NameSchoolDepartment

A TALE OF TWO CLASSES: JUST IN TIME TEACHING (JITT) IN SOCIOLOGY AND PHYSICS

@ SLOAN-C, JULY 2014

DR. TING JIANGDEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGYAND ANTHROPOLOGY

DR. JEFF LOATSDEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

OUTLINE

1. The Blended Learning Initiative

2. Basics of Just-in-Time Teaching

3. Structure & examples from each class

4. Analysis methods & results

5. Student attitudes & perspectives

6. Summaries

BLENDED LEARNING INITIATIVE (2013)

Common:

Target intro courses with large enrollments(instructors teaching First Year Success courses)

Offer small incentive/acknowledgement (laptop)

Perhaps uncommon:

Invite potential participants (vs. them applying)

Offer a small “menu” of teaching techniques

Sustained support: 6-8 “meetings” including1-on-1, small-group meetings, workshops.

PARTICIPANT PERSPECTIVE

Spring 2013:

Exposure to new pedagogical approaches

Hands on guidance to convert a regular class to a JiTT incorporated class

Fall 2013:

Continuous support every step of the way

Useful follow up sessions during the trial semester

In your teaching do you have a method for holding students accountable for preparing for class?

A)I don’t, but I ask/threaten really well.

B) I use a paper method (quiz, journal, others?)

C) I use a digital method (clickers, others?)

D)I use Just in Time Teaching.

E) I have some other method.

17%

50%

10%

6%

16%

From~170

others

JUST IN TIME TEACHING

Online pre-class assignments called WarmUps

First half - Students

• Conceptual questions, answered in sentences

• Graded on thoughtful effort

Second half - Instructor

• Responses are read “just in time”

• Instructor modifies that day’s plan accordingly.

• Aggregate and individual (anonymous) responses are displayed in class.

Learner Teacher

Consider a typical day in your class. What fraction of students did their preparatory work before coming to class?

A) 0% - 20%

B) 20% - 40%

C) 40% - 60%

D) 60% - 80%

E) 80% - 100%

27%

33%

21%

14%

5%

From~200

others

WARMUP QUESTIONS

• Every-day language• Occasional simple comprehension question• Mostly higher level questions (a la Bloom)• Perhaps any question is better than none

Connections to evidence:–Pre-class work reduces working memory load

during class.–Multimodal practice (not learning styles):

JiTT brings reading, writing and discussion as modes of practice.

METACOGNITION

First & last questions on every WarmUp:

“What aspect of the material did you find the most difficult or interesting.”

“How much time did you spend on the pre-class work for tomorrow?” [Multiple-choice survey]

Connections to evidence:

–Metacognition practice: Students regularly evaluate their own interaction with the material.

THE JITT FEEDBACK LOOP

Student responses:

• Graded on thoughtful effort

• Sampled and categorized for display

• Quoted anonymously

Closing the loop:

• Respond to some students digitally

• Shift class time toward active engagement

JUST IN TIME TEACHING

A different student role:

• Actively prepare for class(not just reading/watching)

• Actively engage in class

• Compare your progress & plan accordingly

A different instructor role:

• Actively prepare for class with you(not just going over last year’s notes )

• Modify class accordingly

• Create interactive engagement opportunities

Learner Teacher

JITT STRUCTURE & RESPONSE RATES

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Response Rate by Day

Class #

% R

esp

onse

d

College Physics I, N = 78

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Response Rate by Day

Class #

% R

esp

onse

d

Intro. Sociology, N = 23

Worth 10% of final gradeDue 10 PM the night before classAssignments available for prior 2-3 days

College Physics I Intro. to SociologyWorth 5% of final gradeDue 10 PM the night before classAssignments available for prior 2-3 days

SOCIOLOGY EXAMPLE: LOOKING GLASS SELF

Read p. 69 of the textbook, and explain what is “looking-glass self.”

Responses:

“What we think of ourselves depends on how we think others see us”

“The way we see ourselves as we imagine others see us”

“Reflection of how we see ourselves from other's perspectives.”

PHYSICS EXAMPLE: WHIRLING BUCKET

A bucket of water can be whirled in a vertical circle without the water falling out, even at the top of the circle when the bucket is upside down. Explain…

~15% → An outward force holds it in~30% → An inward force holds it in~20% → Talked (correctly!) about

acceleration & velocity… but didn't really answer.

~10% → Nailed it! (or close enough)

PHYSICS EXAMPLE: WHIRLING BUCKET

“The water doesn't come out because you twirling the bucket is applying the force of spinning, and the water just kind of counteracts that motion.”

“Because the water naturally wants to keep traveling in the same direction its being whirled around in the water attempts to continue going up in a straight line but the bottom of the bucket forces it to stay in the bucket, like when you are pushed by the door of a car while making a turn.”

JITT VS. FINAL GRADE CORRELATIONS

College Physics I Intro. to Sociology

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1000

20

40

60

80

100

WarmUps vs. Cumulative Score

WarmUp Score

Cum

ulati

ve S

core

(with

out w

arm

-ups

)

Correlation r = 0.71

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1000

20

40

60

80

100

WarmUps vs. Cumulative Score

Warmup Score

Cum

ulati

ve S

core

(with

out W

arm

Ups)

Correlation r = 0.50

SOCIOLOGY – COMPARISON TO CONTROL

Comparison of the same course, same term, same instructor, with and without JiTT.

Experimental group: 23 students, with JITTControl group: 48 students, without JiTT

Same assessment tools: Exams and final papers

But… this difference is only marginally significant with a p-value of 0.11.

Group Average on Final ExamControl (without JiTT) 73.2Experimental (with JiTT) 80.5

PHYSICS – PROGRESSIVE EXAMS

College Physics I:

Important disclosure: This was not a hypothesis we were testing, it appeared as we analyzed the data. Could be spurious.

Mini Exam(week 4)

Exam 1(week 7)

Exam 2(week 11)

Final Exam(week 16)

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.18

0.33

0.43

0.54

Non

eW

eak

Stro

ngM

oder

ate

Correlations between Total WarmUp Score and Sequence of Exams

STUDENT SURVEY RESULTS

Mean on 1-5 scalePreparation for class 4.11

Engagement during class 4.17

Learning the material 3.9

College Physics I Intro. to Sociology

Mean on 1-5 scale

Preparation for class 4.43

Engagement during class 4.00

Learning the material 4.57

Harmful Neutral Helpful0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

3%10%

58%

5%9%

57%

6%15%

50%

How did WarmUps affect your...

Preparation Engagement LearningN = 71

Harmful Neutral Helpful0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0%

14%

86%

14% 14%

71%

0%

14%

86%

How did WarmUps affect your...

Preparation Engagement LearningN = 7

STUDENT SURVEY QUOTES

Sociology:

“JITT was help me retain the information from lecture and helped my study for exams.”

“Very helpful. I wish other classes did it. Helped me stay on track within the class”

STUDENT SURVEY QUOTES

Physics:

“Initially, it was hard for me to get used to the warm-ups. It seemed like along with the homework assignments there was a lot of things to do. Eventually I got used to it and ultimately the warmups really helped me to learn the material and stay caught up with the class.”

“If it weren't for warm ups, the amount of time I spent reading the book would have dropped by 75%”

OUR SUMMARY

Important similarities in results:• Moderate to strong correlations between

course performance and WarmUp score• Between-group and in-group comparisons

help indicate a robust result• Positive student responses

Important confounding factors:• Different experience levels of instructors• Different disciplines• Different student populations

YOUR SUMMARYFor yourself… or to share?

What one “nugget” do most want remember to use yourself or to share with other faculty?

Contact Ting: tjiang@msudenver.edu

Contact Jeff: Jeff.Loats@gmail.com

Twitter: @JeffLoats

Slides: bit.ly/jeffloats

ON-DEMAND SLIDES

JITT REFERENCES & RESOURCES

Simkins, Scott and Maier, Mark (Eds.) (2010) Just in Time Teaching: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy, Stylus Publishing.

Gregor M. Novak, Andrew Gavrini, Wolfgang Christian, Evelyn Patterson (1999) Just-in-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River NJ.

K. A. Marrs, and G. Novak. (2004). Just-in-Time Teaching in Biology: Creating an Active Learner Classroom Using the Internet. Cell Biology Education, v. 3, p. 49-61.

Jay R. Howard (2004). Just-in-Time Teaching in Sociology or How I Convinced My Students to Actually Read the Assignment.  Teaching Sociology, Vol. 32 (No. 4 ). pp. 385-390. Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3649666

S. Linneman, T. Plake (2006). Searching for the Difference: A Controlled Test of Just-in-Time Teaching for Large-Enrollment Introductory Geology Courses. Journal of Geoscience Education, Vol. 54 (No. 1)Stable URL:http://www.nagt.org/nagt/jge/abstracts/jan06.html#v54p18

T-TEST RESULTS------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Group |     Obs        Mean    Std. Err.   Std. Dev.   [95% Conf. Interval]---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------   JiTT |      23    80.45595    3.483984    17.06797    73.24878    87.66312 Regular |      48    73.19017    3.710472     25.7069    65.72567    80.65468---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------combined |      71     75.6121    2.748048    23.31796    70.13265    81.09155---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------    diff |            7.265781    5.806398               -4.314713    18.84628------------------------------------------------------------------------------Degrees of freedom: 69

                  Ho: mean(JiTT) - mean(Regular) = diff = 0

     Ha: diff < 0               Ha: diff != 0              Ha: diff > 0       t =   1.2513                t =   1.2513              t =   1.2513   P < t =   0.8925          P > |t| =   0.2150          P > t =   0.1075

WHAT TOOLS TO USE?

The crucial part:

Daily reading, grading & using responses

• Automatic full credit for any response

• View all responses to a question together

• Grade responses on the same page with minimal clicks

Wishlist:

Easy (quick!) individual feedback

WHAT MIGHT STOP YOU?

In terms of the technique:

Time, coverage, not doing your part, pushback…

In terms of the technology:

Learning curve, tech. failures, perfectionism…

In any reform of your teaching:

Reinventing, no support, too much at once…