Instructional Technologies and the Instructional Challenges They Address

Jill Lane, Research Associate and Program Manager, Course & Curricular Development, Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, Pennsylvania State University

Renata Engel, Associate Dean for Teaching Excellence and Executive Director,
Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, Pennsylvania State University

Introduction
Faculty at research universities face numerous instructional challenges, many of which are difficult to overcome. These include teaching large classes where engagement is desired but difficult to achieve; laboratories where limited resources are often at odds with sophisticated equipment needs and increasing student expectations for access; and writing intensive courses in which increasing the frequency of writing places challenges on the ability to provide detailed feedback. While there can be innovative ways to apply existing techniques to address these challenges, in some cases, the solutions are less than ideal. The question is the extent to which and how instructional technology can help faculty get closer to a more optimal solution? We believe that technology can be part of the solution—specifically when it targets an instructional challenge. As with any instructional solution, the challenge should drive the use of technology, rather than the use of technology driving the instructional method. Here are a few examples of how instructional technologies improve upon the instructional approach, increase student engagement in the classroom, and/or enhance the communication between learner and teacher.

Large Enrollment Courses
Let us take a closer look at the instructional challenge of engagement in large classes. If you have ever taught a large class you know it is often difficult to engage more than a few students in discussion, almost impossible to assess student understanding of concepts without an exam or homework, and equally difficult to challenge them with ideas beyond the basic content. A technique described in Eric Mazur’s Peer Instruction (1997) has been adopted or adapted by many instructors as a means of addressing the large class challenge. Briefly, the technique relies on the posing of well-defined conceptual questions two or three times during class with students indicating their responses on index cards. The technique allows the instructor to assess quickly whether students understand the concept. Thus misconceptions can be exposed and addressed before students leave the classroom and while they are engaged in learning.

However, if individual student responses and progress are a concern, personal response system technology or "clickers" as they are more commonly known, enables a wonderful adaptation to the value of this approach. Not only are individual student responses immediately available to the instructor, but they can be preserved for credit and potential further analysis—neither of which can be accommodated by index cards. Likewise, when a class is extremely large, having a personal response system in place eases the burden of gauging the proportion of students who understand the concept in comparison with those who have potentially different misconceptions. In this way, "just-in-time" teaching can be geared toward the immediate needs of the class. By using clickers with general questions, faculty can examine class beliefs around a particular topic or simulate voting on a current issue. This approach enables students who would not typically engage in the class to become part of the lesson and it enhances the relevance of the material.

Laboratory Courses
The laboratory environment can pose instructional challenges if limited resources and potential safety concerns prevent the use of sophisticated equipment. Until recently, instructors have addressed this challenge by either creating alternative experiments or purchasing one piece of needed equipment and using it in an instructor-led demonstration. This remedy is less than ideal however since it prevents individual engagement and often leaves room for students to develop misconceptions about cause-effect relationships. Instructional technology can provide an appropriate solution to the problem. Computer simulations using Java™ or Macromedia Flash™ offer a relatively inexpensive way for students to conduct experiments in a safe environment. Consider, for example, a simulation that enables students to size pipes, tanks, pumps, and valves to design/establish fluid systems. The students first build the pipe systems on the screen using "drag-and-drop" techniques. Then, through various assignments and experiments they became familiar with the terminology and explore characteristics of the fluid and the pipe system that affect flow rate and pressure. Whether the simulations are in biological sciences, natural sciences, or engineering, they enable students to explore the connections among parameters. When supplemented with quizzing tools, in-depth information, visuals of actual equipment, and step-by-step instructions for experimental procedures, they become rich experiences that can enhance classroom instruction or promote greater exploration when instruction is confined by time and limitations of facilities.

Digital and Virtual Environments
Exploration and practice are elements of several educational settings; thus we see instructional technologies being applied effectively across disciplines to enhance exposure and increase opportunities for students to apply what they are learning. In the foreign languages, a common instructional challenge in the introductory courses has been to find a meaningful way to improve oral and written communication skills in the language being taught. Two variations of Internet chat rooms have provided faculty with a unique solution to this challenge. To improve written language skills, students are encouraged to participate in online chat sessions with native language speakers. Adding audio and video capabilities to these chat sessions has enhanced the technique by allowing students to participate and improve their oral communication skills as well.

Digital video has provided an opportunity to allow students to "experience" a situation first hand. In education, streaming video has given faculty who are preparing future teachers the opportunity to see real classrooms in action. The process involves digitally capturing practicing teachers as they interact with their class. These videos are edited to create scenarios for pre-service teachers to react to as part of assignments, activities, and case-based exercises. Similarly, pre-service teachers have long been encouraged to make video tapes of their own teaching as a way of self-evaluating and obtaining constructive feedback from their supervisors. Advances in software, now make it possible to "code" the digital video so that particular instances of strengths and weaknesses are easily “grouped” to determine patterns and themes. Finally, digital video helps to bring courses to life through the creation of “virtual field trips.” Now, students are able to explore places that due to cost, lack of time, and distance, they only read about or viewed in still images.

Other tools, such as 3-dimensional modeling and video, can be used to create virtual environments and immerse students in them. Imagine walking through a building that has not been built or a museum with exhibits and displays that are still in the concept stage. These are the realities of the virtual reality environments. Student design projects in architecture, for example, are coming to life and allowing students to tour their designs before construction begins. Students working in these immersive environments transform their 2-dimensional drawings to 3-dimensions and then take virtual tours of their designs to see first hand if their ideas meet design specifications and capture the intended experience from multiple perspectives within the architectural structure. These virtual environments offer an ideal solution for students to work beyond the limitations that exist with 2-dimensional representations or concepts and for instructors to integrate building with design.

Writing Courses
Finally, many promising technologies are being applied to a variety of instructional challenges related to writing. Writing-across-the-curriculum is becoming increasingly popular. The hallmarks of this approach include frequent and varied writing opportunities within subject areas, as well as constructive feedback that leads to revision and refinement. Blogs and "wikis" are emerging as useful technologies particularly because of their capacity to increase frequency of writing and refinements in writing as the result of collective input. In journalism and English classes, for example, wikis and blogs can be used to improve story-writing skills. When students are first learning how to construct a story, the interactive environment of wikis provide the opportunity for every group member to contribute to and edit the same news article. Once students become familiar with the story writing process, blogs can be used to post stories and story ideas, allowing members to critique one another’s work. For structured writing, such as that found in technical or laboratory reports, Calibrated Peer Review software allows students to participate in the review of written work by calibrating their feedback against standard samples. All of these approaches provide opportunities to engage students beyond their own individual writing by enabling them to be reviewers of, and contributors to, other written works.

In the cases we describe, technology is providing instructors with innovative ways to solve instructional challenges. As new technologies emerge, new solutions to old problems will continue to evolve. Continual exploration of instructional technologies and the adoption of techniques that fit the challenge will undoubtedly enable educators and learners to make the most of, and expand, our learning environments.

For more information contact Renata Engel at rengel@psu.edu, or Jill Lane at jlane@psu.edu

Duke University Lynne O'Brien, Director, Academic Technology & Instructional Services, Center for Instructional Technology

The Duke iPod Initiative

Walk across almost any university campus, and you will see students with white cords dangling from their ears and iPods tucked into their pockets or backpacks. On the Duke campus, students also sport the white earbuds, and like their counterparts at other universities, many are listening to music. However, at least 1,500 students at Duke have something else on their iPods. They may be listening to a lecture, a foreign language exercise, a guest speaker, a provocative news program or the discussion questions for tomorrow’s seminar. In less than four semesters, iPods have become a widely-used technology for teaching and learning.

During the last five years, Duke University has been seeking new ways to use technology to improve teaching and learning within the environment of a research university. Faculty have carried out innovative projects with laptop computers, wireless networking, course management systems, Personal Digital Assistants such as Palm and iPaq devices and personal response systems in both small and large classes and across all the disciplines. Then, in the fall of 2004, Duke University provided an iPod to every first year student as its next experiment in stimulating creative uses of technology in academic and campus life.

The Duke First-Year Experiment – the University’s initial venture with iPods in the 2004-05 academic year – focused on making iPods widely available and encouraging faculty and students to explore ways to use these devices for educational purposes. Listening to course-related audio content seemed the most obvious use for iPods, and faculty did indeed use iPods assign their students to listen to audio content ranging from heart sounds, to Spanish music, to President Kennedy’s "I am a Berliner" speech . The Belkin Corporation’s generous offer to provide free microphone adapters for all iPods made it possible for faculty and student to create their own audio materials. As classes got underway instructors developed assignments that required students to prepare class presentations that included audio segments and to record their own work to demonstrate skills required in the class. By spring of 2005, podcasting had emerged as a way to share audio materials across members of a course, or with a wider audience. Now that iPods can display digital images and digital video, faculty and students are also using those functionalities in teaching and learning.

Here are some of the key ways iPods have proved to be useful in education at Duke.

Reinforcing Course Content in Lecture Classes
With the addition of a recording attachment, the iPod is a small, unobtrusive tool for capturing lectures or group discussions. A recording of a lecture or discussion can reduce the need to take detailed written notes while listening and participating. At Duke, some faculty chose to record their lectures and make them available for download to iPods after class; in other courses, students recorded lectures or discussions themselves, using their own iPods. Duke Professor Lori Leachman knew that sitting in a lecture hall with over 300 students at 8 o’clock in the morning was not always an ideal environment for students learning introductory economics. She decided to record her lectures and make them available for students to review after class. One student commented that although she rarely listened to her recorded lectures a second time, just knowing that the recordings were available reduced her anxiety about taking notes in class. Other students reported listening to lecture recordings while they updated their written notes or reviewed lecture segments on difficult concepts before exams.

Improving In-Class Discussion
Recordings also proved useful in seminar classes. For example, when guest speakers gave presentations in Professor Richard Lucic’s Information Science and Information Studies course, Lucic recorded the talks with his iPod. Students downloaded the recordings and reviewed them before the next class. At the next seminar session, a student led a discussion of the guest lecturer’s talk. Students in Professor Sally Schauman’s course "Living Downstream" look at how American communities address water problems, such as flooding, shortages, declining aquatic species and degrading water quality. Students used their iPods to record audio field notes and interview local residents. In class presentations, students played audio clips from their interviews to support their points.

Access to Rich Course Content Independent of Time or Place
iPods are a convenient and portable means by which to distribute multimedia course learning materials. Duke Professor Peter McIsaac found a variety of materials to enhance his course on Berlin's culture in the twentieth century. Students listened to recordings of Berlin's music, from 1920s cabaret songs and the underground music scene of the 1980s to the techno explosion of the late 1990s. Students also listened to historical speeches on both their iPods. Throughout the semester groups of students recorded interviews with Americans to find out how seminal events in the city's history -- the World Wars, the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall -- were perceived in the United States.

In fall 2005, Duke University and Public Radio International (PRI) formed a partnership to provide public radio programs as digital audio files for use in Duke courses. Duke Public Policy Professor Kenneth Rogerson used reports from "The World," last semester in his "Newspaper Journalism" course. "It was very helpful for setting the stage for class discussion," Rogerson said.

Podcasting has emerged as a way to subscribe to a set of "feeds" containing audio or video content, which will automatically update and post new files onto an iPod and/or computer. The University Channel, for example, offers a collection of public affairs lectures from renowned speakers from academic institutions all over the world. Many can be downloaded for listening while walking, driving in the car or doing other activities.

Increasing Student Engagement through Collaborative, Project-based Learning
Duke faculty have used iPods to engage students actively in the learning process and maximize opportunities to learn both inside and outside of the classroom. Students in many courses enhanced their empirical research by using iPods to collect information outside of class and then bring their work back into the classroom. In Professor Daniel Foster’s Theater Studies course, iPods were a convenient way for students to listen to radio programs from 1920’s. Students worked in groups to create their own radio theater shows, recorded them and podcast them to a broader audience as part of The MP3eater Project.

Opportunities to Practice and Demonstrate Proficiency
The iPod can be used as a study aid for students. Especially in languages, music, and other performance-based subjects, iPods can facilitate practice and repetition. Some students loaded files of their own performance and used the iPods as a tool for self-reflection, analysis and improvement. "I used my iPod's iTalk [recording] features to read through key points in notes and then listen back," said one student. "For example, while cleaning my room, ironing or doing something that does not require 'thinking' I would play back my recorded notes and listen."

Students in Professor Anthony Kelley’s music theory and practice class downloaded J. S. Bach's "Saint Matthew Passion" from the Apple iTunes store so they could listen to it in many settings -- their dorm room, the bus, or at the gym. Repeated listening helped students hear all the nuances of the piece. In a different exercise, students input the notes for all four parts of a Bach chorale into a musical notation software program, and then removed one part -- bass, tenor, alto or soprano. With this missing-voice version of the song loaded on their iPods, the students played the song and practiced singing their part, karaoke style.

Professor S. Mark Williams created a multimedia glossary to help students learn over 500 terms critical to their understanding of the functional anatomy of the human brain. For each term, a student can access a description of the term, information on brain structure location and function, audio pronunciation, links to related terms and high quality brain images optimized for the iPod photo display.

In Professor Lisa Merschel's Spanish courses, students not only listed to Merschel's spoken recordings of vocabulary words and translations each week, they also recorded their own spoken Spanish throughout the semester and submitted audio files to document their progress. iPods increased the portability of the materials and expanded the number of spaces where students could do course work.

These projects illustrate just some of the creative uses instructors and students have found for iPods. As technology continues to evolve, other devices may replace iPods, but the new educational models brought about by the focus on mobility and multimedia are here to stay.

For more information
Visit the Duke Digital Initiative website: http://www.duke.edu/ddi/

University of California Los Angeles Arlene Russell, Senior Lecturer, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Department of Education, Calibrated Peer Review Project Director

Calibrated Peer Review™: Honing Students Critical Thinking Skills

Background
Calibrated Peer Review (http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu) is a dynamic instructional software tool that not only uses writing and peer review to teach higher-order thinking skills but also uses technology to manage the writing and anonymous review processes regardless of the class size. Its creation was inspired by the long-standing belief of co-developers Arlene Russell and Orville Chapman that the activities of writing and articulating coherent ideas about science and evaluating others’ ideas and arguments afford unparalleled tools for learning and developing critical-thinking skills essential to learning science. The initial catalyst was an NSF-funded systemic reform project in Chemistry, the Molecular Science Project (1995), which provided the resources for Chapman and Russell to transform their belief into reality. What evolved, and continues to evolve, is Calibrated Peer Review (CPR).

Because of the emphasis on laboratory experiences in the sciences, and the intensive grading demands of writing assignments, expository writing had all but disappeared from large science classes particularly in research universities. In addition, peer review, the cornerstone for validating scientific research and an essential skill required of all scientists and academics, was seldom taught in undergraduate classes. CPR was conceived as a mechanism to meet these needs. Writing could be used to clarify ideas; technology could be used to manage the review process. However, to implement peer review we needed a new model. Since peer review depends on knowledgeable experts we needed to train our students to be competent reviewers. We needed therefore to attune them to the ideas, arguments, misconceptions, and faulty reasoning that they were likely to encounter in their peers' writing. The calibration was key. Central to every CPR assignment is a set of instructional essays that require students both to confront the critical issues of the assignment and provide a rubric for them to evaluate the essay. The technology easily manages the process. No students can review their peers' work until they have articulated their own ideas in writing and "mastered" the evaluation process. Research on peer assessment supports this practice. It has found that peer review matches teacher's reviews when "global judgments based on well understood criteria are used." See for example, Falchinov and Goldfinch, and Sadler and Good.

The CPR Instructional Process
Briefly, in completing a CPR assignment, students

Although the primary evaluation of the student’s work is done by peers, instructors are very much involved in the process, particularly in the development and selection of CPR assignments that are congruent with course goals. The instructor also sets grading criteria and due dates for submission of essays and reviews. Although the peer review process is anonymous to the students, it is completely transparent to the instructor who can monitor student progress and performance throughout and after the assignment.

Impact and Evaluation
Although initially designed for the sciences, CPR is now used by faculty in dozens of disciplines, in hundreds of schools, and in thousands of classes. Most exciting is the enormous creative effort that faculty have expended in developing assignments. A new version of CPR, which we expect to release in 2007, will not only make these assignments available broadly to CPR users, it will provide a mechanism to acknowledge authors whose work is used by others. Information on this project and on joining the CPR listserv may be obtained by contacting our technical support at cpr@nslc.ucla.edu.

While the wide-spread adoption of the program provides a face validity of the success of this approach, the extent to which students’ content knowledge is improved, writing skills are changed, and students are learning evaluation skills has also been investigated. See for example:
Gains in Discipline Learning: Palaez
Improved Writing Skills: Gerdeman, Russell, and Worden; and McCarty et al
Improved Reviewing Skills: Russell and Chapman; Gerdeman et al, Sadler and Good; and Pultsky and Wilson

Student acceptance of CPR is generally favorable, but as is true of any innovation, some students are uneasy with it, particularly in classes that did not previously require writing (see Furman and Robinson). More commonly, however, even with reservations, students value the new approach to learning. (see Russell, 2003) As documented in their own words:

"I thought the idea of CPR was a very good idea because it helped expanding students' knowledge and developing insight into the materials we had studied. However, I didn't really enjoy this project. I didn't like it because there was too much research involved and questions were very hard to answer. This project itself was time consuming as well. It took me a long time to finish the practice before I moved onto the actual project. Another time-consuming part was the peer reviewing. It took me about an average of 10 minutes each to review one paper. It required a lot of concentration as well."

Objections are minimized when there is open communication in the class about the role of writing and reviewing in the learning process and a discussion of the details of the checks and balances in the CPR evaluation process.

Students appear to recognize the value of the interactive animation in the on-line source material that formed the basis for the writing assignment.

"I thought that the CPR was really interesting. I liked the fact that they made us look at 3D models before we could answer the questions because it gave us a good idea of the concept involved in the question. I think that the process we had to take before writing the essay was great because it took us step by step to the answer, allowing us to thoroughly comprehend the strain (angle and torsional) in cycloalkanes in comparison to their alkane counterparts and to other larger or smaller cycloalkanes.

"I enjoyed the CPR assignment. I liked having another format to think about organic chemistry. If you do this again, I think optical rotation would be a great subject. I thought the writing assignment was a good length--not too much to read six examples of writing."

Many students see the value of writing and reviewing.

"By writing this assignment in a mini-essay form I was able to come at my own conclusions and express the material in my words. I believe that this was very helpful because in order to understand the material it is extremely useful to be able to describe and put the material one learned into his/her own words.

"I thought CPR to be good learning tool. The project made the participants review the course material. As a result a better understanding of the material is attained…. It’s like having two lectures instead of one. Making an environment where students have to think is a good way to make the material understandable."

"Truthfully, I enjoyed CPR. Writing the essay was a great way to review the specifics of cyclohexane strain, but when I reviewed the peer essays I think I learned most. I was able to see what strong points my essay had, and more importantly where I was lacking. I think CPR can be a very useful tool for students to use if they take it seriously and take the time to explore the website. Also, it is another chance for points, which is always good. By the way, thanks for the extra credit."

Overall, a majority of students made positive comments about the value of the CPR experience to their learning. This endorsement from students along with the documented gains that faculty have measured bode well for the continuing ability of the Calibrated Peer Review program to enrich the instructional resources for faculty and enhance the learning of students in all disciplines.

Acknowledgements
The development of the Calibrated Peer Review program has been supported by the National Science Foundation (DUE 95-55605, DUE 04-42828), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through the Undergraduate Biological Science Education program (Grant 71199-5907305), The University of California Office of the President, and UCLA.

We particularly acknowledge the wisdom, insights and contributions to the program by our colleagues Orville L. Chapman (deceased) and Timothy Su, our programmers Stephen Schimpf and Michael Fiore, and the hundreds of authors who have devoted their creative efforts to developing assignments that allow students to reach higher levels of learning. We thank Mark Midland for sharing the student comments about CPR that are included in this article.

For more information
Visit the Calibrated Peer Review web site at http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu or email cpr@nslc.ucla.edu.

George Washington University Melinda Knight, Executive Director, University Writing Program, Professor of Writing, American Studies, and Strategic Management and Public Policy

Hybrid Writing Courses: Combining the Best of Online and Classroom Learning

Overview
In Fall 2005, the University Writing Program (UWP) at The George Washington University (GW) launched an initiative to strategically add hybrid courses to its first-year writing experience. "Hybrid" is the name given to courses that combine face-to-face classroom instruction with online learning; as an educational model it blends classroom and online learning to improve learning outcomes. While computer-assisted instruction in writing courses has been around for years and many courses have been taught in computer labs, GW decided to adopt the hybrid model because, going beyond computer-assisted instruction, it makes online interaction an integral part of the course.

Background
The UWP, now in its third year, is part of GW’s strategic plan to enhance academic excellence. The goal is to promote engagement, challenge, and discovery through a rigorous writing requirement. The UWP consists of the First-Year Writing Program (UW20), the Writing in the Disciplines (WID) Program and the University Writing Center. UW20 is a one-semester, four-credit intensive writing course designed to help all entering students learn to write sophisticated academic papers and do rigorous academic research; in order to maximize student-faculty contact time, both in the classroom and in individual conferences, enrollment in the course is limited to 15 students. The WID requirement consists of two sophomore- and junior-level writing-intensive discipline-based courses that build upon UW20 and seeks to facilitate student involvement with particular bodies of knowledge, their methods of scholarship, and modes of communication; their approach is through frequent writing, editing, and rewriting. The courses have a thematic focus, chosen by the faculty member, to enhance coherence and provide a framework for writing and research. To see a list of current WID course offerings, go to http://www.gwu.edu/~uwp/wid/wid-courses.htm. The majority of both first-year writing seminars and WID courses are taught by full-time faculty, representing a major commitment in institutional resources.

The new UWP is designed to promote scholarship and critical thinking in all schools and undergraduate degree programs. It is predicated on the idea that writing and learning are inseparable and that the University should produce students who are able to write well in any number of areas and forms. Universities throughout North America have developed similar programs and have reported improvement both in their students' writing skills and in the degree to which students are intellectually challenged and engaged by their courses of study.

Innovative Use of Technology in UWP
In an effort to promote this emphasis on experimental hybrid writing courses, in 2005, GW’s Office of Academic Planning and Assessment initiated a curriculum grant program which led to the development of three hybrid sections. Based on their success, ten more UW20 faculty have offered hybrid courses.

Hybrid courses are not a form of distance learning since they rely on both face-to-face and mediated teaching and learning, capitalizing on the best use of both modalities. The educational experience of hybrid writing classes helps students prepare for a technologically-sophisticated environment; it also enhances student growth and development by providing a more intense and individualized program of instruction than more traditional modes allow. An added feature is that hybrid courses reduce classroom seat time without compromising the educational goals and objectives of the course. More information about hybrid courses can be found at: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0313.pdf.

Structure of Hybrid First-Year Writing Seminar (UW20)
In migrating UW20 to a hybrid platform, the instructors first examined the course goals to determine those elements that needed to remain in a face-to-face environment, what aspects would work well as an individual online activity, and what would work better as a group or in-class online event. In UW20, students produce a 25-30 page written document, developed through pre-draft preparation, drafts, and revisions based on instructor’s advice and classmates’ comments. Each student completes at least three writing assignments of increasing complexity. Papers are based on assigned texts and often on additional reading; although instructors develop assignments that reflect a variety of academic writing projects, one paper requires significant research. Class attendance is required and class participation is essential to performance and affects the final grade. Each of these elements was evaluated in building the hybrid version of UW20.

GW uses Blackboard® courseware, and faculty involved in the hybrid initiative have made great use of it in their courses. They previously had had experience using Blackboard® as a repository for paper documents such as the course syllabus, assignments, providing links to readings, and posting course grades, but the hybrid faculty took Blackboard® a step further by developing the platform prior to the beginning of the semester and using Blackboard® for building both an online community and the entire online environment for the course. In fact, in one section, Blackboard® is on the screen when the students enter the classroom and the classroom activities utilize Blackboard® even in the face-to-face settings. One lesson that our faculty have learned in building a hybrid course is that technology forces the faculty member to plan ahead. Most of the hybrid UW20 courses have included two face-to-face meetings and one online session a week, although that ratio can vary, depending on particular tasks and assignments. Some faculty offer regular online office hours; others offer online chat for a class meeting. Thus we work in both synchronous and asynchronous modes for the online environment.

Technology is integrated into every aspect of the UW20 hybrid course. In addition to serving as a mechanism for students to submit papers online and instructors to comment and return papers online, the use of technology takes some traditional and some more innovative forms. For example, in one section students do editing and proofreading exercises online independently. In another section students develop their own podcasts to experience writing for an audience and working collaborative. And in still another section students develop standards for evaluating the credibility of online content. Some hybrid courses are hosted in computer-based classrooms, although a majority utilize off-site computers.

Drafting and revision is a key aspect of the UW20 experience and the online environment facilitates this well. In hybrid sections of UW20, students do peer review online using Word’s "comment" and "tracking" tools, as well as the "chat" and "discussion" features of Blackboard®. Most important, students learn how to write effectively for live audiences online.

Selected Hybrid UW20 Courses
Here are three examples of hybrid writing courses at GW:

THEME: "Blood on the Plains: The Custer Autobiography Project"
Instructor: Mark Mullen, Assistant Professor of Writing

This course builds on work begun in the Fall of 2004 by a small group of students who developed the structure for an interpretative, scholarly website based around a series of autobiographical writings by Custer that recount his early campaigns against the Plains Indians in the late-1860s. The group’s work dealt with some initial descriptive pieces where Custer introduced the geography of the Plains and the methods of campaigning to his readers. This semester the class will be dealing with writings that describe Custer’s military failures, his court-martial for desertion, and his subsequent comeback to find military and popular success. This project has grown well beyond a narrow concern with Custer himself. Last fall the site began to explore the connections between Custer and the larger history of the US Plains Wars; in 2005-06 the class will be casting the net still wider to consider the ongoing impact of both Custer’s life and death and the mythology of the West on the present. Students evaluate the credibility of biographical, autobiographical, and other historical materials, in order to make online content selections. In addition to building a class web site and working with sources in an online environment, students write both for online and offline audiences and explore how standards of document design championed by today’s technology impacts both the content and credibility of published discourse.

Commentary: This course involves students in creating and updating a public scholarly site. Students learn principles of web design, but, more important, they also find and evaluate scholarly sources and deal with questions of authenticity, objectivity, authorship, and validity.

THEME: "Pests, Pets, and Meat: Animals in American Culture"
Instructor: Heather Schell, Assistant Professor of Writing

Charles Darwin caused an enormous stir when he published The Descent of Man in 1871. The book furthered some disturbing implications of his earlier work, On the Origin of Species: humans, the naturalist suggested, shared an ancestry with other animals and still had much in common with them. This idea was, and continues to be, shocking to many people in the Western world. He also argued that sympathy for animals was a recent "moral acquisition," a newly evolved ethical sense. This class will take up the ramifications of both those ideas as they have played out in the United States. As one of two major class projects, students individually will develop a research project that they will pursue for the entire semester; they will also select a scholarly article to contribute to the class reading list. This is a hybrid class that merges traditional in-class meetings with technology-based learning outside of the classroom. For this particular class, "hybridity" requires a commitment to mastering basic audio technology. The class will devote the first month to learning how to create polished podcasts, after which the class will begin producing a weekly internet radio show. Responsibility for overseeing the show will cycle through student teams, with each team having two opportunities to produce the show. During the other eight weeks, the teams will research, write, and record a weekly story under the editorial guidance of the acting producers. Students will also staff a virtual helpdesk to provide technology assistance for everyone in the class. The class's creation and assessment of these podcasts will take the place of regular Friday meetings once the show is up and running. The podcasts are available at the course homepage at http://home.gwu.edu/~schellhm/.

Commentary: By designing and producing iPod broadcasts, students are truly learning the meaning of writing for an audience. Each podcast is scrutinized by all listeners, and the writers receive, use, and give feedback at all stages of production. Podcasting not only reinforces the hybrid model, but adds a dimension of collaboration and public discourse.

THEME: "Political Junkie: Writing about Politics in the Nation's Capital"
Instructor: Robbin Zeff, Assistant Professor of Writing

Washington, DC, is the ultimate political town--where national politics is local. This writing-intensive course will explore the exciting world of contemporary American politics by monitoring how political issues are debated and observing how national policy is made. Students will conduct original research on a topic of their choice that will have them digging deep into the inner-workings of the library's database holdings and doing fieldwork into the hallways of Congress. Both short and long writing assignments will be used to learn the rigors and expectations of academic writing. Course reading will cover the craft of research and writing as well as contemporary political issues and events. In addition, students will be required to monitor daily news sources to stay on top of the current political landscape. A significant amount of work for this course will be conducted online; students will participate in online class discussions, use content management software, and use digital technology to facilitate research, writing, and revision.

Commentary: In this innovative hybrid course, students engage in online chat, virtual office hours, and a class blog, to which all must contribute. In particular, students are given all the tools to function in an online environment, and they learn appropriate strategies to take advantage of writing and reading online for multiple audiences. Students maintain an ePortfolio of all their work.

Assessment of Results
Based on students’ self-reported analysis of what they have learned, preliminary results, show that the hybrid courses are succeeding. An assessment of actual papers produced in the hybrid courses will be conducted over the summer in 2006. Assessment results to date of the entire program can be found at http://www.gwu.edu/~uwp/uwp-programassess.htm.

For more information
Visit the UWP web site at http://www.gwu.edu/~uwp/.

University of Colorado William B. Wood, Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology

Clickers: A Teaching Gimmick that Works **

One study after another over the past decade has shown that students who engage interactively with each other and the instructor in the classroom learn concepts better, retain them longer, and can apply them more effectively in other contexts than do students who sit passively listening, perhaps taking notes for future memorization in preparation for an exam (evidence reviewed in Handelsman et al., 2004, Science 304, 521–522). This general principle applies at all educational levels, from primary school through college and graduate courses. At many primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), where teaching is the primary responsibility of faculty members and class sizes tend to be small, these findings have driven widespread transformation of science teaching from lectures to seminar-style courses consisting primarily of student projects, presentations, discussions, and exploration of case studies that require students' active participation. By contrast, in the large research universities (RUs), where many faculty see research as their primary responsibility and teaching as a distraction and where class sizes tend to be large, lecture classes have generally remained the norm for undergraduate science teaching in core courses.

Does this matter? The so-called "Oberlin Report" from the 1980s showed that a disproportionately high percentage of students who went on to pursue graduate study in science received their baccalaureate training at PUIs (see more recent data at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind04/start.htm). We at the RUs must do a better job of encouraging and training our science students.

Science faculty and administrators at RUs have generally assumed that lecturing in an auditorium setting is the only feasible teaching format for large courses in view of faculty time limitations. However, recently developed tools using simple information technology make it possible, with little extra faculty effort, to conduct even large classes in which students interact with the instructor and each other in a much more lively fashion that promotes active learning. One of these technologies is personal response systems, colloquially termed "clickers." These systems can not only provide valuable feedback to both instructor and students during a class, but can also facilitate changes in both student and instructor behavior that enhance teaching and learning, as described below.

Several different brands of these systems are available, but all of them consist of clickers (transmitters), operated by students, which can send infrared or radio frequency signals to one or more receivers that feed into a computer controlled by the instructor. Some brands use wall-mounted receivers hard-wired to the computer, while others are portable and entirely wireless. The clickers are small hand-held devices resembling a TV remote, with several buttons labeled numerically or alphabetically. Students typically buy the clickers for $5 to $30 at the campus bookstore at the start of the semester and register them online with the course software, which links the serial number of each clicker to the name and email address of the student. In class, when the instructor poses a multiple-choice question and asks the students to respond, each student clicks an answer, which is picked up by the receivers and stored with the student's records by the software. The software can instantly display a histogram of the students' answers, which can be displayed to the class with a data projector. The software also allows the instructor to later look up the responses of an individual student to each question, and it can be programmed to assign credit points if desired and even to email point totals to students. The cost to students is minimal, since a clicker can be used in more than one course, and most bookstores will buy back used clickers at the end of the semester. Cost to the department for receivers and software is roughly $1000 per 100 students in a classroom.

Like any technology, these systems are intrinsically neither good nor bad; they can be used skillfully or clumsily, creatively or destructively. However, they can produce results that are eye-opening and potentially of great value to both students and instructors for enhancing the teaching-learning process. I will illustrate their use with an example from my own experience.

I became sold on clickers in teaching Developmental Biology to a class of about 75 juniors and seniors a year ago. I particularly remember one class near the start of the course on the molecular genetics of maternal-effect mutants, something our students always seem to find difficult to understand. As an example, I was using C. elegans, which they were working with in the lab. I had spent about 20 min using PowerPoint images and diagrams to explain the hermaphrodite reproductive system, how genes that encode proteins essential for embryogenesis are expressed and the proteins incorporated into eggs only in the female germline during oogenesis, and why, therefore, recessive embryonic lethal mutations in these genes affect the embryo only if the maternal parent is homozygous mutant, regardless of the embryo's genotype. To check whether they had noted this rule, I posed a simple multiple choice question: would the viability of an embryo resulting from a cross that involved such a mutation depend on (a) the genotype of the mother, or (b) the genotype of the embryo. Over 90% clicked the correct answer (a). Then I gave them a pedigree in which F2 embryos were produced by a heterozygous F1 hermaphrodite, so that if m is the embryonic lethal mutation, there would be F2 embryos of three genotypes: +/+, m/+, and m/m. From questioning the class as a whole, it seemed clear most students understood that the first two genotypes would be viable. Then I posed a clicker question: would the m/m embryos (a) live or (b) die. The students voted individually, and the histogram showed (a) 48%, (b) 52%. From the students, there were some nervous giggles. For me, this was a moment of revelation. I was not so much disappointed by the result as elated by the realization that for the first time in over 20 years of lecturing I knew, on the spot (rather than after the next mid-term examination), that over half the class didn't "get it:" had not understood either the question or my presentation of the phenomenon. Because I had already explained the phenomenon as clearly as I could, I simply asked the students to debate briefly with their neighbors and see who could convince whom about which answer was correct. The class erupted into animated conversation. After a few minutes, I asked for a revote, and now over 90% gave the correct answer (a).

What happened? During the discussion it came out that some students were relying on a preconception, probably from previous genetics courses, that an animal homozygous for a recessive embryonic lethal mutation cannot live, because they hadn't processed my explanation for how this is possible. Others misunderstood the question or interpreted it sloppily, and answered (b) because they confused viability of the F2 m/m animals with the viability of their progeny F3 embryos, which will all die. Whatever the reasons for the wrong answers, most were corrected by the process that Harvard physicist Eric Mazur calls "Peer Instruction" (http://mazur-www.Harvard.edu/education/); the students were better at clearing up each other's confusions and misconceptions than I as the instructor could have been.

This example illustrates two uses of clicker questions: (1) to find out whether students are paying attention to the extent of hearing or noting down a stated rule, and (2) to find out whether they can use a previously explained concept in a somewhat different context to solve a problem or predict an outcome. The clickers are particularly useful with PowerPoint or similar programs, where questions asking for interpretation of an image or a graph or table of data can be incorporated into the presentation. Another use is to lead students stepwise through a complex process, for example, generation of a homozygous mutant mouse starting from embryonic stem cells in which a gene of interest has been knocked out or knocked in. Instead of simply hearing a description of the process, students are asked with multiple choice questions, followed by group discussion where there is substantial disagreement, what they should do next at each step in view of the desired goal. This way, they must think through each of the steps in the process, rather than simply writing them down for later memorization before a test.

• They are answering anonymously—no one has to worry about the possible humiliation of giving a "dumb" answer.
• Those who did not "get it" realize they're not the only ones. In a typical lecture situation, such students are often inhibited from asking a question by the belief that "everyone but me probably understood."
• Those who apparently did not "get it" often find out the reason was not their lack of knowledge, but an unclear or ambiguous question from the instructor.
• Most important, the students are actively engaged with the topic at hand and, therefore, more likely to understand and retain it better than if they were only sitting passively and listening to the instructor.

• S/he can later find out from the software which students are present and give credit, if desired, for in-class participation.
• S/he knows immediately, in real time, what fraction of the students didn't "get it," information that often does not become apparent in a standard lecture course until after the next exam, when it's too late to do much about it.

Nevertheless, not all students like the clickers. Although the majority warmed up to them during our course, a small minority continued to be negative. We have some evidence that this resulted from the "big brother" aspect, that their responses were all being recorded and stored in the instructor's database. Probably more significant, they had to come to class in order to receive points for participation (a significant fraction of their course grade), and to pay attention while they were there.

Not all instructors will like clickers either, and how they are used will depend on the individual and his or her tolerance for student input and some disorder during class. For example, when half the class has chosen a wrong answer, one option is simply to tell them the correct answer and move on. In my opinion, this would be a great teaching opportunity lost, and would negate use of clickers as a tool to increase active engagement. Another option is to explain the concept again, preferably in a different way. This is better, but the students are still sitting passively and taking notes. The third option, inviting students to convince their neighbors of their point of view as described above, seems to me by far the most effective. When a split vote occurs, the tension and desire to resolve it are almost palpable, and students have an emotional as well as intellectual stake in doing so.

The group interaction that this use of clickers encourages is difficult in the auditorium-style lecture halls where virtually all large classes are taught; there is a great need for RUs also to provide more large classrooms with flexible seating. Regardless of the seating arrangement, however, the use of clickers can lead to a substantial increase in student active engagement during class. They offer the possibility of further transforming courses to the point where information transmitted by the instructor is no longer the major use of class time. Instead, students are assigned reading and diagnostic problems in advance and required to post answers on the course website before class, so that the instructor can direct classroom activities to addressing difficult aspects of the material through interactive exercises (http://webphysics.iupui.edu/jitt/jitt.html).

On the other hand, an instructor convinced of the value of lectures and reluctant to change teaching style can use the clickers in a lecture context as above, simply to obtain valuable real-time feedback on concepts that students have difficulty with. The give-and-take atmosphere encouraged by use of clickers in our experience makes the students more responsive in general, so that questions posed to the class as a whole during a lecture are much more likely to elicit responses and discussion. For this reason, incidentally, teaching with clickers is a lot more fun!

** Reprinted from Developmental Cell, Vol 7, William B. Wood, "Clickers: A Gimmick that Works", pp 796-798, Copyright (2004), with permission from Elsevier.