Development of an Integrated Local/Distant Mathematics Instruction Program: A Progress Report Paul Eakin Department of Mathematics University of Kentucky

The work described here is a collaboration among: 4 Dan Chaney 4 Paul Eakin 4 Carl Eberhart 4 K.K. Kubota 4 Mike McKenna 4 Mary Bond 4 Jody Fast 4 Laura Spencer The developers freely share the software, texts, instructional materials, methodologies, etc. produced in this project for non-commercial educational or instructional use.

Development Strategy: 4 Develop on-campus versions of courses which employ the distance learning tools and techniques intended for distance learning 4 Unify DL and on-campus instructional development

Advantages: 4 Permits DL development with “safety net” 4 Provides conventional course as reference frame for comparison 4 Spreads development cost over both local and distant instruction programs.

Program Philosophy as Aphorism: If we can’t make it work locally we have no hope of making it work at a distance

Implementation Strategy: 4 Take a large enrollment course and develop “on-campus” distance learning version 4 Add/modify technology incrementally 4 Compare results, costs to concurrent conventional course and make certain two experiences are fully equivalent 4 Don’t offer off-campus until on-campus issues arising on-campus are fully resolved

Development Platform:Ma semester hour intro calculus course 4 General studies course 4 Approx 1200 students per semester in sections of about 35 first-day enrollment 4 Course generally not considered a success –poor success rate (over 30% dropout or fail) –poorly prepared students –low student/faculty satisfaction

Ma123: Fall “traditional sections” of about 30 –taught by TA’s, PTI’s, and Faculty 4 7 experimental sections of about 30 –taught by 2 faculty and 2 TA’s 4 Instructors were volunteers, students were not.

Fall 1999 Format: Traditional 4 Commercial hardbound text ($70) 4 Undergraduates employed as homework graders ($350 per section) 4 3 (uniform) midterm examinations plus final 4 Class meets three hours per week of formal lecture by instructor

Fall 1999 Format: Development 4 “Free” text (html, softbound copy from bookstore ($6) ) 4 web-based homework system 4 formal lectures on Internet and CD 4 3 (uniform) midterm examinations plus final 4 class time (3 hrs per week) used for recitation, collaborative work, ad hoc lectures at instructor’s instruction

Current Results in Ma123: 4 Quite comparable 4 first test (algebra review) disaster. 4 Second test very high grades 4 No improvement in drop rate

Results (continued) 4 weaker students have lot of trouble with video-based lectures (compliance) 4 Strong correlation scores/attendance/compliance 4 High level of acceptance, success among compliant students

Description: 4 Student View 4 Faculty User View 4 Materials Development Process

Primary Student Interface: Instructor’s Web Page 4 syllabus 4 links to html text 4 links to chat system and FAQ systems 4 links to “WQS” system for course materials (e.g. homework, review materials, video lectures, etc)

Student Interface: Instructor’s Web Page (part 1) System tutorial Course syllabus Visual class rolls Exam schedule

Class Roll:

Instructor’s Web Page (part 2) Link to wqs system server Student s from homework system with responses Links to lecture notes for video lectures

Responses to Student Questions: Page references particular assignment Student query Instructor response

Instructor Web Page (part 3) Link to online text Link to wqs system Links to lecture slides for video lectures by chapter

WQS System: current login screen Students select video lectures menu or their class homework menu Group logins and work are encouraged

Typical Section Menu Chapter 1 homework Review for test II

Homework Page: Current Format Problem and answers System response window Student answer System answer

Most students print the problem sets out and record their solutions or solutions from class directly on the printouts

Video Lectures Menu Lecture Slides (html) Video of lecture segment (10-30 min)

Other Materials: Test Review with Video Solutions

Other Materials: Test Review with video solutions Problem statement with diagram Link to video solution

Data Logs 4 Every student action is logged with time stamp 4 All activity credited to each member on group login 4 Total number of answers submitted (right or wrong) correlates very well with performance on tests

Log Data

WQS Video 4 Materials prepared by faculty 4 conversion to ASF and formatted by grad students and staff 4 lectures by faculty and graduate students 4 separate video and homework (original system) 4 converting to merged text/homework/video

Graduate Student Editing Video Files

WQS CDs 4 Natural corollary of HTML format –easily made at faculty desk, cheap 4 Originated through necessity 4 Strongly favored by upper-level students who tend to live off-campus 4 Not used much by lower level students who tend to live on campus

WQS and Video Lecture Materials Preparation 4 Materials developed by faculty using a variety of standard tools (e.g. Maple, LaTeX, Perl). 4 Individual item described by a file called “data” in directory specific to item. It describes how construct the item. 4 locations of item directories placed in control file called wqs-dirs which is known to the wqs server and describes the section menu page

Faculty Preparing Materials coffee food CD burner and blanks

Maple Source: Homework Problem Question Tag:( Q_ ) “SKIP” Tags Answer Tags: ( A_ ) Correct Answer Tag

To create and “post” a simple wqs homework set: 4 Source document is exported to html from Maple menu 4 exported html document is processed by Perl script to: – create a file which describes the final document to the server –make an entry in a control file owned by the document creator which the system uses to locate the item and build the course menu

The “data” file which describes the final document These correspond to tags in source document These correspond to segments of html in exported document which were delimited by the tags

Sharing Materials: Paul made homework set number 7 Ken made homework set number 8

Laura’s Ma123 Control File

Other Experiment: Linear algebra 4 Same system 4 Use standard text (Strang) 4 4 of 6 sections (one at community college 200 miles away) 4 Instructor there helped make videos in summer 4 Works very well –excellent compliance –to date results as good or better than traditional

Control File for Joe Mahoney’s Paducah, KY Section of Ma322 Carl Eberhart created the homework for the Ma322 sections

Joe Mahoney and Avinash Sathaye did Videos for MA322

Sharing: 4 Instructor A can use instructor B’s entire menu simply by copying B’s control file (with permission) 4 Instructor A can use any item in instructor B’s menu simply by copying the corresponding entry from B’s control file (with permission) 4 In either case student will be routed to A and activity logged to A’s students

Planned changes for Spring Re-written, expanded text as multimedia document including homework, videos, reviews, etc. 4 Continuous reporting of log data to students, 4 Full sets of CDs available to students in advance

Unified Format: LaTeX math formatting Video link

Web homework is part of text in unified format

Unified Format 4 Puts all services (text, video lecture, homework, reviews, etc.) on one page 4 Moves “login” to end of process: gets students immediately to the subject matter 4 Nicer text through use of LaTeX 4 Shorter video segments 4 Development more complex

Paul Eakin Department of Mathematics University of Kentucky Lexington, KY

Pictures/slides 4 Copies/scanned of a set of student wqs homework 4 page from book