Transcript End-user Education and Outreach: Teachers and Students

End-user Education and
Outreach: Teachers and
Students
Maggie Niess, Pejmon Sadri, Kwangho Lee & Gogot Suharwato
Science and Mathematics Education
Oregon State University
[email protected]
End-Users: Teachers from previous summer
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Followed to the classrooms
Barriers to teaching about spreadsheet design and dependability
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Difficulty handling students with access to hands-on use of technology;
Lack of school technical support;
Lack of access to technology - labs used for testing (NCLB emphasis);
Technical requirements when incorporating technology;
Lack of problems and ways to integrate into curriculum.
Supports for teaching about spreadsheet design and dependability
– School support and encouragement from others such as the principal;
– Access to computer labs;
– More practice working with students and working with the technology in
mathematical lessons.
End-users: Middle School Girls
First Spreadsheet Experience
• Saturday Academy
Hurricane Katrina
Problem
– Design playhouses for
playgrounds destroyed by
Hurricane Katrina
– Cost must be within the
amount donated: $500,000
– How dependable is your
spreadsheet?
What happened in just 2 hours a quick glimpse!
QuickTime™ and a
MPEG-4 Video decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
What the girls said after the class…
• Majority liked working with the hands-on model building activity
with the spreadsheet lesson.
• None found the spreadsheet work confusing.
• Wanted more work with spreadsheets - where they could create
the spreadsheets from scratch to solve problems.
• They were mixed (half yes-half not sure) concerning interest in
computer science as a career.
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/sci_mth_education/euses/
Focus: Curriculum
Focus: Teaching students
Follow-up to classroom
The one week course…
Focus on Designing Problems
Goals for the Course:
Spreadsheet Scaffolding, Teaching
Strategies, and Assessing Students
• Design lessons that teach both the
science/mathematics content and
about spreadsheet design (dynamic
and dependable).
• Use spreadsheets as tool for
extending problems; dynamic
spreadsheets require students to
learn about designing dependable
spreadsheets.
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Don’t embed values
Use built in formulas
Reference cells in formulas
Understand absolute vs. relative cell
referencing
Teachers Designing Problems to Guide Student
Learning Math/Science With Spreadsheets
QuickTime™ and a
MPEG-4 Video decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
What the teachers said…
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I envision integrating spreadsheets throughout the school year by starting with some very
simple ones and then building up the students' skills so they can use more and more
intricate spreadsheets.
If it weren't for this program, I wouldn't even know what a spreadsheet was! Because of this
program I now feel like an "expert" within my school. I have been asked to chair the math
department's integration of spreadsheets for the school. Through using excel last year, I
found that kids were really excited about math and I felt like I gave them a tool that they
can use for the rest of their life.
I feel that I have a stronger understanding of how spreadsheets can be applied to lessons
in my classes. There were several examples introduced throughout the week long course
that will help me in developing my own lessons. I especially liked the M&M lab and have
thought of several lessons that I relate this to.
It has provided me with material to use, spreadsheets I can use with students to begin
scaffolding their learning of math to spreadsheets. It demonstrated to me how easy it can
be to get the spreadsheet to do the basics yet it has the power to allow for very complex
applications. I think its going to actually be easier to integrate my math curriculum with
spreadsheets than I had earlier thought.
This program has shown how to use examples that are more aligned with student
experiences to scaffold the stepping stones that reach more difficult concepts that may be
more unfamiliar to students.
The two-week course
 investigated designing and scaffolding needed to
incorporate dependable spreadsheets in exploring
math/science problems
 worked in the EUSES lab with the prototypes
 taught the Harry Potter Saturday Academy class
Teaching Students about Dynamic and Dependable
Spreadsheets using a Harry Potter Theme
Hermione’s Magic Square Problem
1. Place the numbers 1-9 in
the cells so the sum of all
rows, columns and
diagonals is 15
2. Create this spreadsheet
• Emphasis on dynamic
spreadsheets
• Entering formulas in cells to
do calculations
• Discuss importance of
dependable spreadsheets
3. Create a 4X4 magic square
Hogwarts Expansion
What should the new
Hogwarts houses
look like?
– Castles?
– Fortresses?
Emphasizing Testing of
Spreadsheets in EUSES Lab
• Explored gradebook
spreadsheets, investigating
the formulas used to do the
calculations
• Searched to correct errors in
a similar gradebook using
the WYSIWYT prototype
Harry Potter Class Website
New Student Creations
Final Problem!
1. Create the
formulas
2. Change the quantities
Pay Attention
to this
Spending Limit
Guiding Students Learning About Designing and Working with
Dependable Spreadsheets
QuickTime™ and a
MPEG-4 Video decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Guiding Students Learning About Designing and Working with
Dependable Spreadsheets
What the teachers said…
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My main vision of implementation is to make spreadsheet use an integral part of my lab
activities. This will include instruction as well as student use. The resource cards are labs
that I am already doing, so it will be easy to implement spreadsheet instruction from the
very beginning of the school year.
I see the spreadsheets as being much more versatile than I realized. I did not realize the
dynamic nature of it and how that could be used to ask a variety of "what If" questions. This
makes exploring the math and science much more interesting to the students and gives
them practice in more complex reasoning skills.
I am really excited to use the spreadsheet tool in my classroom. Telling a
computer what to do and seeing it happen right away is empowering. I'll take
any opportunity for my students to experience instant success with their
science education. Turning numeric data into visual data is so developmentally appropriate
for junior high kids. Using spreadsheets to analyze information is
really going to work in my classroom!
This class has made me see that getting spreadsheets is something that can be
done with a wide variety of lessons. There are several things that I really
want to do in my class, and I feel like I am more equipped with how to get
students up to the skill levels that they need. When using the lab in the
past, I was always apprehensive about students abilities with the computer, and
now I feel more equipped to teach them the skills they need.
So? What’s Next?
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Follow teachers to the classrooms to gather data about the teaching with and
about spreadsheets
Creating a Teacher Resource link for the EUSES website
Collaborate around learning spreadsheets and CS preparation - with:
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Oregon Pre-engineering and Applied Sciences Initiative (OPAS)
Engineering and Technology Industry Council (ETIC)– Computer Science Task Force
Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA)
Presentations: AMTE, NCTM, …+ others
Papers on the research
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Professional development for teachers to learn to integrate design of dependable
spreadsheets and creating dynamic spreadsheets to ask “what if” questions
Integrating spreadsheet problems in teaching mathematics and science
Case studies of teachers developing TPCK
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Teacher resources for teaching