Module 7,8,9

I apologize for the lapse. I had a TUES proposal due yesterday and ended up burning the candle at both ends to get it in.

Class, however, has gone on. I continue to be extremely impressed with the way OLI gets my students to think and to bring questions to class. At the beginning of my career I have textbook reading assignments before class. It didn't take many years to realize nobody was doing them. Nor did I as an undergraduate. Thus I had to change my approach to teaching - teach as if no reading has been done.

Now we have OLI -Statics. It is better than any textbook - has moving simulations and is interactive and has a tracking component in the "my responses" and the quizzes. So now the students do the advance work -- and it is powerful as a stage in the student learning.

Here is aggregate feedback for the last 3 modules:

What do you know now about your students’ understanding of this material that you did not know before? Much - they have pinpointed their areas of misunderstanding both on the quiz problems and in the modules.

Based on this information, what do you plan to do, if anything? The question and answer session from each day has been started with a 5-10 minute response by me to the students. Followed by their follow up questions. Each of these three days we ended up at the smart-board with the quiz answering specific details.

Is there other information that would have been helpful to you? No

Were the quiz results helpful? _ scale 1 to 5 "4-5"

Were the students’ My response input helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 "4-5"

Was % completion helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 still very poor

Module 6 Feedback

What do you know now about your students’ understanding of this material that you did not know before? Overall students understood couples better from this module than from my past teaching.

Based on this information, what do you plan to do, if anything?

For those who still had issues (~40%) the problems centered on Where do couples act, Where do you calculate couples about, and How do you calculate the couples?

My plan is to give a test at the beginning of class on 2D eq of an object with a couple on it and have them solve for reactions. After the test, we will identify that those two forces do in fact make a couple and then move it all over to see what the effects are on the reaction forces.

Is there other information that would have been helpful to you? No

Were the quiz results helpful? _ scale 1 to 5 5

Were the students’ My response input helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 5

Was % completion helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 2

module 5 Reaction

This is the module where students turned their frustration on to OLI. They felt the module was too long with too much information and too confusing. I have to agree with them. They got lost in the forest.

To recover we had a long discussion about learning. That it takes struggle, takes reading, takes time, takes different views, and takes being able to classify what we do and don't know. We put OLI in perspective as a tool in the process that the student owns and not as the end all.

What do you know now about your students’ understanding of this material that you did not know before? They got frustrated with the amount of information in the module.

Based on this information, what do you plan to do, if anything? Have a discussion on the context of this tool and its advantages over a text book.

Is there other information that would have been helpful to you? No

Were the quiz results helpful? _ scale 1 to 5 4

Were the students’ My response input helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 5

Was % completion helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 2

Reaction to Module 4 Feedback

What do you know now about your students’ understanding of this material that you did not know before?

Their trouble spots:

Breaking forces into components

Calculating Moments

Signs

Based on this information, what do you plan to do, if anything?

We spent the first hour of class practicing many examples of breaking forces into components and calculating moments. Students came to the realization that what seemed difficult actually wasn't very.

Is there other information that would have been helpful to you?

Nothing other than better accuracy in %completion.

Were the quiz results helpful? _ scale 1 to 5 "5"

Seeing the trouble areas then putting the quiz on the projector and showing students the work is extremely helpful.

Were the students’ My response input helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 "5"

It is in this section that I see the verbal needs of the students. It drives the first hour discussion.

Was % completion helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 "1"

This option doesn't work very well. For instance a student can go all of the way through the module diligently, enter comments into my response, and still see %completion as 0%.

Reaction to Module 3 Feedback

What do you know now about your students’ understanding of this material that you did not know before? I was able to come up with a list of trouble areas. In descending order of frequency:

*calculating moment arm

*rotational vs translational

*cw vs ccw

*new terminologies

*tendency to rotate

Based on this information, what do you plan to do, if anything?

have discussion on each area and show examples

Is there other information that would have been helpful to you?

no

Were the quiz results helpful? _ scale 1 to 5 "4" quiz average was 65 % most errors on calculating moment arm

Were the students’ My response input helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 "5"

Was % completion helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 "3" everyone completed so I guess that is good

Day 2 Class Reaction

Quiz - Gave students a multi-system body and asked them describe interactions between various subsystems and to draw an FBD for one of the subsystems.

q-n-a:
1. checked their OLI-Notebook - some students went way too far in depth, others not enough - used Goldilocks parable to try and get everyone in right direction ( I am looking for ~ 1 page of highlights plus questions per module)

2. discussed sense vs. direction and discussed springs gave examples of each

3. put module 2 quiz on screen and answered questions

Quiz - had students draw fbd for subsystem from quiz (they all neglected interaction between pulleys and whatever is supporting them)

Middle hour:

Local entrepreneur presented on wind turbines and an idea to build towers out of 6 foot members in an octahedral shape that would not require a crane to assemble. We listed all of the design constraints and design objectives then decided we need to be able to analyze forces at many different points on tower. (we need some tools to do this)

Last hour:

3-D equilibrium of a point was discussed and an example done in class. Made connections to 2D equilibrium and to our needed knowledge for the tower project.

Used ppt presentation made by Anna and Paul for module 3. Used clickers. This went well. Had two places where students evenly split. Then went to group discussion before voting again. I feel like this is very useful and appropriate as a setup for module 3.

Homework:

OLI Module 3 - Record muddiest point in my response
3D equilibrium problem handout of a radio tower - find force in the three guy wires.

What do you know now about your students’ understanding of this material that you did not know before?

The two muddiest points are student confusion between sense and direction and spring/cable force direction and place on FBDs.

Based on this information, what do you plan to do, if anything?

I will discuss both of these issues in the q-n-a session and make a point of coming back to the topics later for reconnection.

Is there other information that would have been helpful to you?

not really

Were the quiz results helpful? _ scale 1 to 5 3

Were the students’ My response input helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 4

Was % completion helpful? __ scale 1 to 5 -- Not seeing it in report yet.

Initial Feedback on Reports - Misleading % Incorrect

I am a little confused on the quiz feedback. As you can see this question at the time I copied it, had 19 respondents. There are 3 parts. For these parts there are a total of 19*3=57 possible responses. There are 5 incorrect responses. The percent incorrect is 5/57 = 8%. Yet the feedback to me in this page and on the report in general is that there are 21% incorrect. This is misleading. The five incorrect responses are being counted against only 19 possible rather than 57 possible.

The issue is exacerbated in problem 2. As you can see the feedback is that there are 53% incorrect responses. Eek how bad are the students doing? Well not that bad... There are only 11 incorrect responses out of 54 possible.

May 17, 2010 Modules 1 and 2

I am teaching statics in a 14 day May-block. There are 31 students in the class. The framework for the class is OLI. Each day there are 3 hours of class.

Hour 1:
*Cumulative Test (15 mins)
*Q n A from previous night's OLI modules (30 mins)
*Quiz from just discussed material (15 mins)

Hour 2:
* Statics Fun - Finding real life ways to learn and interpret statics

Hours 3:
* New statics application - Fundamentals of Engineering type problem (20 mins)
* Prepare for tonight's OLI using Anna Dollar's power-point presentations

For each student we have a pre-test on the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ).

Each day I will blog about my reaction to the OLI interface feedback and any other pertinent thoughts.

Ron U