Engaging Students in New Ways of Learning Candace Thille, Director OLI Carnegie Mellon University

It’s all about student learning! “Learning results from what the student does and thinks and only from what the student does and thinks. The teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.” —Herbert Simon

OLI Brief Review A set of strategies for course design, development, delivery and evaluation to create student-centric virtual learning environments (VLEs) that significantly improve learning. –Environments are developed by teams with complementary areas of expertise. –Use Learning Science to focus design on Robust Learning –integrate diagnostics of student learning into VLEs to provide extensive real time data.

Engage for Procedural Fluency StatTutor Engineering tutor Physics intelligent tutor Stoichiometry tutor Physics tutor

Engage for Conceptual Understanding Chemistry virtual lab Economics Experiments Biology Simulator Proof Lab Causality Lab Engineering Simulations

Key: Feedback Loops for Continuous Improvement

To Foster Engagement, Instructors Need An Easy Way To… Identify students who are having trouble with particular concepts Predict students’ learning outcomes Discern what students are doing to foster their own learning Detect common misconceptions Reveal murkiest points from lecture Assess students’ depth of understanding

A Recent Example OLI Accelerated Learning Study –Blended Mode – 15 week course in 8 weeks Instructor used rudimentary instructor feedback report system to: –Reveal murkiest point –Identify misconceptions –Coach students on effective learning practices

The OLI students completed course in 8 weeks with 2 class mtgs/week. Traditional students completed the course in 15 weeks with 4 class mtgs/week. OLI & traditional students spent the same amount of time in a given week on Statistics outside of class The OLI students gained much more (on the CAOS test) than did the “traditional controls” No significant difference in retention between OLI students and traditional students in tests given 1+ semesters later. “Accelerated Learning” Results

Additional Analyses of Engagement Data: Log file analyses of Students’ type, frequency and spacing of engagement in the online material over the course of the mini- semester vs. overall performance Practice Effects: Students’ (self-selected) amount of practice at a given topic related to their performance on corresponding topic – (positive dose-response effect) Spacing Effects: Overall performance is significantly worse for students with the most inconsistent practice.

End of Course Student survey for accelerated online: 85% Definitely Recommend 15% Probably Recommend 0% Probably not Recommend 0% Definitely not Recommend

Quotes Student Quote: "This is so much better than reading a textbook or listening to a lecture! My mind didn’t wander, and I was not bored while doing the lessons. I actually learned something.“ Instructor Quote: “The format [of the third study] was among the best teaching experiences I’ve had in my 15 years of teaching statistics.”

Significant Difference in Improving Learning OLI Statistics –Accelerated Learning Study: increased learning gain in ½ the time (8 wks/2x wk vs 15 wks/4x wk) OLI Logic –Community College Accelerated Learning Study: Increased Rigor, Increased Content, Decreased Drop-out rate. OLI Chemistry –Actions in Vlab outweighed all other factors including gender and SAT score as the predictor of positive learning outcome.

CDM