Transcript Power Point Slides for Presentation

Impacts of Peer Educators on Student Learning
Presented by: John W. Burton
Exploring Science in Our World:
The Power of Water
An interdisciplinary science course
Fulfills General Education Goal 6
Topics include: hydroelectricity, climate and
weather, evolution, chemical composition,
thermal expansion, density, the scientific
method…and much, much more!
Peer Teaching Assistants
The Fall 2004 Power of Water PTA’s
John Burton, Brandon Taylor
Kathleen Shaw, Stephanie Martin
Not Pictured: Rachel Poore
Duties of the PTA’s




Attend weekly staff meeting
Attend weekly lab meetings
Be available to students
Host bi-weekly help sessions (Peer Assisted Learning Sessions –
PALS)
 Collect data on effectiveness of PTA program
Methods
 Issue random 3-digit identification numbers
 Surveys
 PALS Exit Survey
 PTA PALS Exit Survey
 Supplemental Evaluation
 Compile the data from surveys into Excel combined with coded
information on students’ grades
 Data Analysis
(Interesting) Results
 Approximately 58.8% of the entire class attended PALS at least
once.
 100% of the class were aware that a help session was available
How much time did the PTA’s spend with
students?
Histogram of Estimated time with student
25
Percent
20
15
10
5
0
0
12
24
36
Estimated time with student (in minutes)
48
Probability Plot of Estimated time with student
Normal
99
Mean
StDev
N
AD
P-Value
95
90
Percent
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
5
1
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
Estimated time with student
60
70
23.88
15.86
38
1.514
<0.005
Did having PTA’s in Lab Sessions increase
likelihood of attending PALS?
Lab 01 – 0 PTA’s (Control)
Lab 02 – 3 PTA’s
Out of all students with recorded data to attend PALS:
From Lab 01 – 43%
From Lab 02 – 57%
Out of the students who attended PALS more than one time:
From Lab 01 – 37.5%
From Lab 02 – 62.5%
How did the PTA’s affect student understanding of
course topics?
Relationship betw een PTAs' perceived im pact on student learning and students'
perceptions thereof
5
4.5
Student rating of impact
4
3.5
Pre PALS
Post PALS
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1
2
3
PTA rating of im pact
4
All of this is very interesting, but how did the
PTA/PALS system affect important things (like
grades)?
Let’s let X be defined as the final grades of the
students who did not attend PALS at all.
Let’s let Y be defined as the final grades of the
students who attended PALS at least once.
We want to compare mX and mY.
Let’s look at the data:
Values for X (non-PALS)
Values for Y (PALS)
.822222
.797037
.813333
.751852
.684444
.699259
.883704
.760741
.762222
.217778
.695556
.785926
.745185
.812593
.702963
.877037
.745185
.715556
.865185
.831111
.747407
.76889
.625926
.843704
.668889
.74963
.792593
.997037
.825926
.772593
.88963
We’ll use a 2-sample t-test to compare.
For our hypothesis test of the differences of means we will
say:
Ho: mX = mY or mX – mY = 0
Ha: mX < mY or mX - mY < 0
Average for X (X-bar)= .739
Average for Y (Y-bar) = .7924
P-value for hypothesis test: 0.114
Final Grades of Non-PALSvs. Final grades of PALS
1.0
0.9
Final Grade
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
Final Grades of Non-PaLS
Final grades of PALS
Conclusions…
Questions/Comments?
1) How did the PTA’s maintain the anonymity of
the students in the class?
Answer: By using random 3-digit ID numbers
2) What General Education Goal number can the
Power of Water class fulfill?
Answer: Goal Number 6, Natural Sciences