Understanding and Promoting Interaction in the Classroom

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Understanding and Promoting Interaction in the
Classroom
UNIVERSITY LEVEL

• Ph.D. Defense
• Steven A. Wolfman
• Computer Science Engineering
• University of Washington

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The Blackboard

• in the winter of 1813 '14 I attended a
  mathematical school kept in BostonOn entering
  the room, we were struck at the appearance of
  an ample Black Board suspended on the wall I
  had never heard of such a thing before.
  Samuel J. May, 1855

BENEFITS successful ed tech CHALLENGES few such
successes LEVERAGE PNT public mediating
artifact BIG EXCEPTION PowerPoint
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Mediating Artifact Vygotsky

• An external object or structure that
  participates in cognition by supporting or
  shaping thought.

Vygotsky thought is social DISTRIBUTED COGNITION
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Slides as Mediating Artifact

• In the classroom
• facilitate communication
• structure discussion
• Outside the classroom
• used as memory aid
• used as study guide
• Across terms
• reify course knowledge

Persistent context for communication!
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Thesis Question
How can computer technology exploit the mediating
nature of presentation slides to support and
shape interactive learning and teaching?
UNIVERSITY LEVEL
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Research History
Distance Large Class Studies
ClassroomPresenter
ClassroomFeedbackSystem
Gestural Modelof Ink
Feedback Patterns
Structured Interaction Presentation system
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Design Experiment Methodology Brown
Theoretical framework
Class studies
Systemdesign
Evaluation user-centered design
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Outline

• Introduction
• Classroom Presenter
• Classroom Feedback System (CFS) and feedback
  patterns
• Structured Interaction Presentation System (SIP)
• Conclusions

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Classroom Presenter Goals
PETTT studies suggest like organization /
preparation

• Maintain strengths of slideware (organization,
  preparation, sharing, execution)
• Mitigate weaknesses of slideware(inflexibility,
  immobility, passivity)
• Secure classroom adoption
• Prepare for more ambitious systems

Prelim studies indicate need flexibility/context
ual writing
Explore slides as mediating artifact
Response to dist stud INK in CONTEXT TRANS
benefit from separating views (fract med art)
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benefit from separating views (fract med art)
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Instructor view with notes
Displayed view without notes
COMPARE WRITTEN NOTES WITH INK!
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Innovations from User-Centered Design

• Instructor notes
• Filmstrip and slide previews
• Whiteout
• TV Talk Show Tablet
• Collective brainstorming

Flexibility/interaction enabled by
exploiting SEPARATION OF VIEWS, INK IN CONTEXT,
SLIDES AS MED ART
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Classroom Deployments

• Surveyed since Spring 02
• 37 courses
• 21 instructors
• 2,000 students
• CSE courses introductory to Masters level
• UW, U. of Virginia, U. of San Diego

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Survey Results

• Positive comments and repeat use by instructors
• Instructor survey N 9
• Student surveys N 479

Omits all project participants.
Students engaged in lecture 0 less 44 no change 56 more
Use in future 0 no 33 maybe 67 yes
Attention to lecture 10 less 35 no change 55 more
Encourage future use 8 disc. 22 neutral 69 enc.
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Contributions (Presenter)

• Combined strengths of slides w/increased
  flexibility, mobility, potential for interaction
• Developed features that exploit slides as
  mediating artifact
• Ink in context
• Separation of views
• Secured broad adoption
• Established basis for student extensions

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Outline

• Introduction
• Classroom Presenter
• Classroom Feedback System (CFS) and feedback
  patterns
• Structured Interaction Presentation System (SIP)
• Conclusions

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CFS Goals

• Understand challenges to interaction
• Develop system exploiting slides as mediating
  artifact to respond to challenges
• Evaluate impact of feedback system
• Understand how feedback system changes interaction

NOT FOCUS today.
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Challenge to InteractionFeedback Lag
A student hesitates to pose a question until the
instructor finishes a point. When the instructor
moves on, the question seems out of place and is
left unasked.
EVIDENCE Survey/focus group responses (3/12 in
pilot 5/11 in final) Lagged questions in video
archives Personal experience
TRANS built CFS in response to challenges WE
identified like this one
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Leaving Feedback on Current Slide
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Leaving Feedback on Last Slide
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Instructor View
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Retrospective Feedback
So, did it work?

• Students response (n12 7 sessions 150
  students total)
• 29 episodes of retrospective feedback
• CFS helped all who reported feedback lag
• Instructors response
• Retro. feedback is important often responded
• Retro. feedback upset pacing

Imagine n150!
Adoption lessons for classroom tech. Not enough
retrospect
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Prospective Feedback

• What if a student leaves feedback ahead of the
  discussion?

if Im smooth enough the class will just think
Oh, hes going to talk about that now. To
them, heres something that for some reason I
decided to talk about towards the end of the
slide.
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Prospective Feedback Episode
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Contributions (CFS)

• Identified interaction challenges
• Proposed slide context as interaction medium
• Developed contextual feedback system
• Established potential for student feedback
• Discovered novel interaction patterns
• retrospective feedback addressing feedback lag
• prospective feedback enabled by
  computer-mediated communication

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Outline

• Introduction
• Classroom Presenter
• Classroom Feedback System (CFS) and feedback
  patterns
• Structured Interaction Presentation System (SIP)
• Conclusions

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Conductor-of-Performances Model

• Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)
  has been a move from sage-on-the-stage to
  guide-by-the-side.
• New CSCL systems will be much more like the
  conductor-of-performances for an orchestra
  students will contribute to an overall
  performance.
• Roschelle Pea

Leader-of-theater?
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Goals of Structured Interaction Presentation
System (SIP)
Support the design, use, sharing, and reflection
on the orchestras score.
interactive exercises rich student data

• Mitigate slides passivity, oversimplification
• Maintain intuitive, flexible design
• Explore enabled interactions
• Understand how integrated exercises affect the
  classroom

w/PPT-style design widgets
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EXPLAINING SIP by example Experimental class on
Risk Assessment 24 students 50 minutes 6 SIP
exercises Took 1 hour to convert static gt
interactive Designed INSIDE PPT USING SIP, etc.
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SIP Architecture
Presenter SIP exercises
Presentation design environment
Instructor view
SQL back-end for reliability/archival reuse.
Presentation/Widgetdatabase
Viewer scrnsht
Viewer scrnsht
Interactive widget designenvironment
Viewer scrnsht
Student views
Pluggable widgets. Support interactive version of
PPT vision.
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REMIND exercises from experimentalclass REAL
DATA
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REMIND exercises from experimentalclass REAL
DATA
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Distributed Human Computation (DHC)
Of those who died from receiving the vaccine,
what percentage had compro-mised immune systems?
What are the death rates for specific groups who
received this vaccine?

• Are these on the same or distinct topics?
• Which would you rather discuss?

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DHC Results Instructors View
Group winners
Group members
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Experimental Class Results

• Interaction analysis (video/audio/logs)
  substantial engagement by students
• Student survey results
• Factors supporting interaction highlights
  particular strengths of integration
• Factors hindering interaction highlights
  important design lessons

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Interaction Analysis
98 participation in SIP exercises 4-7
interactions reported/student (median) 3 recorded
voicings/student (72 total)
68 K-12 norm
teacher talk
(62)
student talk
(15)
studentdiscussion
(13)
studentthinking
(5)
other
(5)
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Factors Supporting Interaction (n18)
78 cited supporting factors EXCLUDING NOVELTY
Category students
Sharing responses w/ whole class 39
Participatory feel 33
Novelty 22
Anonymity 17
Forced to participate 17
Helps follow instructor 11
Neighbor discussion 6
None 6
Did not respond 6
anonymity encouraged honest participation I
felt as though I didnt have much choice but to
participate I think this is a good thing.
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Factors Hindering Interaction (n18)
50 cited aspect hindering interaction
Category students
None 56
Distracting applications 22
Distracted looking at my slides 17
Did not respond 11
Reduced coverage 11
Lack of student control 11
Pace too fast 6
Pair discussions 6
Anti-climactic exercise 6
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Contributions (SIP)

• Proposed score as role of slides as mediating
  artifact in orchestra CSCL model
• Developed prototype SIP system
• Designed novel interactive exercises (e.g., DHC,
  sampled quiz)
• Identified advantages and pitfalls of integrated
  interactivity

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Conclusions

• Developed and evaluated widely-adopted Classroom
  Presenter system
• Developed and evaluated Classroom Feedback System
• Developed and evaluated Structured Interaction
  Presentation System
• Demonstrated how to exploit slides as mediating
  artifact across all three systems (e.g.,
  separated views, contextual feedback, forced
  participation)

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Related Systems
DISCUSS HOW CP/CFS/SIP FIT IN

• Ubiquitous Computing
• eClass/Classroom 2000 Abowd Brotherton
• ActiveClass Griswold, Ratto, Truong, et al.
• Cell-phone feedback Brittain
• Education/Educational Technology
• ClassTalk Dufresne
• Debbie/DyKnow Berque
• WILD Roschelle Pea
• HCI Pebbles Myers

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Related Pedagogy

• Active learning Bonwell Eison
• Active learning in CS McConnell
• Classroom Assessment Techniques CATs Angelo
  Cross
• CATs in CS Schwarm VanDeGrift
• Collaborative Learning Johnson Johnson

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Acknowledgments

• Richard Anderson and the Committee
• Rachel Pottinger
• Education and Educational Technology Group
• Microsoft Research LST Group
• Experiment participants
• Faculty, staff, and students of UW CSE
• Intel, MERL, Microsoft, and NSF for funding
• Everyone

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SPARES
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Modern Pedagogy vs. Modern Practice
WARNING overgeneralization, but borne out by
research
Opportunity for audience participation?
active learning
lecture
student-directed
instructor-dominated
interactive
disconnected
participatory
passive
80-90 lectures Thielens, 1987
Many ways to resolve tension reduce class size,
retrain instructors, etc. QUOTE ON RQ SLIDE
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Pedagogy of Active Learning

• Encourage connected learning
• Constructivism Bruner
• Social learning Lave
• Recapture flagging attention
• Attention studies Stuart Rutherford
• Heart rate/memory Bligh
• Skin conductivity Picard
• Address varied learning styles
• Index of Learning Styles Felder Silverman
• Blooms taxonomy

Smiley plot
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Large class challenges
Bruner (constr.) Lave (soc. Learning) Attention
studies Stuart Rutherford Heart rate/memory
Bligh Skin conductivity Picard ILS Felder
Silverman Blooms taxonomy

• Maintaining attention
• Communication/Feedback
• Spontaneous discussion
• Management of class activities

CFS 2.4 voicngs/class, 90-120 studs
Tech problems in distance
Our experience McConnell
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Slides as Externalization/Mediating Artifact
Saljo the significance of new technologies does
not lie in their enhancing learning in a linear
sense the important point about new technologies
is that they, if they are powerful enough,
transform basic features of how people
communicate knowledge and skills in society and
how information is organised. In this sense, new
media may imply that learning will become
different. Technologies are ultimately about the
regulation and improvement of human relationships
Draw mental arith paper and pencil mem Elec
calculator --alg communicates in familiar
symbolic representation HK Jade market comm
burden
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CP
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Slideware Strengths/Weaknesses

• Strengths
• Organization PETTT
• Preparation PETTT
• Sharing Bligh
• Easy execution Bligh

• Weaknesses
• Passivity PETTT
• Simplified ideas Tufte
• Inflexibility VanDeGrift
• Immobility

Preliminary studies indicated instructors needed
flexibility and contextual writing
PETTT studies suggest students like organization
and preparation.
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Slide previews with navigation
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CFS
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Design Experiment Brown

• Discover what inhibits interaction
• Understand what makes a good design
• Design intervention
• Evaluate

PIPE DREAM! Iterative process in particular, Ann
Browns design experiment style Still, will
address the steps in this order.
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Feedback on Student View
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Instructor View (2/3)
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Instructor View (3/3)
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CFS Evaluation
Final evaluation iteration

• Intro. programming course, summer 2002
• 150 students, 12 participants w/laptops
• 9 week course, 3 weeks with CFS
• Data observations, surveys, focus groups,
  interview w/instructor, logs

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CFS increased interaction
Voicings pre-CFS Voicings with CFS All inter-actions All but Got it
per class 2.4 2.6 15.9 7.9
p-value .91 .04 .14
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SIP
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REMIND exercises from experimentalclass REAL
DATA
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TRANS DESIGN
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Experimental SIP Class

• Topic Risk Assessment
• Duration 50 minutes
• Students 24, CS stud-ents, faculty, staff, each
  w/a Tablet PC
• Presentation included six SIP exercises.

• Results
• System successful
• 98 participation in SIP exercises
• 4-7 interactions per student (median)
• 62 teacher-talk

Took 1 hour to convert static gt
interactive Designed INSIDE PPT USING SIP,
etc. 62 T-T (compare to 68 K-12 norm) Median of
3-5 interactions through SIP
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Design Lessons

• SIPs integrated exercises create participatory
  feel
• Students social expectations support
  participation
• SIP anonymity policies should be easy to specify
  and understand
• Student interface should present few distractions
• Student interface should provide clear value
  (independent navigation and notetaking)
• Instructors must still motivate interactive
  pedagogy

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