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Case Studies - Abstracts

Joliet Junior College
Creating a New Physics Education Learning Environment

Curtis Hieggelke, William Hogan, Marie Wolff, Michael Lee

Curt Hieggelke and colleagues transformed his introductory physics courses into meaningful and exciting learning experiences for his students. Key to his success is the use of computer-based labs that actively engage his students through real-time acquisition and analysis of data, connections to real-world events, visualization and simulation. These software tools allow students to visualize patterns of data, use graphical representations in ways that enable them to avoid getting lost in the data setup and collection details that accompany most lab activities, and experiment easily with different parameters in the same lab setup. For years Curt had been using computers in the classroom to aid in the analysis of data when it dawned on him that he might go beyond using computers merely for analysis and instead use them to transform the way his students learn physics. In particular, he was excited about the possibilities of using electronic probes that interface with a computer; such devices would enable his students to actually collect and analyze data themselves, fostering a predict-observe-explain learning process that Curt felt was essential to getting his students to understand-not just memorize and regurgitate-important physics concepts.


Madison Area Technical College
Creating a New Learning Environment in the Biotechnology Laboratory Technician Program

Jeanette Mowery

Jeanette has integrated simulation software, Protein Lab, into her "Protein Bioseparations" course. The software provides students a virtual laboratory where they can purify 20 different proteins. She says her students need something like Protein Lab to show them that the techniques and strategies they are using apply differently to each protein that they may encounter. The Protein Lab software allows them to do this by providing them a virtual laboratory where they can purify many different proteins, and purify each one in an hour or less. Jeanette emphasizes that once the Protein Lab software came along, she no longer had to rely so much on explaining the big picture to her students. Rather, she could put her students in charge of their own learning. Because of the balance that Protein Lab brought, Jeanette is confident that those who complete her class will be well-rounded, successful lab technicians.


San Diego State University
Creating A Computer-Enhanced Geology Learning Environment

Eric Frost

Eric uses software that allows students to see complex three-dimensional shapes, and understand geological processes in a way that would be very difficult without the use of technology. The tools he uses vary from simple color tools to high-end tools such as VoxelGeo and GOCAD. His classes also use other software that allow for interactive processing of imagery and commercial image processing programs such as ENVI, Earth Resources Mapper (ER Mapper) and Image Web Server. In the past, students learned structural geology via textbooks, lectures, a multitude of pictures, and years of field-work. With current technologies, the learning can occur at an accelerated pace while students simultaneously gain a deeper understanding of the processes that shape our earth.


University of Houston-Downtown
Teaching Algebra to a Diverse, High-Risk Student Population

William Waller, Linda Becerra, Ongard Sirisaengtaksin

William Waller, Linda Becerra, and Ongard Sirisaengtaksin teach at the University of Houston-Downtown, a 4-year urban university with a commuter and ethnically diverse student population, many of whom are under-prepared and work full-time. They observed that students learned mathematics simply by becoming familiar with the manipulations and calculations required in their courses. Fundamental concepts, as well as their relevance to real life problems, were often entirely ignored by both students and faculty. Students did not appreciate algebra's use and applicability to real-life situations, and moreover, the algebra skills supposedly learned often had to be re-taught in subsequent courses. The faculty also faced a major problem: Poor student performance in which 70% of the students in Math 1301 failed. With traditional mathematics teaching methods not connecting with students, the three faculty members initiated college algebra reform to improve student performance and preparation. The reformers re-created the course: provided numerous opportunities to learn, emphasized learning fundamental concepts and skills through real-world problems, stimulated interest by making mathematics relevant, increased math literacy, used diverse teaching strategies, and created a technology-dependent curriculum with the design of a simple-to-use computer interface that their students could use.


University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's
BioCalc: A Model for Teaching Calculus to Biology Students

Jerry Uhl, Bruce Carpenter, Brad Edge

Jerry Uhl has been working to develop and implement reform calculus courses since the late 1980s. Well known for the Calculus&Mathematica, courseware that he and colleagues developed at UIUC, Uhl has used his expertise and experience to assist the UIUC School of Life Sciences (SOLS) in the creation of an introductory calculus course offered specifically to life science students. BioCalc is a special section of an introductory calculus course required of all life science majors at UIUC. Rather than lectures and textbooks, however, the instructional medium for this course is a sophisticated symbolic manipulation software program, Mathematica, that integrates text, lots of graphics, and commands into an electronic "notebook" format. The program is used to run the Calculus&Mathematica (C&M) courseware developed by Uhl, Horatio Porta and William Davis.


University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
IMPULSE: The Integrated Math Physics, Undergraduate Laboratory Science, and Engineering Program

Nicholas Pendergras, John Dowd, Raymond Laoulache, Renate Crawford, Robert Kowalczyk

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is a comprehensive University with a largely commuter student population. Five faculty members initiated engineering reform by establishing the IMPULSE (Integrated Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering) program to reduce engineering student attrition rates between the freshman and sophomore years. The IMPULSE program offers an integrated approach to the introductory engineering, physics, and mathematics classes. Technology allows instructors to carry out laboratory demonstrations, experiments, or simulations in a studio classroom rapidlyso there is time for discussion and interpretation of results. Students progress through the introductory sequence in cohorts, collaborative learning methods is used throughout the program, and the attrition rate has dropped from 40% to 17.3% since the implementation of the program. Students acknowledge that the program makes them more attractive in the workforce, believe the program involves an increase in the workload, offers little flexibility in course schedules, and has a cohort approach not always appropriate for college life.


University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Global Change I Course: A Technology-Enhanced, Interdisciplinary Learning Environment

Ben van der Pluijm, Tim Killeen, Dave Allan, Lisa Curran, Patrick Livingood, David Halsing

Faculty at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor have designed and teach Global Change I, a team-taught, interdisciplinary course that focuses on the complex, related factors that affect the world. These factors include, among others, chemical, biological, ecological, and astronomical phenomena, as well as sociological and economic issues. Global Change I is a 4-credit course that has no prerequisites, and is the part of a three course curriculum that forms the core of a minor in Global Change. The topics of study addressed in Global Change I include: origin and evolution of the universe, solar system, and the Earth; origin of the elements; geological processes; the Earth's atmosphere and oceans; chemical and biological evolution; origin and evolution of life; life processes; biogeochemical cycles; ecosystems and ecosystem dynamics; atmosphere-biosphere interactions; paleoclimate; sea level changes; climate change and global warming. The course introduces interactive dynamical modeling. Drawing on material and computer-based tools from their respective academic areas of study, and on the expertise of guest lecturers from the social and natural sciences, these instructors seek to synthesize a broad array of knowledge into what one student called a "melting pot" of ideas about global change.


University of St. Thomas
Using Modules to Teach General Chemistry

Betsy Longley

In 1996, Betsy Longley got interested in using modules to teach better. In 1997, Betsy decided to completely "modularlize" an introductory course that she alone was teaching. Based on that experience, she persuaded her department colleagues to use modules in the three "regular" sections. Data collected indicated that students performed as well on end-of-semester exams as those who took non-module sections in previous years, and the module-based sections reported greater student enthusiasm, less absenteeism, and greater retention of content knowledge. The following year, neither Betsy nor her colleague taught the module-based course. When Betsy left the department, the movement to modularize Chem 111 foundered. Even though an innovative and effective educational approach may improve student learning, there is no guarantee it will persist. Why don't successful innovations "stick?" That question is the focus of this case study. We present a kind of cautionary tale that suggests that the toughest part of reforming undergraduate science education is not about innovating but finding ways for innovations to survive.




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