Wireless Notebooks as Means for Fostering Active Learning in Higher Education Miri Barak The Department of Education in Technology and Science, Technion Chais-Conference 2006

Many thanks to: d'Arbeloff Fund Prof. Lerman, Director of CECI Dr. Judson Harward

The Masters' Voices™ project - Ford Motor Company's Active learning at MIT PIVoT, the Physics Interactive Video Tutor TEAL- Technology Enabled Active Learning Project 1.00 – Studio- classes

By the beginning of the 20th century, active learning was widely promoted among progressive educators like John Dewey (1924). Active learning puts the responsibility of organizing the learning in the hands of the learners (Keyser, 2000; Niemi, 2002). Active learning Active learning environments encourage students to be engage in solving problems, sharing ideas, giving feedback, and teaching each other (Johnson, Johnson, and Smith, 1998; Towns and Grant, 1997).

Wireless laptops in education Benefits: Increasing students’ motivation and collaboration, Strengthening connections between disciplines, Improving students’ problem solving skills, and Promoting academic achievement. ( Barak, Lipson, & Lerman, 2006, Mackinnon & Vibert, 2002; Siegle & Foster, 2002).

However, The characteristics of the laptop users might limit or even reverse academic performance (Grace-Martin & Gay, 2001). Although the use of portable computers had a positive effect on students’ science achievement, it did not have a positive effect on achievement for English and Mathematics (Gardner, Morrison, Jarman, Reilly & McNally, 1994).

Wireless laptops Active learning Project-1.00 Short lectures Short lectures [10-15 min] Short exercise Short exercise [10-15 min] Studio-classes

Wireless laptops in the studio-classes  an easy and convenient hands-on computing experience in a large lecture hall setting,  enabling immediate implementation of new programming concepts or procedures taught in class,  providing an immediate feedback from both the IDE program and the instructors. Enabled the implementation of the studio format in a large lecture hall setting by enabling the integration of lectures, tutorials, and laboratories.

Research goal Investigate the effect of studio-based instruction on undergraduates’ learning outcomes and conceptual understanding 171 students 171 students (N fall =73, N spring =98) Introduction to Computers and Engineering Problem Solving Research Population

Research instruments 1. Pre-test investigate students’ prior knowledge in programming. 2. Problem sets - investigate students’ ability to solve programming problems. 3. Quiz and final examination (post-test) - investigated students’ learning outcomes. Academic Index - MIT entrance scores. Students’ attendance - classes participation.

Students’ learning outcomes: Establishing their relative improvement Hake’s normalized gain equation (Hake, 1998) p<FSD Mean Mean N Studio-class attendance Low (<80%) High (>80%)

Factors that may predict students’ ‘relative improvement’ pβSDMeanPredicting variable Studio-class attendance (on a scale) Problem-set scores (on a scale) Academic index (on a 0-50 scale)

Students’ class attendance and their relative improvement by academic index Relative improvement Studio-class attendance Academic index High (N=95) Intermediate (N=76) N=171

Students’ conceptual understanding Conceptual questions required students to explain a phenomenon and provide examples or strategies to support their answer. Quiz: What is round-off error? Please give one example that demonstrates its significance. Exam: There are situations or specific sets of data that can make an efficient algorithm or data structure give atypically inefficient or incorrect performance. Please describe at least two examples and strategies to remedy the problem in both cases.

Low attendance High attendance Conceptual question p>p>FSDMeanSDMean Quiz (0-5 points) Final examination (0-10 points) ANOVA of students’ conceptual question scores, by studio-class attendance

High attendance students presented complex, in- depth, and thorough answers High attendance Low attendance

Multiplicity – diverse ways for representing knowledge High attendance

Studio-based instruction supports the four domains of pedagogy: Cognitive – students are offered an array of content and information sources; Operative – students are encouraged to use laptops and the IDE program for composing lines of code; Affective – the large number of instructors provide support and enhance positive attitudes; Social – the informal environment promotes interactions among students and instructors. Summary Laptops should be employed in class only for directed purposes

מירי ברק International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation (IJMLO) It is not the technology but how we choose to use it!