This project is a partnership with the College of DuPage and Chicago State University to expand and improve on the use of innovative research-based educational techniques in order to maximize knowledge gains for the broadest student base.
In-class interactive engagement techniques, including electronic polling systems, also called clickers or voting machines (VM), are being used increasingly at colleges and universities throughout the world, and are offered by publishing companies as an adjunct to their textbooks. It has been demonstrated that such techniques engage students, but little has been done to develop and assess strategies for their use.
Intellectual Merit: This project is to develop question sequences that fully exploit VM technology and to conduct systematic research to evaluate their effectiveness. This project is based on the theoretical framework that learning is context dependent. Applying this idea in a series of preliminary studies, an effective method for formative use of VM in lectures has been identified. Each concept is incorporated into a sequence of VM questions with different surface features. The emphasis of the proposed research is to develop and assess question sequences using research-based methodologies and then establish a framework, making it easy for teaching faculty to use this new approach. The goal is to improve students' conceptual knowledge of physics by using VM to increase student interactivity and as a means of exposing students to concepts in a variety of contexts.
Outcomes are: (1) improved student learning in a lecture environment; (2) comparison results based on diverse student populations and class sizes; (3) approximately 135 VM single-concept question sequences that are tested and shown to be valid and reliable; (4) additional question sets developed to address specific misconceptions; and (5) a VM user's guide. Through workshops, interactive web sites, a "how to" VM manual, and working with significant numbers of instructors, the project is developing faculty expertise.
Broader Impacts: The project is developing research-based question sets and constructing a database of learning gains based on their usage that will advance discovery and understanding in the field of STEM education while promoting teaching, training, and learning. Collaboration among a community college, a Ph.D.-granting institution, and an undergraduate institution with approximately 96% minority students ensures student diversity. The project assumes a leading role in developing physics education research-based material for the modern electronic lecture classroom, and is disseminating results via non-technical literature and websites in order to reach the broadest educational audience. There are plans for commercial publication.
