer student working on a program to automate mounting Chemical materials in Word, and Chem draw documen;ts to make it easier for faculty not wiching to be involved with HTML autohoring to put up teaching materials on the Web --- if it is on their computer it will be able to be done virtually automatically in a one step process - or that is the target - equations, chemical graphics and alland it is looking good so far. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Adjunct Professor of Computer Science Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1. Phone (905) 688 5550, ext 3402 FAX (905) 682 9020 e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca http://chemiris.labs.brocku.ca/staff/miller/miller.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 09:40:38 -0500 From: "David W. Brooks" Subject: Quizzing Scheme At 8:34 AM -0400 6/18/96, Brian Tissue is rumored to have typed: > > The web browser shows that the student has looked at > >all the pages, in the index, but that is not the same as showing > >that the student has mastered the information there. > > Perhaps one could force the student to go through a gate, > >a cgi-program-based quiz question, similar to those in the > >Pre-Labs, but at the end of each instructional web page. > >Passage through the gate could be displayed in the Index, for > >the information of the student, instead of simple presence at > >the web-page. > > Yes, some type of feedback is needed for any kind of stand-alone tutorial. > Self-evaluation questions are not the same as a discussion between student > and instructor, but they are better than no feedback at all. I think the > type of hypermedia design that you describe is possible using frames, cgi > programs, or JavaScript. > Brian Check out: http://www.cci.unl.edu/chau/chemtest1.html Take two or more quizzes (blank returns are OK) to see how they are handled. Then, for discussion, visit: http://www.cci.unl.edu/Chau/WebQuiz.html This is a demonstration project intended to show how the Internet can be used for various types of instruction. Please concern yourself with the process rather than the specific items; essentially no time was spend on question development. The pictures used, for example, happened to be available on the nearest Kodak Photo CD. This site continues under intensive development. Our current plan is to keep this cgi running 23 hours per day through July 12, 1996. Your comments will be appreciated. (Down time is the result of tuning the registration program.) (Copied this from a post to ChemEd. Thought it related to your comments. Would appreciate any feedback. Dave B.) David W. Brooks dbrooks@unlinfo.unl.edu 118 Henzlik-UNL (402)472-2018 Lincoln, NE 68588-0355 FAX (402)472-8317 http://www.cci.unl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 11:49:05 -0600 From: JWMoore@MACC.WISC.EDU Subject: Re: P4 - BT The Role of WWW Materials in Courses >On Thu, 20 Jun 1996, John W. Moore wrote: > >> I guess my hope is that if enough good software and multimedia materials are >> developed by a few people who spend a lot of time, the materials can be used >> by a lot of people who will not need to spend much time to get them to work. > >My question is, if the materials are made avaliable through the web, how >are those few people going to be supported by those of us who make use of >the materials? What are the most promising avenues of fostering the >application of talent to the production of needed materials and rewarding >it? Must we increasingly depend on government grants? If so, will that >reduce the availability of materials to choose from? Or are you imagining a >subscription service for interactive materials? In that case, how will >on-line journals differ from on-line instructional materials, or shall we >see them begin to merge (for example, "Here are the animations we >used---try them---and here are the results") > >Looks like that was more than one question! > >Loretta Jones Brian Tissue has alluded to a possible solution: use a commercial service and get some royalties back on the materials. This would be like publishing a book in the conventional print medium, I think. Another possibility is the one Loretta alludes to. Have a journal that collects these materials and maintains them. If necessary provide some rewards back to the authors so that they can continue to upgrade and develop the materials, but also maintain a staff that can stay completely up to date on electronic publishing media and can help authors to upgrade and maintain their materials. This is the JCE: Software model. For many of us there is little need for either of these models. We develop our own materials and find it easy to adapt materials from others to our purposes. However, my experience with JCE: Software is that there is a far larger number of people out there who need a lot of help with all of these functions, especially with regard to electronic media. They don't know whether something should work on their hardware. They don't know how to download viewers and plug-ins needed for Web materials. There are lots of things that will be very hard for them to do unless there are some readily available helping hands. They usually don't have a lot of colleagues to call on either. Thus I continue to believe that there is a major role for journals to play. You are not just paying for distributing materials, but also for a lot of support of those bold enough to try to use them without having a lot of background--which means most of our audience for such materials. That large audience is one of the main reason for producing electronic materials in the first place, so we cannot afford to ignore it. John John W. Moore Professor of Chemistry University of Wisconsin-Madison 1101 University Avenue Madison, WI 53706 Phone: 608-262-5154 FAX: 608-265-8094 Email: JWMoore@chem.wisc.edu World Wide Web: http://www.chem.wisc.edu/people/faculty/moore.html ------------------------------