Transcript Homework in class and lecture at home? Experience with

Homework in class and lecture at
home?
Experience with active learning in
engineering
Ron K. Cytron and Cindy M. Grimm
Computer Science and Engineering
Washington University
How did we get here?
• Ken Goldman (on leave at Google)
– CPATH funding from NSF
• Olin College of Engineering
– Highly collaborative environment
– Problem-focus, knowledge-based inquiry
– Lynn Stein’s visit to our department
• WU art/architecture studio courses
– Peter MacKeith
– Observation of studio format
• Keith Sawyer
– Conversations about teaching modes
How did we get here?
• CSE is a naturally collaborative discipline
– All programs that could be written by one person have already
been written
• Collaborative nature not apparent in school
– Single-person assignments
– Dire warnings about inappropriate collaboration
– Little to foster communication and interpersonal skills until late
in the curriculum
• Real-world demands collaboration
• Collaboration attracts underrepresented groups
– Juan Gilbert, Auburn (ACM speaker on this topic)
– Brochures featuring geek computer scientists working solo in
are a big turn-off
How are we different?
• Olin College is new, could rethink curriculum from the
ground up
– No service community (calc, intro cs, etc.)
– Holistic engineering programming
• Funded to develop new modes of teaching
– Faculty research not emphasized
• Students  Olin College
– Up front about active learning, knowledge-based inquiry
– Unique admissions process
• 250 applicants chosen as finalists (end of January)
• They visit and participate in design project and team exercises
(Feb/March)
• Yield of 84 this past year
How are we different?
• Existing and successful program
– Diverse service community (artsci, b school, eng)
• CPATH funding modest compared to Olin
• Students  WU
– Faculty buy-in, unexpectedly successful
– Students largely unaware of our new approach when
they apply
– Only vaguely aware of the approach when they arrive
– Only half our students are CSE when they arrive
Adaptation of the Idea
• Lecture is rarely interactive, especially with large
classes
– If one-way, why not shift “lecture” to time outside of
class?
– Lectures recorded online allow flexibility and review
• Use class time for problem-solving sessions
– Students collaborate and work with professor/TA
supervision
– Professors observe process, not just product
Nice idea, but…
• Many students were not watching the lecture prior to attending
class
– Mix of prepared / unprepared students
– Collaborative work awkward
• Remedy: short in-class quiz over lecture material.
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Students watch lecture before class
Professor reviews material briefly, asks for questions
Quiz given
Collaborative problem solving ensues
• Some students felt new structure is unfair
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3 unit course
3 contact hours as scheduled
Required watching of video, also 3 hours, outside of class
Remedy: regulate overall commitment
CSE 131/132 experiences
• Large (210 students Fall 09) intro course
• Old format: What
Who
When
Time
Lecture
Prof
4x a week
4 hours
Lab
TAs (ugrad)
2x a week
3 hours
Help session Prof
1x a week
1 hour
What
Who
When
Time
Lecture
Prof
1x a week
1.5 hours
Studio
Prof/TA
1x a week
1.5 hours
Lab
TA
1x a week
1.5 hours
• New format:
Studio sessions
• Students arrive, form groups of 2-4 people
• Physically arranged so they share a display
– Large displays in our new studio space
– Use multiple regular computers in old space
• Studio script provided
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Checkpoints with TAs
Interactions with other groups
Document and turn in findings
TAs/prof evaluate group performance
• No a priori expectations about how far a group will go
– Depth and exploration emphasized over quantity
Group formation: one bad approach
• Mix strong and weak students in the same
group
– Strong members will help the weak members
– Provides “teaching moments” for some
– Encourages learning from peers
• Result: frustration
– Strong students want to push ahead
unencumbered
– Weak students feel lost, inadequate
Group formation: a better approach
• Aim eventually for students of like abilities in
the same group
• Difficult to do this right the first time, so…
– Let students form groups on their own
– Provided basis and encouragement for switching
groups in subsequent sessions
• Students have an almost pheromonal ability
to seek compatible studio partners
Observations from 131 studios
• Awkward first session
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18-year olds
First week of college
~30 students in each studio section
Prof felt like “cruise ship social director”
• Second week
– Some switches in groups, most stay put
– Only one or two students who needed extra help getting
situated
• By third week
– Students show up prepared
– Students waiting for team to arrive
Observations from 131 studios
• 2008 course evaluation, specific question “How useful
were the studio sessions for this course?”
– 14 “not useful”
– 36 expressed mixed reaction
– 37 expressed favorable to strongly favorable reaction
• 2009, question was accidentally dropped, but students
volunteered information:
– 2 expressed mixed feelings
– 10 expressed strongly positive feelings
• “Best thing about the class”
• “Working with others”
• “Supplementing lecture material”
CSE 431
• Upper-level software course, 26 students
• Students (and professor) had no prior studio
experiences
• “What did you like most about the course”
– 7/11 mentioned studio
• Studio sessions
– Planned after course began
– Took the place of a lecture slot
– Held as needed, not on a regular schedule
CSE 431
• Sessions were initially very collaborative in nature
• Students approached prof, saying
– Collaboration is OK
– Want some element of competition
• Next studio featured competitive element
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Design given for a component
Tests given to measure component correctness
Test given to time the component’s performance
Times posted throughout the studio session
Winning team earned Coldstone gift certificate
Very exciting studio session!
• Students loved this
Quasi-Evaluation
• Exam scores
– Similar exams, compare per-question
• Evaluations
– Unfortunately, lost 4 useful questions
• Student interviews
– External evaluator (Mark Tranel)
• Follow-on cpath grant (Amherst, Univ of
Oregon)
– Active learning in a wide variety of classes
All studio, all the time (cse320)
• Focus is on design, implement, test, reimplement
– Real problem (student driven)
– Group work
• Students are responsible for:
– Devising own grading scheme/sharing of work
load
– Critiquing each other
CSE320 format
• Two 1 ½ hour sessions per week
– Lab time(1/3)
– Design discussions
– Student-student evaluation
• Designs
• Code
• Functionality
– User studies
What works
• Bi-modal response
• Most really like – 1-2 usually hate
• Like the fact that they implement something
“real”
• Develop good appreciation for
– Good design
– User studies
– Team work
What doesn’t work
• Student-student evaluation
– Not critical enough
• Re-implementation
– Finding right incentives for students to fix what’s
wrong
• Bad group dynamics
– Same group all semester, hard to fix
• I need a psychology degree…
CSE241/240/441
• Logic, data structures, algorithms
– Difficult material to understand
– Large (40-80) students
• Shift some, not all, lecture to pre-recorded
• In class exercises
– Best is walk them through data structure/proof,
present to class for critiquing
• Time consuming
What works
• Designing data structures or physically
implementing algorithm
– Have students sort themselves by their last name
• Recorded lectures
– Useful to have around; need to be
indexed/cleaned up
What doesn’t work
• In-class exercises tend to look like homework
– Students unclear as to usefulness
• Very slow going
– 10 times slower for students to derive algorithm
• Exam scores approximately the same
• Course evaluation scores same or lower
Depends a lot on instructor
• How they teach material
– Focus on proofs or on applications
• Lecturing style/skill
– Easier for some people to do a really good lecture
Better evaluation
• Hard to know where students are learning
material
– Lectures? Homeworks? Studying for exams? Study
groups?
• Different learning modes
– Skill sets very different amongst students
Where are we going?
• Refine use of active learning exercises in entry
level courses
– 240 first time
• See how skill sets of students change
– Already see a big change in how comfortable
students are with designing their own problems
– Might make group/design work easier to
incorporate in upper-level courses