Last changed 15 Jun 1998 ............... Length about 500 words (4,000 bytes).
This is a WWW document maintained by Steve Draper, installed at http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/mant/talk.html. You may copy it. How to refer to it.

(Back up to current central page)

Mantchi talk

by
Stephen W. Draper

Contents (click to jump to a section)

Preface

This is the prefatory page to this web document, which consists of "slides" for showing during a talk. The talk is by video conference on 16 June 1998.

1. Evaluation in Mantchi

  1. Evaluation method / overview
  2. The student experience
  3. Management issues
  4. [software implications]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

2. Method

  • a) Evaluated some pre-ATOM courses 1997
  • b) Evaluated the first 4 ATOM deliveries autumn 1997 => delivery problems
  • c) Evaluated 12 more ATOM deliveries spring 1998.

Typical (b) method:
Resource quaire; pre&post; observation; confidence logs; student's prior experience.

Typical (c) method:
1 post-quaire and SSIs. Like ATOM? groupwork, res quaire, conlog. student's prior experience.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

3. The student experience: general

Generally fairly enthusiastic, certainly on average as good as non-ATOM alternatives, but by no means always preferred. One telling piece of evidence: Phil's delivery of Phil's ATOM to his own student: they preferred it to other non-ATOM bits of coursework.

Main problems were to do with the organisation of groupwork.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

4. CSCLN: computer supported cooperative lecture notes

58 of 59 (98%) response rate.
84% referred to them
76%found them of use
69% found them worth the effort of creating their share of them.

Rated the web notes as 3rd most useful resource (after past exam questions and solutions, and the course handouts).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

5. Remote expert: good, bad, or indifferent?

Can argue freely with them
They are "unbiassed"?
Many students indifferent to them.
[=> so perhaps ATOMs mainly useful as professional (staff) development for teachers that maintain rather than improve student learning directly.]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

6. Tertiary materials

Tertiary materials ("Trails": old questions, solutions, and tutor feedback).

Rated as useful if used, but very low usage rates:
a) Statechart ATOM delivered at HW
50 in class -->
{24 did quaire ; 15 did exercise} -->
9 did both -->
6 used trail -->
6 found it useful.
50 --> {24; 15} --> 9 --> 6 --> 6

b) Statechart ATOM delivered at Napier
11(9) in class -->
{9 did quaire ; 6 did exercise} -->
6 did both -->
2 used trail -->
2 found it useful.
50 --> 9;6 --> 6 --> 2 --> 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

7. Management issues

  • If work is not made compulsory, students are unlikely to do it: it is not signalled as important.
  • If time (e.g. lab time) is not allocated by the teacher for students to fill in evaluation questionnaires, then a low response rate results; and nothing definite can be learned by the teacher about the quality of the exercise.

  • Students would like instant feedback (not 6 week delay before work marked)
  • Students need enough time to do the work (teachers often unrealistic in their estimates)
  • Access to computers often an issue
  • Organisation of groupwork i.e. finding common times within a group of students is a serious problem
  • Need to alert students (e.g. by email) to the arrival of feedback on a web site. I.e. passive tools like web pages not sufficient by themselves.

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

    8. Finale

    Tertiary courseware: not collecting spontaneous dialogue; but either facilitate spontaneous dialogue (email) OR collect and re-use other kinds of interaction: shared lecture notes, old exercise Qs, As, feedback/marks

    True reciprocal collaborative teaching. Good for sharing subject and pedagogical expertise across HEIs.

    (Back up to current central page)