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EdTech provides consulting, training, outreach and educational services
for faculty, instructors and staff using educational technologies.
Like many instructors of large classes, Lecturer Donna Charlevoix (Department of Atmospheric Sciences) wondered what her students were getting out of her course. Charlevoix worried that she focused too much on the motions of teaching, and that her students concentrated more on memorizing information that would help them correctly answer questions on a test, rather than acquiring knowledge that would remain with them once the semester ended. Reflecting on these concerns, Charlevoix came to understand that her teaching practices mirrored those of many professors she had encountered in her own education, and that these common teaching practices were not conducive to the types of outcomes that she believed were important for today's students. Struggling with the question of how to make changes to her instruction, Charlevoix sought the advice of professors from the College of Education's Department of Curriculum and Instruction and began reviewing educational literature that focused on best practices. Eventually, Charlevoix became acquainted with the John Dewey-inspired inquiry learning and began to recognize how that method's emphasis on student-centered exploration could be effectively used to help her students develop a deeper understanding of the atmospheric sciences.
Charlevoix feels that using inquiry learning in her class allows her to effectively build upon her students' natural interests. With inquiry learning, students discover course goals and objectives through their own exploration of particular problems rather than through instructor-led presentations or readings.
Charlevoix feels that using inquiry learning in her class allows her to effectively build upon her students' natural interests. With inquiry learning, students discover course goals and objectives through their own exploration of particular problems rather than through instructor-led presentations or readings. Charlevoix finds that most of her students come to the course naturally curious about weather and climate, and therefore using a problem-based pedagogy helps to draw-out some of their natural curiosities. For example, she thinks that most people want to know why it gets colder on one day as opposed to another, or they intuitively ask "what's going on?" when they observe a storm traveling through a particular area. To capitalize on these questions, Charlevoix incorporates these types of everyday questions as the basis for inquiry lessons in her course. The students then use a variety of computer-based and online resources to "solve" the problems. In solving these problems her students are able to master basic meteorological knowledge, and more importantly, develop an introductory knowledge of the critical problem-solving skills necessary for all sciences.
Charlevoix's confidence in the power of inquiry learning emerges from her perception that she cannot imagine a subject that does not lend itself to the inquiry process. Still, she admits that not all learners are uniformly drawn to inquiry learning. She suggests that inquiry learning can create a level of anxiety for students who fashion themselves after the "typical scientist type." Charlevoix finds that these traditionally-oriented students sometimes develop a level of discomfort when they perceive that they are being taken on an academic tangent or when they are being asked to delve into the ambiguity of a particular situation. The reason for their discomfort, Charlevoix believes, is that these students are typically most comfortable working with numeric values, formulaic processes, and procedural practices toward the sole objective of generating "correct" answers. Charlevoix thinks that part of the problem with traditional classroom instruction is that it revolves around the idea that science is taught as "fact." By moving beyond common, traditional teaching, Charlevoix believes that students can be encouraged to become comfortable with ambiguity in a way that enhances their ability to think about ideas differently.
To help all students become comfortable with inquiry learning, instructors can start by introducing short and simple activities and exercises that build on inquiry learning's five steps: Ask, Investigate, Create, Discuss, and Reflect. In an attempt to get her students to think about ideas more broadly, Charlevoix applies what she calls a "twist" to her instruction. Rather than starting her classes with a lecture, Charlevoix starts her instruction by posing questions. This twist is intended to distract students from focusing on the acquisition of information for the purpose of answering test questions, and is instead designed to engage students in the initial stages of the inquiry process. In order to do this, Charlevoix asks lots of "why" questions. Why do we care? Why are we talking about this? Why would we want to know more?
http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/courses/atmos100/index.html
Charlevoix believes the redesign of the Introduction to Meteorology class was instrumental in increasing its enrollment numbers over the enrollment numbers of the once favorite, non-inquiry-based Severe Weather course. She knew the course had crossed the threshold of popularity when she overheard a student say, "This is cool. Too bad this isn't like a video game you could play at home." After relating this story, Charlevoix asked rhetorically, "What is wrong with fun, if students are learning? What happens in education that by the time students get to college, learning is no longer fun?"
In an attempt to develop a course that was more meaningful for her students, Charlevoix organized a team to redesign ATMOS 100: Introduction to Meteorology. The team consisted of two fellow professors, a graduate student in Atmospheric Sciences to help design the guided inquiry lessons, and a programmer who built interactive modules that students work on during labs. ATMOS 100 is a large course with 300 - 540 students and 10 – 20 discussion/lab sections divided into groups of not more than 30 students each. All discussion/labs are taught in an ATLAS computer lab so that students have current weather data at their disposal and are able to work on the various computer activities.
With such a large class, Charlevoix uses technology extensively to enhance the learning environment of the course. Lecture sessions are held in a CITES "smart classroom" with an ITS where Charlevoix makes full use of the display and computer facilities to provide a "multimedia presentation" in each class. Moreover, Charlevoix uses a Tablet PC during lectures. (Tablet PC’s are specialized laptops that allow users to write directly on the screen, making it possible to handwrite notes and/or draw illustrations.) The use of a Tablet PC greatly enhances lecture because it allows her to add information to PowerPoint slides and to draw appropriate illustrations on weather maps (such as fronts). Moreover, prior to lecture, students are provided with an outline of lecture notes that they are able to print out and bring to class with them. This allows students to annotate the notes throughout the lecture, which promotes active learning while also helping students to learn how to take notes during a lecture.
Charlevoix also makes extensive use of Illinois Compass to disseminate information and interact with the entire class through discussion boards and homework assignments. While the online and lecture portions of the course are important, most of the redesign work went into enhancing the laboratory portion of the course. To enhance the labs, Charlevoix and her team began to develop ideas for interactive Java application models that would be accompanied with inquiry-based lessons. The computer programs were designed to encourage students to explore and play with the interactive applications (such as the Smog City Simulator and the Tropical Cyclone Tracker) as a way of developing their understanding of complex issues. However, the programs were not designed without structure; students are not placed in situations where their inquiries are random and unfocused. Instead, students are provided with short lesson introductions that act as both a foundation and a framework for learning, as well as short lesson wrap-ups that tie everything together. With this approach, Charlevoix’s goal was to avoid telling her students exactly what to do during the learning process, or to point out one "correct" answer for each topic. Instead the lessons are meant to guide students on a path of learning and inquiry much richer and rewarding than traditional content-retention models of learning.
Within eight months, the development process was finished and the newly developed materials were ready for testing in the classroom, at which time several problems were identified. The most significant of these problems involved the excessive length and detail of the guided inquiry lessons and curriculum guides. In order to fix this problem, Charlevoix and her team ultimately discovered the balance between the number of instructions needed for focusing students' attention and the amount of time that was needed for students to develop understandings through the process of "playing" with the interactive computer modules.
Since the testing phase, Charlevoix has continued to modify the course to best fit the learning needs of her students. For example, lab sessions no longer focus solely on the use of interactive computer programs. Instead, discussion-based labs are utilized some weeks, while technology-based labs are used other weeks. The mixing of different teaching styles has helped Charlevoix and her team “focus on engaging students in the classroom to the maximum extent possible. This means we must recognize when not to use electronic technologies. We teach using different pedagogy depending on the topic so as to maximize interest, understanding, and comprehension.” Along with adjusting the labs, Charlevoix began teaching the course based on different themes such as: " How do we forecast the weather?" (offered in the Spring), and "Cyclones: Hurricanes & Middle-latitude Cyclones, similarities and differences" (offered in the Fall). Teaching the course around different themes gives Charlevoix the opportunity to start from what students already know about real-life weather situations and move on from there.
Charlevoix believes the redesign of ATMOS 100 was instrumental in increasing its enrollment numbers over the enrollment numbers of the once favorite, non-inquiry-based Severe Weather course. She knew the course had crossed the threshold of popularity when she overheard a student say, “This is cool. Too bad this isn't like a video game you could play at home." After relating this story, Charlevoix asked rhetorically, "What is wrong with fun, if students are learning? What happens in education that by the time students get to college, learning is no longer fun?"
After enjoying a number of successful semesters with the revised ATMOS 100, Charlevoix now reflects on and considers the course's popularity with students. With a focus on fun as well as the development of complex understandings, ATMOS 100 attracts students from diverse majors. Many of these students develop a budding interest in meteorology and show interest in taking other courses in the field. "The bottom line," says Charlevoix, "is that if students cannot relate to, or see the value in what they are learning, they are not going to care." Students have to look at ideas in different ways and then look beyond those ways. This is the foundation of inquiry learning and it is this process that ultimately helps students communicate their ideas while recognizing that others may have examined the same ideas in different ways. The goals are not to develop answers per se, but rather to help students become comfortable with intellectual discovery as a process and to encourage them to develop complex, nuanced understandings of a topic. These goals, of course, represent the highest ideals we hold for education.
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