April 06, 2006 WIPTE 2006, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

Classroom Presenter –A Classroom Interaction System for Active and Collaborative Learning

Richard Anderson (UW), Ruth Anderson (UVa),

Oliver Chung (UW), K. M. Davis (UW),Peter Davis (UW), Craig Prince (UW),Valentin Razmov (UW), Beth Simon

(UCSD)

My Goals

InvolveInform

Inspire

Outline Background and motivation

Pedagogical goals

The Classroom Presenter system

Why technology and pen-based input help?

Activities illustrating different pedagogical techniques that technology can support

Impact on students and instructors

Beth Simon to discuss Ubiquitous Presenter

Student Attention vs. TimeAttention

10 20 30 40 50 60 Time

Pedagogical Goals Active student involvement and

interaction in class Learning by doing

Real-time feedback to instructor on the level of student understanding To allow adjustment of material or speed

Give students a stake in their learning Integrate student examples into the

classroom discussion Acknowledge the contribution of diverse

viewpoints

Background:Classroom Presenter

Distributed classroom interaction system Built for use with Tablet PCs

Two main classroom usage scenarios: Presentation tool – instructors annotate slides

in ink (and save it), or use as a virtual whiteboard

Engagement tool – instructors pose problems (on slides) that students respond to by writing on slides and submitting this work anonymously

Classroom Presenter is freely available for educational purposes

Classroom Deployments

Classroom setup: Computer Science

undergraduate courses at Univ. of Washington

15-30 Tablet PCs used Instructor supplied

tablets Wireless environment Public display

Courses in: Software Engineering Digital Design Data Structures Algorithms Tablet PC Computing

Capstone CS Education

Seminar 4th grade Math

Other Deployments UCSC, UMass, Virginia Tech, MIT,

etc. Using student submissions

UCSD Ubiquitous Presenter

Elsewhere Widespread use as a presentation

tool

Supporting Pedagogical Goals: Breaking the Ice, Engagement

Why the Technology Is Key Gives instructor instant access to content

from a broad range of students … not just from the few vocal students Increases instructor’s awareness of student ideas

Enables instructor to immediately integrate student content into the lecture discussion Using actual examples of student work improves

feedback Gives students a stake in constructing new

knowledge Public display becomes a medium for sharing ideas

Doing all this anonymously

Why Pen-Based Input Is Key

Flexibility Some disciplines and some activities

naturally need the ability to sketch in free form

Architecture, Math, East Asian Languages, etc. Difficult to support without a pen-based input

device

Personal expressiveness Individual handwriting conveys more than

typed text does

Supporting Pedagogical Goals:Discovery, Eliciting Misconceptions

Deception can be present Ah-ha moments

“I have never understood this before – but it is obvious”

Important to have all students work on the example

Supporting Pedagogical Goals:Feedback to Instructor on Student Understanding

Supporting Pedagogical Goals:Active Learning

Supporting Pedagogical Goals:Brainstorming, Diversity of Opinions

Supporting Pedagogical Goals:Hearing Student Ideas, Closure

Unsuccessful Activities

Distinguishing Aspects from Related Work Anonymity of student work

Classroom Presenter is designed strictly for feedback in class, not for evaluation

Student submissions In ink: a rich free-form expression Non-aggregated Instructor mediates which student

submissions the class can see Critical role of the public display

Strong emphasis on UI simplicity

Observations onParticipation Rates and Behavior

Observations based (primarily) on data taken from two of the latest courses

Percentage of students present who submitted their work Min: 11%; Max: 100%; Average: 69% Note: Participation is optional!

Some students would do the work without submitting

Resubmissions (with enhancements) are common

Observations on Display-Related Behavior

On average, 6.15 student submissions were displayed per activity Min: 1; Max: 18

Common pattern: show and discuss 1-2 submissions for most of the time, and quickly show the others

Observations onthe Role of Anonymity

Student work was shown on the public display without any identification

Limited information about each submission is provided on the instructor machine

Anonymous display was valued by the students

Some students still believed that the instructor could identify their work

Tagging behavior was commonly observed Students felt gratified to see their submissions

put up

Impact of the Technology On instructors:

Works best for instructors with interactive styles Shift in teaching paradigm:

First define the learning goals Then, decide how to assess if those goals are

achieved Finally, design the necessary activities / content

Challenge of creating activities that are supportive of learning and also can be easily evaluated on the spot (i.e., have low cognitive load)

Wireless in the classroom: ad hoc networking works well (for us)

On students: Observed high rates of participation, ample

classroom discussion => engagement Distraction is possible and does occur Assessing learning outcomes is future work

Summary of Pros and Consof the Technology

Advantages: Lecture capture Material re-use Artifact review Automatic analysis Data mining Enabling distance

education Improved

projection

Disadvantages: Distraction Desk real estate Cost Equity

Conclusions Existing technology can:

Help promote student engagement and openness to diversity of ideas

Enable instructors to quickly gather and give feedback in class

Results apply across subjects and disciplines

Invitation We are interested in finding

additional deployments of Classroom Presenter Especially in disciplines beyond

Computer Science, and at a range of institution types

If interested, contact us.

Your Questions?References: Contact info

Richard Anderson (anderson@cs.washington.edu) Valentin Razmov (valentin@cs.washington.edu)

Classroom Presenter-related Downloads: http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/dl/presenter/ Papers:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/dl/presenter/papers.html

Acknowledgements: HP Classroom Presenter is built on top of the

ConferenceXP research platform. This work was supported in part by grants from External Research and Programs, Microsoft Research.