Technology in the Classroom: Quick Looks - Type of use

Computation and numerical analysis

• Carol Burton, Melodye Gold, Cathy Lyle, and Donna Sharpe, professors from Bellevue Community College, have developed a team-taught, interdisciplinary set of courses called Of Mice and Matter. With biology and chemistry at its core, this class uses technology for real-time data acquisition in laboratory course assignments. In tandem with another program on campus (CTILAC), they have incorporated how to access and search databases, how to obtain relevant and accurate results, and how to evaluate the information as part of the course series.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - Most of us in the Science Division want our students to do research, both as labs and investigation of the scientific literature.
  - We learned how to construct an interdisciplinary course and build collaborative learning into the learning environment.
  - As with any innovative pedagogy, we recommend starting small. Do a little bit, see if it works, and then add a bit more.
  

• Denny Burzynski, a mathematics instructor at West Valley College, uses TI-83 calculators to teach statistics and he's seen observed that students are asking more "Why?" questions and less "How to?" ones.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - Statistics has concepts that are important and without sophisticated graphing calculators, students would be lost in the forest among all the trees.
  - When we go over homework problems, we have discussions not about "How do you get from here to here?", which is arithmetic, but rather "Here's what I think this means".
  - The time savings allows me to do more problems in class - we can cover more material and make more interpretations.
  

• Frank Lee, an engineering professor from Bellevue Community College, uses Working Model 2D as a tool in class to visually verify with simulations the calculations the students are doing by hand.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - But students can't do much wondering when they're just trying to do the calculations. And if they can't visualize how an object is moving, then solving the equations that describe how it's moving is going to be even tougher.
  - They do the number crunching and they get a result. I tell them, "As engineers, you'd be asking, 'Is this result correct? Did I make any mistakes?'"
  - The software, whiz-bang, is great. But just because you can make the software run doesn't mean you know the concepts. Helping them learn the concepts is what we're going for.
  

• Frederick Moore, a physics professor at Whitman College, uses Workshop Physics: an activity-based learning approach to teach introductory physics in which everything takes place in the lab.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - Why did I turn to learning technology? Because - flat out - the students were not learning.
  - Students do real physics, take measurements, make predictions, and evaluate data.
  - When covering Newton's Laws, we ask students to design a handicapped-accessible ramp...
  

• Robert Mott, an engineering professor at the University of Dayton, has his students work with MDSolids® several different engineering courses.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - We think it's important for students to learn the fundamentals of the subject matter.
  - You can't simply dump students into a program unless they understand what the program is doing.
  

• Robert Olin, a professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, first describes how his department started to introduce technology and computer software into their mathematics course, and how this lead to the establishment of the Math Emporium.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - We had three compelling reasons for bringing learning technology to the Math Department: increasing enrollment, calculus reform, and we wanted to be a leader in using technology.
  - With only 78 computers and nearly 2,000 students, assessments showed that students in this new technology initiative were performing at or above the level of students in traditional courses.
  - The Emporium has been so successful that a lot of institutions are building these facilities now.
  

• Ronald Thornton, Director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Teaching (CSMT) and physics professor at Tufts University, have develop and use an activity-based Microcomputer-Based Laboratory (MBL) set of tools that allow students in labs to control their own explorations with real-time measurements and analysis.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - Most physics students don't understand the concepts but are skilled at memorizing formulas.
  - One of the reasons I developed these materials was to reach "science anxious" students.
  - The bottom line: activity-based learning greatly improves students' learning and understanding.
  

• Nick Turro, professor of chemistry at Columbia University, describes how went from helping struggling chemistry students, to using technology, to training faculty to incorporate technology in their classes.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - The first experiment helped us to understand the learning process of these struggling students and the second demonstrated technology could actually help students to learn.
  - How useful were visualizations going to be with respect to student learning? Did we have to hire a programmer? Could we find ways to be cost effective?
  - Look, we've got an idea here about helping faculty to get involved with information technology and the web.
  

• James White describes the New Mathwright Library, how Mathwright can help students succeed in mathematics, and some example books created by this authoring program he developed.
  Summary
  Full Story:
  - In traditional mathematics courses, the students learn a certain game--they learn a kind of stimulus response approach to learning mathematics.
  - My idea was that computer environments could support the strategy that Piaget proposed: to involve the students actively in their own learning by letting them ask questions, by letting them be the ones who constructed their knowledge.
  - One book created by a teacher had three polluted lakes, two of them feeding into a third one, with the first lake feeding into the second.