Michelle Everson

1
Using Web Applets to Foster Active Learning
inthe Online Statistics Course

• Michelle Everson
• Department of Educational Psychology
• University of Minnesota
• gaddy001_at_umn.edu

2
Acknowledgements

• This work would NOT have been possible without
  support from the following people
• My colleagues Joan Garfield, Bob delMas, Andy
  Zieffler
• Initial idea for project came from an AIMS
  workshop, Summer 2008 (http//www.tc.umn.edu/aim
  s/)
• U of M College of Education Academic Technology
  Services
• Dr. David Ernst, Director of ATS
• Brad Hosack, New Media Developer
• Educational Psychology Department ChairDr. Susan
  Hupp

3
Background

• In the classroom, our courses often involve lots
  of activity and discussion on the part of
  students
• Many activities in the classroom are hands-on
  and involve the use of different manipulatives
  (e.g., Post-it Notes, coins, dice, Reeses Pieces
  candies, MMs, cookies, Gummy Bears, Pass the
  Pigs, etc.)
• As an online instructor, I have been interested
  in ways to replicate hands-on activities in the
  online environment
• One way to replicate such activities might be to
  create applets that simulate the hands-on
  experience

4
The Post-it Note Activity

• Students are broken into small groups of about 3
  or 4 (note that our typical class sizes are
  roughly 30 students)
• Each group is given a small stack of 10 Post-it
  Notes and a number line students use these
  materials to work through questions on an
  activity sheet

5
Student Learning Goals of the Activity

• Develop a conceptual understanding of the mean.
• Understand the idea of deviations (differences
  from the mean) and how they balance out to zero.
• Understand how these deviations cause the mean to
  be influenced by extreme values.
• Develop an understanding of the median as a
  middle value that is resistant to extreme values.
• Understand the differences between mean and
  median in their interpretation and properties.
• Understand how to select appropriate measures of
  center to represent a sample of data.

6
What the Activity Looks Like in the Classroom
7
Sample Questions from the Activity

• Move one Post-It Note to 24 years. How can you
  move one or more of the other Post-It Notes so
  that you keep the mean at 21 years? Is there more
  than one way to do this? Explain.
• Next, move all the Post-It Notes so that none of
  the ages are 21 years, yet the mean age is still
  21 years. Describe what you did.
• If you change one value so it has a deviation of
  -3, what do you have to do one or more values to
  keep the mean at 21 years?
• Now move all of the values that are above 21
  years so that each one has a higher value than it
  does currently. Did this have any effect on the
  median? Explain.

8
How might the activity be adapted for an online
environment?

• Given that it might be too much to expect
  students to purchase their own Post-it Notes and
  create their own number lines, we wanted to come
  up with other ways students could engage in this
  activity
• Initially, we tried using Fathom
• Online students were given instructions and
  questions to answer very similar to those given
  to classroom students, but online students
  manipulated dots on a dot plot in Fathom rather
  than Post-it Notes
• Students worked through the activity on their own
  and then shared their answers and discussed the
  activity in small online discussion groups

9
Replicating the Post-it Note Activity in Fathom
10
The Sticky Centers Applet

• http//projects.cehd.umn.edu/EdPsy/sc/

11
How we have used the applet in the online course

• Students are broken into small discussion groups
  (4 to 6 students)
• Students have one week to discuss assignments
  with their group
• For this particular assignment, students
• Use the applet on their own and post their
  answers to a series of questions in their
  assigned discussion group by Wednesday at 10
  p.m..
• Come back at least twice to the discussion and
  comment on the thoughts and ideas posted by their
  peers (and answer any instructor questions) in an
  effort to arrive at a group response for the
  assignment
• One group member summarizes the group response
  and submits the summary to the instructor by the
  following Monday at 10 p.m.

12
Our next project.

• Is there a way we can design an applet that will
  lead to rich online discussions that involve
• Talking about the basic elements of experimental
  design
• Considering factors that lead to within groups
  and between groups variability
• Exploring ways to graph and summarize data in
  order to compare groups
• Discussing how a two-sample t-test can be used to
  determine if there is a significant difference
  between groups
• In the classroom, we might use the Gummy Bears
  activity (Cobb Miao, 1998 Scheaffer,
  Gnanadesikan, Watkins, Witmer, 1996) to
  introduce many of these ideas to students. Can
  we somehow create a Gummy Bears applet???

13
The Gummy Bears Applet