Transcript Technology and a New Teaching Paradigm

Michael Sullivan
Joliet Junior College
[email protected]
www3.jjc.edu/staff/msullivan/Default.htm
“Fortune favors the prepared mind.”
-- Louis Pasteur
“The advancement and perfection of
mathematics are intimately connected with
the prosperity of the state.”
-- Napoleon
“The illiterate of the future will not be
someone who cannot read, it will be
someone who cannot learn, unlearn, and
then relearn.
-- Alvin Toffler
Factors Contributing to Attainment of
a Bachelor’s Degree While in
College
A proxy for
preparedness
of high school
student
Socioeconomic
Lowstatus
credits
first year. Did
the student
earn less than
20 credits in
First-year
the first year?
gradesdummy
variable (0 or
1). A 1
indicates the
student’s
grades are in
the top two
quintiles.
A proxy for preparedness
of high school student
Socioeconomic status
First-year GPA
Whether one attends
Number
of credits
earned
multiple
schools
in asummer
school
Ever
part-time
student
Total number of college
math credits
Were grades
rising, falling,
or flat over time
Enrolled
continuously?
Did student
repeat or
withdraw from more than
20% of courses?
Students are not studying enough!
 Median of 49 minutes per hour of credit in Intermediate Algebra
 Median of 44 minutes per hour of credit in College Algebra

An Investigation of Student Habits in Mathematics Courses
 First-year full-time students are spending a mean of 13.3 hours and a
median of 13.5 hours per week preparing for class (studying, reading,
writing, doing homework or lab work, analyzing data, rehearsing, and
other academic activities)
 National Survey of Student Engagement
Retention Matters
 78.4% of all awarded Bachelor’s degrees had less than 10% of all
attempted courses become drops, withdraws, or incompletes.
 6.7% of all awarded Bachelor’s degrees had more than 20% drops,
withdraws, or incomplete
~ Answers in the Tool Box
 At Joliet Junior College, between Fall, 2006 and Spring, 2007, our
retention rates (A, B, or C), ranged between 47.5% and 52.5% in the
Intermediate Algebra course.
Our students need to be inspired!
 In 1966, 4.6% of high school seniors who took the SAT were interested
in mathematics as a major. Today, it is less than 0.6%.

The Employment Picture
• To compete in the global economy of the 21st century, knowledge of
math is critical. In today’s changing world, employers seek critical
thinkers and practical problem-solvers fluent in today’s
technology.
 U.S. Department of Education

“The challenge facing the U.S. now is twofold. On one hand,
the country must breed more top-notch mathematicians at
home, especially as foreigners find greater opportunities
abroad. This will require revamping education, engaging
more girls and ethnic minorities in math, and boosting the
number of students who make it through calculus, the
gateway for math-based disciplines. “It’s critical to the future
of our technological society,” says Michael Sipser, head of
the mathematics department at MIT. At the same time, school
districts must cultivate greater math savvy among the
broader population to prepare it for a business world in
which numbers will pop up continuously. This may well
involve extending the math curriculum to include more
applied subjects such as statistics.”
“Math Will Rock Your World” by Stephen BakerBusinessWeek, January 23, 2006
An Overarching Goal of Education
 The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how
to learn and change. ~ Carl Rogers
 It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it. ~ Aristotle
 If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life. ~ Plato
 In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he
made school boards. ~ Mark Twain
Kolb Learning Styles
Concrete Experience

•
Empathetic and "people-oriented."
•
Find theoretical approaches to be unhelpful and prefer to treat each situation as a unique case.
•
Learn best from specific examples in which they can become involved.
•
Oriented more towards peers and less toward authority in their approach to learning
•
Benefit most from feedback and discussion with fellow CE learners.
Abstract Conceptualization

•
Analytical, conceptual approach to learning that relies heavily on logical thinking and rational evaluation.
•
Prefers things and symbols over people.
•
They learn best in authority-directed, impersonal learning situations that emphasize theory and systematic analysis.
•
They are frustrated by and benefit little from unstructured "discovery" learning approaches like exercises and simulations.

Active Experimentation
Enjoys active learning that relies heavily on experimentation.
Learn best when they can engage in such things as projects, homework, or small group discussions.
Dislike passive learning situations such as lectures. These individuals tend to be extroverts.



Reflective Observation

•
Rely heavily on careful observation in making judgments
•
Prefer learning situations such as lectures that allow them to take the role of impartial objective observers.
•
Tend to be introverts.
 Concrete Experience
 Prefers specific examples; does not like
generalizations; prefers information from peers, not
instructor
 Abstract Conceptualization
 Hands-on activities that require thought, prefer to
work alone
 Active Experimentation
 Enjoys small group discussions; experimentation;
does not like lecture
 Reflective Observation
 Lecture, reading, traditional homework
Take the “Index of Learning Styles
Questionnaire” by Barbara Soloman and
Richard Felder of North Carolina State
University
http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html
Lecture
5%
Reading
10%
Audio Visual
20%
Demonstration
30%
Discussion Group
50%
Practice by Doing
75%
Teach Others/Immediate Use
80%
Adapted from The Learning Triangle: National Training Laboratories, Bethel Maine
©mindServegroup 2005
• The Treisman Model
 Study alone to develop skills
 Come together to hone and verify skills

Flash video or podcasts
Lecture at Home
Example
Using SCORM to report results





http://www.virtualpublishing.net/scorm2/scorm2.html
Online Homework Systems
• Increased retention rates and success (A, B, C) rates
• Increased success rates in subsequent courses


Group worksheets
Activities

Personal Response Systems
•
•
•
•
Increased attention
Increased attendance
Increased retention
Verify that students are watching videos
True or False
The median is a resistant measure of central
tendency.

Draper and Brown
• Students are twice as likely to attempt to construct an answer to
a question using a PRS compared to a question that required
them to raise their hand.
 University of Missouri
•
In General Chemistry the percentage of A’s increased from
23% to 40% and the percentage of C’s and D’s decreased from
34% to 21%.
 Eidenhoven University
•
Pass rates are less than 60% in traditional courses, while pass rates
in courses using Personal Response Systems is 80%.
 Rice Paddies and Math Tests
• European farming versus Chinese Rice Paddies
 Feudal farming versus autonomous rice paddies
 Low-incentive work versus be a success or don’t eat
 Eighteenth century European farming (about 1200 hours of work
annually)
 Rice paddies (about 3000 hours of work annually)
• Naming Numbers
 English: 24 is “twenty-four”; Chinese: 24 is “two-tensfour”
 Find thirty-seven plus twenty-two
 English: Convert to symbolism (37 + 22), then find 7 + 2 and 30 +
20, ultimately get 59.
 Chinese: three-tens-seven plus two-tens-two
Russian Proverb: If God does not bring it, the earth will not give it.
Chinese Proverbs:
In winter, the lazy man freezes to death
If a man works hard, the land will not be lazy.
No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a
year fails to make his family rich.
In a study entitled “Task Persistance in
Japanese Elementary Schools” by
Priscalla Blinco, it was found that
Japanese first-graders spent an average
of 13.93 minutes trying to work a difficult
puzzle, while American first-graders
spent an average of 9.47 minutes.
Apply yourself both now and in the
next life. Without effort, you cannot
be prosperous. Though the land be
good, You cannot have an abundant
crop without cultivation.
-- Plato
“You are not here merely to make a
living. You are here to enable the world
to live more amply, with greater vision,
and with a finer spirit of hope and
achievement. You are here to enrich
the world. You impoverish yourself if
you forget this errand.”
--Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the US
• Adelman, Clifford. 2004. Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories
in Postsecondary Education, 1972 – 2000. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department
of Education, Institute of Education Sciences
• Adelman, Clifford. 1999. Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity,
Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor’s Degree Attainment. Washington D.C.:
U.S. Department of Education
• Cerrito, Patricia B.; Levi, Inessa. An Investigation of Student Habits in
Mathematics Courses. College Student Journal. Dec. 1999, Vol. 33 Issue 4
• Deal, Ashley (2007) Classroom Response Systems: A Teaching with
Technology Whtepaper. Carnegie Mellon University.
• Draper, S. and Brown, M. (2004) Increasing interactivity in lectures using
an electronic voting system. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 20, 81 –
84
• Treisman, Phillip Michael (Uri) (1985). A study of the mathematics
performance of black students at the University of California, Berkeley.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.