Experiential Learning in the 21st Century: Service Learning and Civic Engagement Opportunities in the Online Science Classroom

Abstract

Online higher education programs provide opportunities and access to students who might not have enrolled in a higher education program otherwise. As the demand for these online programs increases, including those in the STEM fields, the need for experiential learning opportunities becomes critical. Experiential learning in the online environment can take place in a multitude of ways, can generate student engagement, and can incorporate collaborative learning opportunities. Together, these courses will involve hands-on learning experiences that address real-world needs, service learning, and civic engagement, all which encompass the central focus for these opportunities and are the foundation on which these courses will be built.

Introduction

A growing demand for online higher education programs brings with it the challenge of incorporating civic engagement responsibilities into an online environment. According to the 2015 Survey of Online Learning, conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and published in the Online Learning Consortium’s Online Report Card (Allen et al. 2016), 2.85 million students are taking all of their courses in an online environment, while another 2.79 million are taking at least one online course. To put that in perspective, more than one in four students (28 percent) took at least one online course in the fall of 2014. Southern New Hampshire University’s College of Online and Continuing Education (SNHU COCE) currently serves online students and offers more than 200 online college degrees and certificates, including those in Environmental Science and Geosciences. The demand for individuals in these fields is expected to increase 10 to 11 percent faster than average between 2014 and 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016); therefore, providing innovative, hands-on, experiential learning opportunities for these students is crucial.

SNHU COCE incorporates experiential learning opportunities into its online STEM programs with a unique approach. Experiential learning is grounded in the work of John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Jean Piaget (Kolb 1984). Dewey (1938) argued that education and learning are social and interactive processes and stated that there is a connection between education and personal experience. Lewin and his Lewinian Model of Action Research and Laboratory Training focused on learning as facilitated by experience, acquisition of data, and observations. Piaget’s Model of Learning and Cognitive Development incorporates aspects of these two, but also adds reflection and action to the mix. Together, the philosophy of experiential learning can best be described as a process of learning as opposed to learning on the basis of outcomes (Kolb 1984). According to Kolb (1984), “knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.” (See Figure 1 for a depiction of experiential learning in the 21st century framed in the context of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle.)

The purpose of the experiential learning courses for our online learners is to provide students with an opportunity to gain experience in their chosen field. In this report, we’ll focus specifically on civic engagement and service learning opportunities within the experiential learning courses. Civic engagement and service learning opportunities promote a sense of community and civic responsibility using reflective thinking to develop the students’ academic skills. Students participating in these types of immersive opportunities have the chance to work in local communities, address current environmental issues, and assist communities in implementing solutions. Course outcomes for the experiential learning courses revolve around guided reflection. The act of reflection is often a process that allows for the reorganization of knowledge and thought in order to attain greater insight (Moon 2004, 82). According to Moon (2004), understanding, decision making, resolution, and action outcomes can result from the use of reflective processes, including reflective journaling. Together, these reflective processes link reflection with the process of learning.

In the experiential courses, students reflect on scientific practices and real-world situations; they reflect on how experiential learning opportunities play a role in driving the achievement of their goals, and examine the relationship between the application of scientific inquiry and their real-world experiences. Students engage in reflective learning by participating in various discussions with their peers (collaborative reflection), along with writing in weekly journals to document their journey through the many experiences they encounter (personal reflection). (See Figure 2 for an overview of student journal guidelines.)  Upon completion of the course, students produce a guided written reflective piece that summarizes all of their experiences and details how those experiences have influenced their personal goals and future career path and helped identify what questions they may still have as they go forth in their educational and professional careers.

Online Experiential Learning in Science through Service Learning and Civic Engagement

Service learning has been identified as a high-impact practice that promotes higher-level learning and success (Kuh 2008; Brownell and Swaner 2010). The National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (2012) is calling for renewed energy in community engagement, civic engagement, and service learning. Service learning and civic engagement involve building a sense of responsibility to one’s community and allow students the opportunity to apply concepts and ideas learned in class to real-life situations and scenarios (Holland et al. 2008, 165). Experiential learning with an emphasis on service learning and civic engagement in the online science learning environment can take place in a multitude of ways and can, in fact, generate high levels of student engagement and collaborative learning opportunities. The learning can take place in both the student’s local community and in the online environment where students interact with their peers and a faculty member, sharing, communicating, problem solving, and reflecting throughout the course.

At Southern New Hampshire University’s College of Online and Continuing Education, the goal is to provide students with meaningful learning experiences that connect to real-world relevance. To achieve this goal, an online science experiential learning undergraduate course has been created for our Environmental Science and Geoscience majors that includes varying topics that rotate throughout the year. Students may take this elective course up to two times in total. (See Figure 3 for the Course at a Glance Overview.)

Students engage in short-term immersive learning experiences that span roughly two months and include a minimum of seventy documented hours of experience. (See Figure 4 for the required weekly student timesheet template.) Students have the opportunity to engage in service while concurrently reflecting on their experience, exploring personal and professional development opportunities, applying scientific concepts to real-world situations, and developing competencies and skills around a desired career interest. The course also allows students to make personal connections in their field of interest and provides a face-to-face experience where students can demonstrate competency in the field to potential future employers, colleagues, or collaborators.

Examples of topics that focus on service learning and civic engagement in science for the online science experiential learning course are discussed below.

Service Learning

Service learning is a form of experiential learning that involves equal focus on student learning and community service goals. Service learning encompasses both reflection and reciprocity, where students actively participate in the service learning project and reflect on their experiences, in a dynamic action-reflection process. In Service-Learning in Higher Education (1996), Barbara Jacoby writes, “Service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve desired learning outcomes.” Therefore, in the online experiential learning course, students are actively engaged in learning opportunities that address a real-world need, while also providing time for reflection and discussion as learners progress towards mastery of course learning outcomes.

Service Learning and Grant Writing

Students learn to write a science grant in a real-world setting. They are tasked with finding and working with a local community partner organization in their area (such as a local, state, or national agency or park, museum, wildlife center, science center, aquarium, or zoo). The students work with their chosen entity to develop a grant proposal for funding that will be submitted to a granting agency for consideration. Students are not assessed on the outcome of the grant application process, but rather the outcomes and assessment focus on the experiential reflective learning process. In this experience, students make connections in their local community, serve the organization’s need by submitting a grant on their behalf, and gain a marketable skill.

Service Learning and Field Experience

Field experience can be interpreted broadly, but generally refers to gaining experience in the field in which the student would like to work. For example, it may include service in a branch within the Department of the Interior, e.g. National Park Service (NPS), United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), United States Geological Service (USGS), or serving on a local (city or county) geographic information system (GIS) project. Conversely, it may involve students who serve as data analysts on a scientific study that encompasses large data sets ready for analysis and synthesis. In this case, students work collaboratively with a faculty member who provides the raw data for the course, and the team of faculty and students work together to analyze and synthesize the data. The data analysis and synthesis could also include a final communication of those science results in a journal, data report, or other research publication.

Field experience allows students to gain skills that will help them in their future careers, and to make connections in the field, add to their professional network, and serve the needs of a community project or organization by serving its overall goal or mission in some capacity.

Civic Engagement

Civic engagement centers on making a real-world difference in the community while concurrently developing knowledge, skills, competencies, and abilities to achieve successful course and community project outcomes. Civic engagement can take on many forms in the higher education environment, and it prepares students to be engaged citizens. In our civically engaged experiential learning opportunities, students work on authentic science projects that are designed to make a difference in the community and provide students with real-world experience in science.

Civic Engagement through Community Citizen Science

In the online science experiential learning classroom, the world is our lab (Figure 5). Citizen science, or public participation in science, offers science students the opportunity to engage in science along with a greater community of collaborators or participants. Students gain experience facilitating and leading the public in real-world science. For example, students may create a citizen science species monitoring project on iNaturalist and host a BioBlitz in their local area. A BioBlitz refers to a period of time (such as a weekend) when organisms in a certain geographic area are surveyed and documented. The iNaturalist mobile device app allows for the BioBlitz to take place, with participants using smart phones and uploading images of the organism to the iNaturalist project.

In 2017, the “City Nature Challenge,” which began in California in 2016, became a national event. The April “City Nature Challenge” (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County 2017) coincided with “National Citizen Science Day” and included a friendly BioBlitz-style competition among sixteen cities across the United States. The “City Nature Challenge” uses iNaturalist to document species in a given area during a set period of time. Therefore, events like this can be a way for students to get involved in their local community and organize, lead, and facilitate BioBlitz events with the public. Engagement in community citizen science and BioBlitz events can lead to publishing ideas and opportunities for students, including the creation of a blog relating their experiences. Reporting about the experience is beneficial to the learning process, and also serves to reinforce an important aspect of the science process: communicating the science. In addition, science students help identify organisms that come in from participant observations during the challenge, and ultimately student participation helps to “crowdsource” and update species guides for each region. (See Figure 6 for an example of the updated species guide from the North Texas area, following the 2017 City Nature Challenge.) In 2018, the City Nature Challenge will be a global event. Imagine the unlimited possibilities for your own students when the world comes together in a locally engaged, globally connected iNaturalist BioBlitz next spring.

Conclusion and Discussion

The journey into experiential learning in the online science classroom has only just begun and the service learning and civic engagement examples discussed in this article are only the beginning for online experiential learning opportunities in science. We look forward to continuously learning from our students and our colleagues, and to applying collective stakeholder feedback as we further expand our course topic offerings. We welcome and invite discussion and collaboration with the entire SENCER community as we continue the exciting journey and evolution in online science education to serve the twenty-first-century learner.

About the Authors

Kelly Thrippleton-Hunter is a Faculty Lead for Undergraduate Science at Southern New Hampshire University’s College of Online and Continuing Education. She received two B.S. degrees, one in Zoology and the other in Environmental Biology and Ecology, from California State University, Long Beach in 2002, a Ph.D. in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California, Riverside in 2009, and an M.A.T. in Science from Western Governors University in 2015.

Jill Nugent is the Associate Dean for Science at Southern New Hampshire University’s College of Online and Continuing Education. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Texas Tech University, investigating locally engaged, globally connected citizen science in university science courses.

References

Allen, I.E., J. Seaman, R. Poulin, and T.T. Straut. 2016. “2015 Online Report Card: Tracking Online Education in the United States.” https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/read/online-report-card-tracking-online-education-united-states-2015/ (accessed May 31, 2017).

Brownell, J.E., and L.E. Swaner. 2010. Five High-Impact Practices: Research on Learning Outcomes, Completion, and Quality. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. 2016. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2016–17. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan.

Holland, B.A., S. Billig, and M. Bowdon. 2008. Scholarship for Sustaining Service-Learning and Civic Engagement. Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing.

Jacoby, B. 1996. Service-Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kolb, D.A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kuh, G. 2008. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Moon, J.A. 2004. A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning: Theory and Practice. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement. 2012. A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. 2017. “City Nature Challenge 2017, April 14–18.” https://nhm.org/nature/citizen-science/city-nature-challenge-2017 (accessed May 31, 2017).

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Informal STEM Learning: The State of Research, Access and Equity in Rural Early Childhood Settings

Abstract

Even though 22 percent of Americans live in rural areas, rural locations have repeatedly been overlooked as research sites. Rural settings represent areas rich in early childhood STEM education research opportunities, yet very little rural STEM education research exists. This review highlights the limited extent of informal STEM learning research in rural early childhood settings as well as the impact that rurality has on teacher engagement and rural school STEM accessibility. A model that promotes active and collaborative partnerships between informal learning practitioners, community entities, and early childhood teachers represents an effective way to advance access to, equity in, and research about informal STEM learning experiences in rural settings. To foster this engaged learning paradigm, researchers must seek to develop and nourish meaningful relationships between informal STEM partners and schools in rural areas.

Introduction

Approximately 22 percent of the U.S. population, or nearly sixty million people, currently live in rural areas (United States Census Bureau 2014),  yet the scarcity of research related to rural education has been noted for decades in comprehensive literature reviews (Arnold et al. 2005; DeYoung 1987; Kannapel and DeYoung 1999; Stapel and DeYoung 2011; Waters et al. 2008). The editor of the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education even went so far as to call the lack of focus on rural education an “attention deficit disorder” in published research (Silver 2003). With nearly 19 percent of America’s schoolchildren attending rural public schools (Showalter et al. 2017), rural settings represent areas rich in STEM education research opportunities (Avery 2013; Avery and Kassam 2011). Yet rural specific issues, such as distance to services and access to professional development in STEM fields, create barriers that often prevent rurally located teachers and students from having equitable access to STEM learning opportunities (Banilower et al. 2013; Goodpastor et al. 2012).

The need for this review arises from the limited extent of informal STEM learning research in rural early childhood settings as well as the impact that rurality has on teacher engagement and rural school STEM accessibility. Recognizing the value rural areas provide as STEM research sites and capitalizing on the strengths of closely connected rural communities is helpful in addressing the accessibility and equity concerns detailed in this review. Additionally, collaborative partnerships that bridge formal and informal learning experiences represent an important mechanism for addressing access and equity in rural early childhood settings.

Background

Rural Settings—Underrepresented in the National Conversation

Though research about informal learning settings is not uncommon, a significant report on formal-informal collaborations made no specific mention of rural examples (Bevan et al. 2010). The value of learning science in informal environments is well recognized, but an informed approach for ensuring equity is essential in order to fully engage nondominant groups, including those in low-income and rural areas (Fenichel and Schweingruber 2010). While urban locales share similar challenges, rural locales have a way of magnifying certain challenges and opportunities that differ from urban locales. Informal STEM learning experiences are unevenly distributed with rural communities typically underserved, which, given the educational impact of informal learning experiences, may further contribute to placing rural students at a long-term economic disadvantage (Matterson and Holman 2012). Children’s museums, which typically have a strong STEM focus, are amongst the fastest growing types of museum, yet in a recent survey of children’s museum professionals, only five percent of respondents were from rural locations (Luke and Windleharth 2013). Worse, the outreach activities of large metropolitan museums run the risk of embracing urban-centric assumptions, which may align poorly with rural experiences.

Given the centrality of community and place to rural areas, rural children’s museums have the potential to serve as an anchor in the broader learning ecosystem of rural communities, including formal and informal learning collaborations (Luke and Garvin 2014), serving to connect across disciplines and even generations. But while 22 percent of Americans live in rural areas (United States Census Bureau 2014), only twelve percent of children’s museums are located within rural areas (Association of Children’s Museums 2015). This highlights yet another need for increased access to rural STEM learning experiences. In particular, a survey of research in children’s museums concluded that 56 percent of the research was conducted at only seven museums (all in large metropolitan areas) and only approximately four percent of the research involved teachers (Luke and Windleharth 2013), emphasizing the need for additional research specifically related to the role of museums for early childhood education and teacher collaborations in rural settings.

Developing interdisciplinary learning ecosystems that utilize existing and new partnerships (communities-schools-universities) has the potential to foster significant resiliency factors in the face of the many barriers to informal STEM learning that exist in rural settings. A recent National Research Council report (Bell et al. 2009) highlighted the overlapping goals of schools and informal (non-school) settings in science learning and the complementary role that informal settings can play in supporting learning progressions. The report emphasized that informal STEM learning experiences have the potential to be designed specifically to align with the K–12 science and math curriculum goals, even when the experiences may be infrequent (Bell et al. 2009). This type of intentional alignment could significantly enhance the impact of the informal STEM learning experience. However, despite recognition of the tremendous learning potential stemming from collaborations between informal learning organizations and schools, there is relatively little research on these types of collaborations in rural early childhood settings (Avery 2013; Avery and Kassam 2011). This is surprising given the close-knit nature of most rural communities, where collaboration between local industry, business, artists, and K–12 educators should be easier than in metropolitan centers (cf. the case of Meriwether Lewis Junior-Senior High School in Howley et al. [2010] for an example of a rural math educator using community relations to craft connections of mathematics to place).

Rural Schooling—Then and Now

The reasons for the exclusion of rural areas from current research date as far back as the 1900s and are inextricably linked to location, social position, politics, and poverty (DeYoung 1995). During the 19th century and early 20th century, schooling was rural for a majority of Americans, as one-room schoolhouses were the norm (Theobald 1991, 1997). Over the course of the 19th century and extending to the present, American schools and modern life simultaneously institutionalized a more industrialized and one-package-fits-all model. The contracts issued by many schools and districts to engage efficiency programs modeled after business applications suggests that the industrial model persists. As part of this movement, schools underwent a shift from one-room schools to a more factory-based style of education that made it easier for teachers to be monitored, curriculum to be standardized, students’ progress to be tracked, and the education process to be governed by qualified education experts instead of local community members (Smith 1999). Consolidation became a further expression of the push toward efficiency, standardization, and “bottom-line” thinking in the mid-to-latter 20th century (Herzog and Pittman 1999; Howley 1991). The consolidation experiment is an especially salient example of how following the same model as urban or suburban schools did not solve rural schooling’s issues. Indeed, the impact of large organizational scale and high transportation-to-instructional expenditures may be creating more problems than they are solving.

Rural schools face continued challenges today. In particular, rural schools experience lower income bases, difficulty in attracting and keeping teachers, lack of access to quality professional teacher development, and decreased access to informal STEM experiences for students, families, and teachers in rural regions (Avery 2013; Avery and Kassam 2011; Goodpastor et al. 2012; Herzog and Pittman 1999; Monk 2007; Schafft and Jackson 2011). Children in rural schools are identified for special education services more often and for gifted services less often than their non-rural peers (DeYoung 1993; Pendarvis and Wood 2009; Seal and Harmon 1995). Adult commutes are longer (and accordingly, transportation expenses are greater), and children living in rural areas often experience longer bus rides to and from school (Seal and Harmon 1995) than their non-rural counterparts. As teachers in rural schools are often the school’s sole representatives of their content area, the issue of professional isolation creates a concern that is specific to rural schooling (Monk 2007). Additionally, teachers in rural schools have reduced access to quality professional development (Monk 2007). For example, only 11 percent of rural schools provided one-on-one science-focused coaching to science teachers compared to 30 percent in urban schools (Banilower et al. 2013). These circumstances create educational risk factors for both students and teachers, and highlight the need to foster resiliency factors in underserved rural regions (Malloy and Allen 2007). Resiliency factors, which enable people to be successful in the face of adversity, create protective mechanisms that help mitigate risk factors and are essential in overcoming high-risk educational conditions (Henderson and Milstein 2003; Krovetz 1999; Malloy and Allen 2007). These descriptors illuminate the need for increased access to informal STEM learning experiences for children and teachers alike, but also create considerable challenges in reaching the rural areas that would most benefit from increased informal STEM learning opportunities.

Barriers to Rural STEM Accessibility and Equity

Despite improvements in transportation (and communication technologies), getting rural schools and families to access places of informal learning is still difficult (Ellegard and Vilhelmson 2004). Dubbed the “friction of distance,” transport to informal learning events is impacted by distance and ease of reaching a location (Ellegard and Vilhelmson 2004). Increased access to funding for informal STEM learning events and transportation to reach them is an ongoing and pressing issue for rurally located schools (Schafft and Jackson 2011; Sipple and Brent 2008). Even when an informal STEM organization is regionally accessible, rural schools are sometimes unable to pay for even a short bus ride (Hartman and Hines-Bergmeier 2015). Charging admission fees in impoverished rural regions also presents serious accessibility issues, as many families and school districts are unable to afford even a modest admission fee (Hartman and Hines-Bergmeier 2015). The recently launched “Museums for All” initiative, co-sponsored by the Association for Children’s Museums and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, is an important new direction for ensuring access and equity regardless of economic status. Beyond financial and geographic challenges, a deep connection to home and community cultures and contexts needs to be woven throughout the fabric of STEM informal learning experiences in order to achieve true equity for underrepresented or nondominant groups such as rural communities (Fenichel and Schweingruber 2010).

Additionally, distrust of outsiders is a common characteristic in rural areas, making gaining entry to rural settings a challenging prospect (Hartman 2013; Seal and Harmon, 1995). Historically, rural residents’ perception was that outsiders came to make them more like the rest of the world and to offer suggestions for improvement and change, and this made them wary and distrustful of people who are considered outsiders (Cooper et al. 2010; Edwards et al. 2006; Hartman 2013). In informal learning settings, this idea may be more specifically defined as social exclusion (Sandell 1998). Described as a breakdown in the links between individuals and their connections to the community, state services, and institutions, social exclusion is a concern in rural areas (Sandell 1998). Even when an educational STEM entity is associated with long-time local residents, overcoming issues created by rural residents’ cultural view of outsiders and the theory of social exclusion present ongoing challenges for places of informal STEM learning (Hartman and Hines-Bergmeier 2015). Also challenging is the fact that, in rural communities, education and educational institutions are often perceived by community members as “one-way tickets” out—a tool for preparing children for jobs elsewhere, and thus espousing a set of values contrary to that of the close kinship and connections held in rural communities (Corbett 2007). Recruiting talent away from communities is perceived as yet another form of resource extraction, sometimes called “brain drain.” Strategies to overcome these barriers involve innovative, cross-contextual learning fostered by collaborative partnerships.

Cross-Contextual Learning in Early Childhood Settings

Early Childhood Education refers specifically to the time of rapid growth and development during the ages of three to eight (Follari 2011; Morrison 2015). Children in this age group are characterized by their willingness to take risks, curiosity about the world around them, and desire to be actively engaged in learning experiences (Follari 2011; Morrison 2015). Learning experiences that foster creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and a view of the world that is globally-minded and interdisciplinary are essential for children in the early years (Semmel 2009). Importantly, informal learning settings are places that encourage both independent and group exploration, are inherently play-based, and emphasize hands-on learning. These environments are designed to foster a high level of engagement and represent a model that is developmentally appropriate for young learners (Bell et al. 2009; Semmel 2009).

Though data from rural areas are scarce, research data that document bridging the gap between school and informal learning show promise for revolutionizing the way schools and community organizations interact to improve learning for children (Avery and Kassam 2011; Behrendt and Franklin 2014; Bevan et al. 2010; Duran et al. 2009; Fallik et al. 2013). Distinctions between “school math” or “school science” and “real math/science” may lead many students to develop negative dispositions toward STEM inquiry (Braund and Reiss 2006). Cross-contextual learning is a term for bridging the gap between the learning that occurs at school and the learning that happens informally at places such as museums, libraries, and/or parks (Fallik et al. 2013). By building upon experiences that occur in informal settings, classroom teachers are better able to create meaningful, engaged learning experiences in formal settings (Behrendt and Franklin 2014; Fallik et al. 2013). However, effective cross-contextual learning is challenging for teachers and places that provide informal learning experiences for children (Avery 2013; Avery and Kassam 2011; Fallik et al. 2013; Russell et al. 2013).

Early childhood teachers often have limited content knowledge of math and science, which contributes to low self-efficacy in math and science teaching and to decisions to devote less classroom time to teaching science (Murphy et al. 2007; Schneider et al. 2007; Ma 2010); conditions that impede cross-contextual learning. Effective cross-contextual learning is important, because recent research suggests that bridging the gap between formal and informal settings shows the most promise for both increased student gains and early childhood teacher comfort with STEM topics (Avery and Kassam 2011; Behrendt and Franklin 2014; Fallik et al. 2013). By engaging in collaborative partnerships, rural classroom teachers and informal STEM educational entities may capitalize on opportunities to increase STEM literacy and interest through informal STEM learning experiences (Bell et al. 2009; Russell et al. 2013). This is especially important in rural areas where access to traditionally recognized venues for informal learning opportunities, such as museums, are scarce (Avery and Kassam 2011; National Research Council 2015). To truly engage in cross-contextual learning that impacts the learning of young children in rural areas, collaboration between stakeholders is the essential ingredient (Bell et al. 2009; Russell et al. 2013).

Strength in Collaborative Partnerships

Rural areas have a strong sense of community, and the people living there feel strong family and community ties (DeYoung 1995; Goodpastor et al. 2012; Schafft and Jackson 2011; Vaughn and Saul 2013). Additionally, despite the challenges rural schools face, teachers who work in rural schools often report high levels of job satisfaction and professional collegiality (Howley and Howley 2006; Monk 2007). Given concerns associated with outsider distrust in rural settings (Cooper et al. 2010; Edwards et al. 2006; Hartman 2013), leveraging community entities and place-based teachers as partners in advancing informal STEM learning presents a strong and sustainable model in rural areas (Avery 2013; Avery and Kassam 2011; Fenichel and Schweingruber 2010; Goodpastor et al. 2012). Rural areas offer real-life, immediate access to outdoor learning experiences that are not readily available in urban and suburban school settings (Avery and Kassam 2011). Collaborative partnerships between teachers and informal STEM practitioners that capitalize on the unique environmental offerings of rural areas may impact STEM learning in an authentic, hands-on way that makes learning come to life for young children within the context of their own backyards.

To realize the full potential of already well-connected rural communities, balancing organizational and individual motivations of participants is important (Malm et al. 2012). As teachers serve as bridge builders between all stakeholders, they are essential members of collaborative partnerships, and especially in rural areas (Vaughn and Saul 2013). With the added component of distrust of outsiders, this makes community and teacher involvement in collaborative partnerships especially important for advancing informal STEM research and accessibility in rural areas (Avery 2013; Avery and Kassam 2011; Goodpastor et al. 2012). Informal learning partnerships in rural settings should be created from the ground up with rural partners involved from the beginning and serving as leaders in the process.

Looking to the Future

With more than a fifth of the U.S. population living rurally (U.S. Census Bureau 2014), the education research community and United States educational policy have an obligation to make sure that young children have access to high-quality STEM experiences, both in school (formal) and out of school (informal). Given the highly engaged and curious nature of children in the early years, early childhood settings provide important sites to explore the characteristics and impact of informal STEM learning in new and innovative ways. A model that promotes active and collaborative partnerships between informal learning practitioners, community entities, and classroom teachers represents an effective way to advance accessibility, equity, and research for informal STEM learning experiences in rural early childhood settings (Avery 2013; Avery and Kassam 2011; Goodpastor et al. 2012). The key to this engaged learning paradigm is fostering strong collaborative partnerships that capitalize on the strengths of rural areas and the educators who live there, and researchers must therefore develop and nourish meaningful relationships between rural, informal STEM partners and schools. Increased research usually brings increased funding, and both are needed to help end the pervasive cycle that keeps rural informal STEM learning both underfunded and underrepresented in the research literature. Twenty-first century demands for rurally located resources and opportunities (e.g., alternative energy sources) suggest that STEM talent and knowledge of rural places may be key to the future prosperity of the United States, and that talent must be nurtured beyond the walls of school buildings and from a very young age. The creative talent necessary for meeting those needs will include knowledge and understanding of rural place and communities, as well as of science and mathematics. Educational research has an important role to play in both bridging the gap between current realities and future prospects and in making community partners of formal and informal learning environs.

About the Authors

Sara L. Hartman is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Teacher Education at Ohio University. She earned a Ph.D. in Teaching, Curriculum, and Learning from the University of Nebraska and has research interests related to school-community partnerships in rural early childhood settings. Sara is the co-founder and Board President of the Ohio Valley Museum of Discovery. She enjoys drinking tea and reading books to children and is happiest when she can do both at the same time. Sara can be reached for comments or questions at hartmans@ohio.edu.

Jennifer Hines-Bergmeier is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Ohio University. She co-founded the Ohio Valley Museum of Discovery, served as its first Board President, and continues to serve as a board member. She earned a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Michigan, where she also spent time working with the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. Like all good chemists, Jennifer enjoys mixing and stirring, especially in the kitchen with her family.

Robert Klein is an Associate Professor and the Undergraduate Chair in the Department of Mathematics at Ohio University. He earned a Ph.D. in Education from The Ohio State University and has research interests pertaining to the socio-cultural aspects of education and rural education. Robert is very involved in Math Circles for students and teachers in the United States and Central America and is Executive Director of the Alliance of Indigenous Math Circles. In his free time, he enjoys posing and discussing questions that cannot be solved, such as “what happened to my free time?”

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Teaching Research to Undergraduates through an Outdoor Education Program

Abstract

There has been an increased emphasis in recent years on implementing active learning strategies in science courses for undergraduate students. Particularly, undergraduate research methods courses have focused on incorporating pedagogies that utilize a practical application of the course content. As a result, we created a research methods course for undergraduate health sciences students to teach them about research methodology through a hands-on project.  The health sciences students were part of an outdoor education program, where for one week third and fourth grade students from an elementary school came to a camp as part of an outdoor education experience. The health sciences students taught the children a variety of STEM  (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and health/wellness skills and content.  In addition, the undergraduate students learned about research methods by conducting their own studies during this outdoor education program. The benefits were twofold.  The health sciences students learned about research methodology in an applied and practical manner and the elementary school children experienced STEM education in an outdoor environment.

Introduction

The value of active learning in science education has been emphasized by many national organizations (American Association for the Advancement of Science 1993: Association of American Colleges and Universities 2007; National Research Council 1999, 2003a, 2003b; National Science Foundation 1996).  Encouraging students to formulate their own ideas, interpret data, generate conclusions from experimental evidence, and participate in other hands-on activities can be more effective than the passive learning that typically occurs during lecturing.  The increased recognition of the value of active learning is supported by a growing body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of incorporating active learning techniques in the undergraduate classroom (Prince 2004).  The literature has shown improved learning when a variety of active learning strategies were used in a wide range of science disciplines including physics (Hake 1998), chemistry (Niaz et al. 2002; Towns and Grant 1997), biology (Burrowes 2003), nursing (Clark et al. 2008), and physiology (Mierson 1998).

In most health sciences undergraduate programs, a research methods course is part of the curriculum.  Many faculty who teach undergraduate research courses are aware of the challenges that are associated with making this material practical for students. Research is an area that students have unfavorable attitudes toward, attitudes that may become even more negative upon taking a research methods course (Sizemore and Lewandowski 2009).  One potential reason for the lack of interest is students’ inability to perceive themselves as engaged in meaningful research activities as undergraduate students (Rash 2005; Macheski et al. 2008). The literature has demonstrated that students tend to learn abstract concepts more fully when they can apply them to their to “real world” settings (Macheski et al., 2008).  In our health sciences department, we have implemented active learning strategies utilizing other approaches (FitzPatrick and Campisi 2009; Campisi and Finn 2011; FitzPatrick et al. 2011; Finn and Campisi 2015), but we wanted to create a way to specifically teach research methods using active learning in an outdoor education program. After examining the effects of active learning pedagogies on student learning and perceptions for a number of years, we have implemented different pedagogies such as clickers, peer-led team mentoring, and group and collaborative learning, to examine how active learning effects both student learning and perceptions. Many of these pedagogies have improved student learning and have had positive impact on student perceptions.

For the outdoor education project, we redesigned our undergraduate research methods course to incorporate participation in a research project.  We hoped that stimulating interest in research through active and collaborative learning would allow students to understand the practical implication of research.

The Outdoor Education Program

During this project, 100 third and fourth grade children participated in a five-day, five hour/day outdoor education program that took place at a local day camp owned by the YMCA. This program was a joint venture between the city’s school district and the local YMCA to provide elementary students with an exciting opportunity to participate in active learning in a camp setting. This was the first outdoor experience in a camp environment for many students who participated in this program.  As part of being enrolled in the research methods course, the health sciences undergraduate students implemented this outdoor education program by utilizing the camp’s program areas and natural ecosystems to provide the children with unique experiential learning activities in four main curricular areas: science and math, healthy living, environmental education, and team building. These engaging activities and the use of natural surroundings encouraged the children to explore their interests and abilities in a safe and nurturing environment. Below is more detail on each section of the curriculum.

Environmental Education: This component of the curriculum corresponds with the goals of the school system, the Massachusetts State School Standards, and the New National Science Standards. Each day, students learned about a different ecosystem at the camp (e.g. the wetlands, fresh water lake, forest, and open field) through a combination of hands-on experiments and lectures.  In each ecosystem, students learned about the different types of animals, plant life, rocks, the cycles of natural resources, and the dangers that each ecosystem faces, among other topics. Students also took nature hikes and performed on-site field tests, including taking water and soil samples and testing pH.

The Science and Math of Camp: This component of the program included several physical activities that provided the opportunity for students to learn math and science skills. These activities included

Maps –The goal of this module was to allow students to develop and make maps using scale, topography, measurements, and other skills.

Archery – While participating in archery, students were provided the opportunity to learn about velocity, rate of speed, distance, inertia, and gravity.

Canoeing – While participating in this activity, students could learn about propulsion, angles, planes, kinesiology and biomechanics, resistance and friction, and wind and currents.

Gaga –The goal of this activity was for students to learn how to play the popular camp game Gaga. While playing, they wear devices such as a pedometer, to measure steps, distance traveled, and overall activity levels. Students took the data from these devices and recorded it, and then, using the Active Science curriculum, analyzed the data, answered questions, and drew conclusions about the data.

Team Building: The team-building component was a progressive learning experience where students were encouraged to challenge themselves in a variety of different ways. This provided emotional and physical growth and gave each student the feeling of self worth and self-accomplishment. The week began with team-building activities on land, such as “get to know you” games, trust falls, spotting techniques, and problem-solving games. As the group mastered the land activities, they moved to the low ropes course. At the camp, there were seven low ropes elements. Each element had two groups participating (one group spotting and one group climbing). After mastering the low ropes course elements, students over the age of ten had the option of trying the high ropes course. There were seven high ropes course elements, including a zip line. Younger students (over the age of eight) had the chance to try the giant swing. The camp’s ropes course offered a variety of fun opportunities to build trust, solve problems and learn the value of collaborative teamwork.

Healthy Living: During this component of the program, students were exposed information about living healthy lifestyles. These included safety concepts, healthy eating and nutrition, and physical activity.  Activities included Water and Boating Safety, Garden Project, Fitness Challenge, Otterthon Relay Race, and Field and Court Games. The students were encouraged to participate, be active, and have fun with their classmates.  They learned about the importance of being physically active, having good nutrition habits, and overall what it means to be healthy.

Research Methods Course

The research methods course was delivered during the summer session for six weeks.  Twelve students were enrolled in the course. During the first two weeks of class, the health sciences students learned about the outdoor education program and became familiar with the curriculum and content that they would be teaching to the children.  From there, the class was divided into four groups of three students each to come up with a research question that they wanted to investigate during the program.   As part of the course, one of the first assignments that the students completed was a proposal that detailed the specifics of the research project. They were required to provide a research question, hypothesis, methods (participants, data collection, data analysis), and the type of research design that they were interested in carrying out.  Based on what they learned at the beginning of the course about the types of research designs, they created a study and a question to match the design.  Once the students completed the assignment on the design of their study, the instructor met with each group to review it.  The instructor provided feedback on ways to improve the study and the students worked to incorporate the changes to make the design stronger.  This back and forth process happened until the instructor felt the design was well thought out and could answer the research question.

Prior to going into the field, the students had a solid research study that addressed a specific research question. The research questions the students focused on were specific to the one-week outdoor education experience. Two of the student projects focused on assessing the amount and level of physical activity that the participants accumulated while in the outdoor education program. They compared physical activity levels such as sedentary, light, moderate, and vigorous between classes, curriculum components, age, and gender.  Another group assessed the science learning that occurred during the camp. They performed pre- and post-assessment to determine science knowledge that was gained through the experience. They had a control group that did not perform the outdoor education program for a comparison.  The last group examined the participants’ perceptions of learning in the outdoor education environment.  They conducted surveys of all participants at the end of camp and then interviewed a subset of children to gather their feedback on the outdoor experience.

During weeks three and four of the course, the health sciences students were in the field implementing the curriculum and collecting data.  At the end of the course (weeks five and six), the students returned to the classroom to analyze their data. The students learned about the different types of statistical analysis (correlational, independent t-test, ANOVA) that could be performed based on their design and research question. The hands-on application of real data to teach the statistical analysis portion of this course was viewed positively by both the students and the instructor.  They worked on creating a final paper and presentation that represented the results of their study.  The course concluded with a presentation from each group to the YMCA senior leadership, board members, classroom teachers and administrators, and faculty.

Conclusion

This approach was a way to demonstrate how to teach research methods to undergraduate health sciences students through a community-based initiative in an urban school district.  The health sciences students felt that a project-based approach was an effective way to learn the content of the course. The course objectives were met through demonstration of performance on course quizzes and through designing and carrying out a research study, analyzing the data, and writing and presenting the results of the project.  As we continue to offer this course, we will use this approach to create measures that assess student perceptions of learning for both the health sciences students and the elementary school children. The active learning and student-centered pedagogical strategy created a culture of ownership over the research project and excited students about the course material.  In many science lecture and laboratory courses, active learning can be an effective method to improve student learning and understanding and to improve student attitudes about a subject. Incorporating a team-based research project that uses the outdoor environment into a research methods course can help prepare students for future research experiences and their professional careers.

About the Author

Dr. Kevin Finn is an Associate Professor and Chair of Health Sciences at Merrimack College. His area of expertise is curriculum and teaching in the health professions with a focus around increasing physical activity in children. Kevin is a licensed athletic trainer in Massachusetts and a certified strength and conditioning specialist.

References

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Pre-Service Teachers’ Acquisition of Content Knowledge, Pedagogical Skills, and Professional Dispositions through Service Learning

Abstract

Teacher candidates seeking a K-6 license took a science methods course during which they participated in focused service learning. Candidates were provided the necessary science content instruction to enable them to write the actual event activities and serve as Event Leaders for the regional Science Olympiad competition. Data related to candidate acquisition of content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and professional dispositions were gathered from candidates’ responses to written reflections and standardized surveys.  It was concluded that through their practical and engaged work participants learned science content and gained pedagogical skills necessary for teaching science.  Further, candidates gained desirable professional dispositions related to such civic engagement elements as developing sustainable partnerships, engaging in mutually beneficial work, and serving a diversity of students.

Introduction

The University of North Carolina Asheville

The University of North Carolina Asheville (UNC Asheville) opened in 1927 as Buncombe County Junior College. The school underwent several name changes, mergers with local governments and school systems, and moves before relocating in 1961 to the present campus. Asheville-Biltmore College joined the UNC system in 1969 as UNC Asheville, with the distinct mission to offer an excellent undergraduate liberal arts education.

UNC Asheville is the only designated undergraduate liberal arts university in the 17-campus UNC system. UNC Asheville is a public State Institution of Higher Education and is classified as a Baccalaureate College of Arts and Sciences by the Carnegie Classification system. UNC Asheville is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The university has received national recognition for its Humanities and Undergraduate Research programs. U.S. News & World Report ranks UNC Asheville as one of the top five public liberal arts colleges in its America’s Best Colleges edition and lists the Undergraduate Research Program among “Programs to Look For” along with some of the top research universities in the country. UNC Asheville is consistently rated a “Best Buy” in the Fiske Guide to Colleges. UNC Asheville founded the National Conference on Undergraduate Research more than 25 years ago, and the university emphasizes student participation in faculty-mentored research projects. Additionally, most UNC Asheville students undertake career-related internships, and are supervised by university faculty during their time working in the field. Seventeen percent of UNC Asheville students take advantage of study abroad and study away programs. Finally, many courses and on-campus programs engage students in service projects aimed at improving the quality of life at home and around the world, which is a major focus of the university.

Teacher Licensure at UNC Asheville

The mission of UNC Asheville’s Department of Education is to prepare candidates for a North Carolina Standard Professional I Teaching license with a liberal arts foundation. The Department of Education engages with all departments across campus in the preparation of professional educators; undergraduate candidates major in an academic area specific to their intended licensure area, along with taking additional courses necessary to earn their North Carolina teaching license. Hence, Education is not a major or a minor, but is an area of concentration in addition to the academic major. This structure reflects the liberal arts model. Undergraduate licensure candidates in K–12 and 9–12 areas major directly in their area of specialty (e.g. those seeking K–12 Art licensure major in Art), candidates in 6–9 areas either major directly in their area of specialty or in Psychology, and candidates in K–6 may choose any major. This model necessitates a strong liaison-based partnership between representatives from each of the academic majors and the Department of Education. Post-baccalaureate candidates who have earned the requisite Bachelor’s degree may earn a teaching license by taking the necessary Education courses only, or may take a prescribed set of major courses in addition to their Education courses if they are pursuing licensure in a different area from their undergraduate major. Post-baccalaureate candidates are expected to meet the same program requirements and outcomes as undergraduate candidates. The National Council on Teacher Quality has rated the UNC Asheville Department of Education as a Best Value among North Carolina Colleges of Education, and among the top six teacher preparation programs in the Southeast.

Because UNC Asheville is a liberal arts institution, candidates take Arts and Sciences courses in the departments across campus in which they acquire their content knowledge. Courses taken in the Department of Education are structured to build on this content knowledge in the provision of pedagogical skills. This model is supported by such researchers as Davis and Buttafuso (1994), who provide an historical perspective on the role of small liberal arts colleges and teacher preparation. Their claim is that the type of curricular cooperation that is inherent at liberal arts institutions such as UNC Asheville promotes the development of teachers who are knowledgeable, thoughtful, and reflective.

The schools with which UNC Asheville partners frequently speak to the strength of the liberal arts model. In fact, they claim that the strong content knowledge UNC Asheville teacher licensure graduates possess, coupled with their pedagogical knowledge, puts these graduates at the top of the applicant pool. For all of its strengths and advantages, this liberal arts model does come with limitations. The greatest of these limitations is time in the teacher licensure program.  Because Education is not a major at UNC Asheville, and candidates are taking their major and other content courses in other departments, there are precious few hours in each candidate’s schedule in which Education courses can fit. All programs have been structured so that undergraduate candidates can graduate with their major and licensure in four years of full-time attendance, but the course of study is intense for these candidates. And this means that Education courses must be efficient at all costs. Therefore, the focus of Education courses at UNC Asheville is almost strictly on pedagogy. It is vital, then, for instructors of Education courses to find ways to reinforce, and in some cases even facilitate the learning of, content knowledge that candidates need—even though Education courses are technically not “supposed to” focus on this.

Background

North Carolina Requirements for Teacher Licensure Programs

In 2009, all licensure programs in North Carolina were revised to meet North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) requirements. As part of these requirements, all licensure programs were to develop Evidences to be completed by each teacher licensure candidate and submitted to NCDPI to show candidate attainment and demonstration of competencies that meet six statewide Standards for 21st Century Teaching and Learning. These standards include candidate attainment of content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and professional dispositions with which the Department of Education at UNC Asheville’s Conceptual Framework tenets of Content, Pedagogy, and Professionalism directly align. Following is a summary of the six state-required standards, and the approved Evidences the UNC Asheville Department of Education developed to meet the standards (note that for standards 1 and 4 NCDPI defined a required Evidence for every licensure program in the state)

Breadth of Content Knowledge – All candidates completed at least twenty-four semester hours of coursework relevant to the specialty area from a regionally accredited college or university with a grade of C or better in each of the twenty-four hours in order to be licensed. Additionally, all K–6 and Special Education candidates must have received satisfactory scores on the Praxis II exam in order to be licensed.

Depth of Content Knowledge – Candidates completed a Content Exploration Project. Data from assessment of this project showed candidates’ depth of understanding and application of content knowledge per professional and state standards for the specialty area, and the ability to relate global awareness to the subject.

Pedagogical and Professional Knowledge Skills and Dispositions – Candidates created a three- to five-day integrated thematic teaching Unit Plan. Data from assessment of the unit showed candidates’ ability to design effective classroom instruction based on P–12 professional and state standards, and use of effective pedagogy and research-verified practice.

Pedagogical and Professional Knowledge Skills and Dispositions – All student teachers are evaluated by their supervisor, in consultation with the P–12 clinical faculty member, using the state-required Certification of Teaching Capacity Instrument. All candidates must receive a rating of “Met” on each facet of the instrument on the final evaluation.

Positive Impact on Student Learning – Candidates completed an Impact on Student Learning Project. Data from assessment of this project showed candidates’ impact on P–12 student learning given state P-12 standards.

Leadership and Collaboration – Candidates completed the Professional Development Project: Self, Learner, Community. Data from assessment of this project showed candidates’ ability to demonstrate leadership, collaboration, and professional dispositions per professional and state standards for teacher candidates.

Unit faculty applied common rubrics, also approved by NCDPI, to evaluate candidate products related to Evidences 2, 3, 5, and 6, and all candidates had to score a level 3 or higher on each facet of the assignment rubric.

In 2014, the North Carolina State Board of Education (SBE) adopted a policy requiring that all licensure candidates in every licensure area pass the SBE-approved licensure exam(s) for each initial licensure area. For all licensure areas except K–6 and Special Education, these approved exams were the Praxis II.  For K–6 and Special Education, the SBE adopted a new Pearson Foundations of Reading and General Curriculum Test. The Pearson Test is comprised of a Foundations of Reading subtest; a General Curriculum Mathematics subtest; and a General Curriculum Multi-Subjects subtest consisting of questions pertaining to Language Arts, History and Social Science, and Science and Technology/Engineering. These subtests are all comprised of multiple choice items testing content knowledge in each area. An Integration of Knowledge and Understanding section is also completed by test takers, which includes a few constructed response items to test pedagogical knowledge. For K–6 and Special Education candidates and licensure programs, the new Pearson Test signified a significant change from the previously required Praxis II exam, which almost exclusively tests pedagogical knowledge. The SBE-adopted policy also included the provision that the Evidences required for standards 2 and 3 would be replaced by candidate scores on the SBE-approved licensure exams. Candidates take their licensure exam(s) as one of the final steps to completing their licensure process, after finishing their licensure program.

Purpose for the Study

The aforementioned liberal arts model and changes to licensure exam requirements posed a new challenge regarding the K–6 licensure program at UNC Asheville. Because of the number of areas in which a candidate must be prepared to teach at the K–6 level (Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and Health being among the major ones), the K–6 licensure program at UNC Asheville is by far the largest in terms of the number of Education courses required. UNC Asheville K–6 candidates had enjoyed a 100 percent pass rate on the Praxis II for a number of years before the Pearson test was adopted. However, it is important to remember that the Praxis II centered almost solely on pedagogy. The new Pearson test focuses almost solely on content, whereas K–6 courses focused almost solely on pedagogy in direct alignment with former licensure exam requirements and the liberal arts model. To meet the new requirements, faculty in the K–6 program at UNC Asheville began work to structure courses and experiences to ensure that candidates were provided the knowledge necessary to make them successful in their quest for a license and with regard to the competencies required to be effective teachers, while continuing to serve the needs of the public schools and community. This researcher serves as the instructor for the Elementary Science Methods course and worked to structure the course and provide candidates with science-related learning experiences for these reasons. This project grew as a result of this structuring and the desire to determine its impact.

Specific Goals for Candidates, Students, the Community, and University Faculty

The desired outcome of this project was that UNC Asheville K–6 licensure candidates and participating elementary students, as well as the involved UNC Asheville faculty member who is the instructor of EDUC 322, would benefit from this civic engagement project. This would be made possible through the use of effective teaching strategies, including inquiry, discovery learning, questioning strategies, and demonstrations; active reflection on theories of science education and learning, and how they can be utilized in the classroom and beyond; participation in a variety of educational experiences which positively impact the teaching of science; and sharing responsibility within the greater community for and recognizing the value of collaborations on issues of mutual concern, benefit, and accomplishment.

The specific goals related to this project were as follows:

UNC Asheville K–6 licensure candidates will acquire content knowledge necessary for teaching science in their future classrooms.

UNC Asheville K–6 licensure candidates will acquire pedagogical skills necessary for teaching science in their future classrooms.

UNC Asheville K–6 licensure candidates will acquire professional dispositions necessary for being effective teachers in their future classrooms.

Elementary Science Methods Course

All K–6 licensure candidates are required to take EDUC 322 (Inquiry-Based Science Instruction, K–6). Throughout the semester, candidates enrolled in EDUC 322 learn about effective Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teaching methodology, and how these methodologies translate to their teaching of future elementary students about science and the scientific method. The course has a focus on teaching using the 5E Learning Cycle. Great emphasis is placed on inquiry and discovery learning, as candidates in the course are afforded traditional classroom learning in addition to participation in hands-on labs aligned with science strands. Candidates also engage in an inquiry-based micro-teaching experience into which the use of Common Core text exemplars are integrated. Given the liberal arts model, the primary goal of the course is to teach effective methodologies for science education, as science content is taught within the other departments in the university outside of the Department of Education. However, science content knowledge is drawn upon throughout the EDUC 322 course within the context of exploring teaching methodologies.

As part of this instruction and practice, licensure candidates in EDUC 322 participate in field experiences during which they gain additional hands-on experience working with elementary students on the teaching of science. Candidates spend six sessions in an elementary classroom observing and/or assisting the classroom teacher, and in addition, each candidate teaches an inquiry-based lesson on their own. Candidates complete a comprehensive Science Notebook as a reflection on the field experience.

Elementary Science Methods and Service Learning

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the EDUC 322 course is candidates’ focused participation in service learning. Candidates participated in the Asheville City Schools (ACS) Kids Inquiry Conference (KIC) in the Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, and Spring 2014 semesters.  Unfortunately, the event had to be cancelled due to ACS’s focus on Read to Achieve mandates.  Candidates participated in the Elementary Science Olympiad in the Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, and Spring 2017 semesters.

The KIC was an event unique to Asheville City Schools, and was conceived as an alternative to the traditional Science Fair activity. The instructor of EDUC 322 partnered with the ACS Science Coach to plan and facilitate the KIC. Throughout each semester in which KIC was held, EDUC 322 candidates completed their field experiences in the classrooms of third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers and students who would be participating in KIC. This provided the EDUC 322 candidates with the opportunity to assist students with their projects and guide students as they engaged in the inquiry and discovery learning necessary to complete their projects. To complete their projects, students, usually working in pairs or groups of three, engaged in scientific inquiry focused on student-generated questions that came from their curiosities about the natural world. The teachers and EDUC 322 candidates guided students in generating these questions and led students through the process of making predictions, collecting data, analyzing the data, and drawing conclusions related to these questions. Students then created a visual presentation of their investigation and results, and prepared to discuss these with peers.

After a semester of work, the students were prepared for the KIC. During the KIC, UNC Asheville hosted the students and their teachers in a conference on the UNC Asheville campus.  During the conference, the students presented visual representations of their work, and asked and answered questions from their peers. The EDUC 322 candidates who worked with the participating students and teachers served as conference facilitators. Candidates’ roles as facilitators consisted of keeping time during each presentation, aiding with the discussion by asking questions and offering topics for discussion, and assisting students as they rotated to different tables so they could experience a variety of presentations. The instructor of EDUC 322 supervised and guided the candidates as they completed their work during the semester, and instructed candidates regarding safe and ethical practices for working with students. The instructor of EDUC 322 also served as the conference host and facilitator by coordinating all of the logistics for the conference including room reservations, scheduling, bus parking, and arranging for a campus tour for students. Each conference typically involved approximately 200 elementary students and ten elementary teachers.

Science Olympiad is a national program which engages elementary, middle, and high school students in competitions based on national and state STEM standards. Most competitions are team-based, and all require students to engage in hands-on inquiry science activities. Students choose their preferred event(s) from a list of approximately eighteen, and spend the better part of a school year working on their chosen event(s) with their school’s sponsor teacher and their peers on the Science Olympiad team in order to prepare for the competition.

The instructor of EDUC 322 has partnered with the Regional Director of the Elementary Science Olympiad, who is also a high school science teacher in an area school. At the beginning of each EDUC 322 semester, the Regional Director visits the EDUC 322 class and together she and the EDUC 322 instructor provide a description of and orientation to Science Olympiad. During this orientation, EDUC 322 candidates are provided information about their role related to their participation as event leaders and event writers for the Science Olympiad competition. This information is on topics such as the event code of ethics, event rules, event writing guidelines, event scoring guidelines, and safe and ethical practices regarding working with students.  Throughout the EDUC 322 semesters, candidates work to write their events according to competition standards and under the supervision and guidance of the EDUC 322 instructor. This supervision and guidance involves advising candidates as to the content of their events, providing them with resources to obtain the information necessary to write their events, reviewing and editing their work, assisting them with gaining access to hands-on materials they require to carry out their event, and making copies of student answer sheets and any other written materials needed for events.

EDUC 322 candidates put their knowledge into further practice as they serve as event leaders for the actual Science Olympiad competitions. Event leadership consists of supervising competing students, setting up event materials, and scoring competitors’ products. Candidates are supervised by the EDUC 322 course instructor and the Regional Director at each Science Olympiad event.

Methods

Candidate Written Reflections – KIC

Participating EDUC 322 candidates were required to produce written reflections of their experience working on the KIC project. These reflections were graded as part of the course grade for EDUC 322, and evaluated using a standardized rubric. The prompts provided for reflection were as follows:

Situational Context – List the date(s) during which you served as a facilitator, how many students were at your table during each session, and how many presentations you saw during each session.

Describe – Briefly describe the student presentations for which you served as a facilitator.

Analyze – Discuss the presentations you saw in terms of the relevance of the topics of the investigations carried out, the effectiveness of the presentations, and the quality of the questions asked by peers.

Appraise – Evaluate what you observed as a facilitator. Discuss any problems that occurred and why they occurred, what questions you have about the KIC process, and other topics you find relevant.

Transform – Discuss your involvement in KIC as it relates to your future teaching practice in science. Be sure to answer these questions: What might you do with the knowledge you gained to inform your teaching?  How did what you learned by participating in KIC connect with the topics you learned in our course?

Candidate Written Reflections—Science Olympiad

Participating EDUC 322 candidates were required to produce written reflections of their experience working on the Science Olympiad project. These reflections were graded as part of the course grade for EDUC 322, and evaluated using a standardized rubric. The prompts provided for reflection were as follows:

Situational Context – Name the event you led and the event with which you assisted. Give a two sentence description of each event.

Describe – Describe what you did to prepare the event you led.

Analyze – What was student performance like in the event you led?  What was the range of student performance? What surprised you?

Appraise – Evaluate what you observed as an event leader. Discuss what problems occurred and why they occurred, and what suggestions you have for improving the event you led and the tournament as a whole.

Transform – Discuss your involvement in Science Olympiad as it relates to your future teaching practice in science. Be sure to answer these questions: What might you do with the knowledge you gained to inform your teaching?  How could you implement your own Science Olympiad experience for your students, even if it wasn’t supported in your school or district?

Standardized Science Olympiad Surveys

The standardized surveys used by Science Olympiad as an organization were given to all participating UNC Asheville candidates to gain feedback from them after they served as event leaders, and the results were analyzed. Questions on the survey included the following and were rated by candidates on a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree):

I was fully prepared to lead this event.

Tournament director(s) were well organized.

The event rules were clear.

The event site for this event was satisfactory.

I was provided with the materials and resources I requested.

Orientation opportunities were provided to prepare me.

Students were prepared for the event.

The event was inquiry in nature.

Service Learning Survey

A Service Learning Survey was administered to EDUC 322 candidates as both a pre- and post-assessment of the impact of their participation in service learning. Appropriate IRB guidelines for a classroom-based project were followed. Questions included on the survey were as follows and were rated by candidates on a scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree):

As a result of participation in service learning I am likely to

examine my own cultural experiences

educate myself on multiple perspectives

use reflection to evaluate my current teaching activities

develop lessons that include contributions of all cultures

build on learners’ strengths

teach global awareness

incorporate different points of view in my teaching

create lessons that require student collaborations

incorporate student reflection into lessons

encourage students to change things at school they disagree with

encourage students to change things in the community they disagree with

teach students that they can make a difference

teach students to work for equality for people of different races, cultures, or genders

make students aware of their political or civil rights

teach students that the world outside of school is a good source of curriculum

work to improve collaboration between school and community

seek a leadership role in curriculum development at my school

participate in decision making structures (e.g., school improvement team, district planning team, school board)

seek information (e.g., local, state, or national data) when developing school improvement goals

have an interest in education policy

work to understand community problems

work with someone else to solve a community problem

become regular volunteer for an electoral organization

become a regular volunteer for a non-electoral organization

be an active member in a group or organization

regularly vote

persuade others to vote

contact elected officials

regularly seek “news” (newspaper, radio, news magazine, internet, TV)

Pearson Science and Technology/Engineering Subtest

The standardized Pearson test, composed of a Foundations of Reading subtest; a General Curriculum Mathematics subtest; a General Curriculum Multi-Subjects subtest consisting of multiple choice questions pertaining to Language Arts, History and Social Science, and Science and Technology/Engineering; and an Integration of Knowledge and Understanding section which includes a few constructed response items to test pedagogical knowledge as applied to teaching a concept in a content area, has been taken by all K–6 candidates since the 2013–2014 academic year. Each test taker receives an overall Scale Score, a Sub-Area Performance score for each of the three General Curriculum Multi-Subjects subtests, and a score for the Integration of Knowledge and Understanding section. The Sub-Area Performance scores for the multiple choice items are presented on a scale from 1 to 4 to show how many items test takers answered correctly, as follows:

1-Few or none of the items answered correctly

2-Some of the items answered correctly

3-Many of the items answered correctly

4-Most or all of the items answered correctly

The Integration of Knowledge and Understanding scores for the constructed response items are presented on a scale from 1 to 4 to show the quality of the response by the test takers, as follows:

1-Weak, blank, or unscorable

2-Limited

3-Adequate

4-Thorough

For this study, the Sub-Area Performance scores for the Science and Technology/Engineering subtest and the Integration of Knowledge and Understanding scores were analyzed.

Results

Key Findings:  Candidate Written Reflections – KIC

Participant responses (N=61) to the written reflection related to their participation in the KIC were evaluated to determine the most common themes that emerged in reference to content and pedagogy. An overwhelming number of participants (N=56) indicated that involvement with the KIC provided them with more science content knowledge. In their reflections on the experience they stated such things as, “I believe the presentations were very effective, because I even learned things that I didn’t know before such as Ingles brand bag holds the least amount of weight compared to Best Buy and Wal-Mart…”

Numerous participants (N=50) also noted that their role in the KIC assisted them with learning how students conduct inquiry. Participants’ anecdotal comments, such as the following, demonstrate this learning: “…I feel that the process of going through putting together an experiment, making predictions, implementing the experiment, and then having to present their findings was a good exercise and definitely good practice for further inquiry….”

Finally, a number of participants (N=44) suggested that the KIC process taught them to assist students with communicating in scientific terms and carrying out investigations using technological design. This was exemplified in participant comments such as:

Participating in the KIC conference will be helpful to me as a future science teacher. I was able to see that students as young as eight and nine are able to follow the science process and they can work through a problem efficiently. For some reason, the age of these students compared to their work surprised me. I wasn’t expecting such good quality work and investigations, and I look forward to trying this out in the classroom.

and:

I found that many of the presentations were relevant to a child’s life. Many students asked, “So, why did you do this? How does this affect your life?” The students that tested hair ties said they wanted to know what hair [tie] would be best to wear at the playground. The students who tested the batteries said they wanted to know which one lasted the longest for their camping trip. The topics listed above are far different from the science projects I did in elementary school. The topics are things that really matter to the students. One may say that knowing what frozen pizza has the most cheese is not a relevant topic, but what I saw at conference was that it was sometimes the process more than the content that was effective. The students were really engaging in scientific thinking and solving everyday problems using scientific methods. I have no doubt that the students will be better equipped to solve real life science problems because of the conference.

Key Findings:  Candidate Written Reflections – Science Olympiad

Participant responses (N=44) to the written reflection related to their participation in the Science Olympiad were evaluated to determine the most common themes that emerged in reference to content and pedagogy. Almost all participants (N=36) wrote that they felt confident that they could make a Science Olympiad event for their own class or grade level that could be used as a science teaching experience. In fact, some plans, such as the one provided by the following participant, were very fully developed:

I would implement a science Olympiad in my classroom by grouping students into two or three and assign 3 events for each to compete in. Students can have a choice of course. It would take place during the end of the year as an all-day event after EOG’s as a fun way to end the school year. I could potentially use a designated spot outside for Newton’s Notions and an empty room/space near-by for overflow of activities. Stations would have to be condensed in order to fit inside my one classroom and furniture rearranged or taken out of the room for additional space.  The groups will have time to prepare similar to the real Science Olympiad. I would bring in volunteers to help with the stations (preferably student teachers, NOT PARENTS) and supervise each event. There would be eight different events inside my classroom.  Each event would consist of 3 activities.

Most participants (N=32) said that their participation in Science Olympiad gave them the skills needed for building a classroom science community around the concept of students possessing common scientific knowledge on a variety of topics. Participant reflections demonstrating this include the following:

I think this experience made a definite impact as far as me feeling like a REAL teacher. This experience really made being a teacher as real as possible. By observing what students are able to do and what they cannot do, it also enhanced by awareness of upper-level elementary developmental/thinking and where they are with that.

Many participants (N=30) specified that their involvement in Science Olympiad provided them with ideas centering on multiple means for assessing student knowledge. One participant suggested:

I also can envision possibly using the Science Olympiad as an assessment or testing tool.  Should the Olympiad be used as a testing tool, the individual grades would be graded, but not shared.  The students could be divided into teams of 4 or 5 students before the testing period. Their test scores would be combined to form a team score.  My guess is that this would encourage a higher level of preparation and group study before the test.

Key Findings:  Standardized Science Olympiad Survey

Given the nature of this survey and because of its standardization to serve the needs of the established Science Olympiad program, the results shown in Table 1 do not reveal much in terms of participant (N=44) acquisition of skills related to content, pedagogy, or professional dispositions. The exception is with regard to the first and last items. Participants had to have the appropriate content knowledge in order to create their event and be fully prepared to lead it, and most participants had to study and learn content information in order to do so. Therefore, the fact that the mean rating for the first item was 4.8 was a good indicator that participants gained content knowledge as a result of their participation as Science Olympiad event leaders. The mean rating of 4.7 for the last item was also encouraging, as it suggested that participants understood the nature of inquiry as a result of their role in Science Olympiad.

Key Findings:  Service Learning Survey

Participant responses (N=78) to the Service Learning Survey were evaluated to determine the items for which participants showed the most growth between their pre- and post-service learning participation in reference to professional dispositions. From the results illustrated in Table 2, four topics emerged: as a result of their participation participants indicated they were more likely to educate themselves on multiple perspectives, use reflections to evaluate their current teaching activities, teach students that the world outside of school is a good source of curriculum, and work to improve collaboration between school and community.     

Key Findings:  Pearson Science and Technology/Engineering Subtest and Integration of Knowledge and Understanding Section

The means of participant results on the Pearson Science and Technology/Engineering Subtest were analyzed by year. For 2014–2015 (N=14) the mean was 2.64. For 2015–2016 (N=12) the mean was 3.08. For 2016–2017 (N=8) the mean was 3.25. The means of participant results on the Pearson Integration of Knowledge and Understanding section were also analyzed. For 2014–2015 (N=14) the mean was 1.86. For 2014–2015 (N=12) the mean was 2.58. For 2016–2017 (N=8) the mean was 2.63. In the 2014–2015 testing year, three participants did not pass the General Curriculum Multi-Subjects subtest the first time they took it. For the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 testing years the same was true for one participant each year. In all of these instances, for purposes of this study, the first testing attempt was used in figuring the means so that the same level of data was used for all participants.

Discussion and Summary

Two of the goals of this project for participating candidates centered on the acquisition of content knowledge and pedagogical skills necessary for teaching science in their future classrooms. The Key Findings show clearly that these goals were achieved, especially when the results from the instruments used to obtain results in this study are considered together.  Specifically, in the Key Findings section above it is stated that the results from the Standardized Science Olympiad Survey as shown in Table 1 do not say much on their own about participant acquisition of skills related to content, pedagogy, or professional dispositions, with the exception of the first and last items.  The results related to the first item on this survey do, on their own, suggest that participant content knowledge was improved by their participation in the Science Olympiad.  The impact of these results is strengthened by participants’ anecdotal comments on the Candidate Written Reflections for the Science Olympiad which include, “I really enjoyed creating my event for the Science Olympiad and I learned a lot about rocks and minerals and became more informed on the information…” and, “I feel like this was a great first time getting to work with older students. I’ve only worked with kindergarteners so far. I felt confident helping the students because I knew what I was talking about, due to my research on the subject….”  The results related to the last item on the Science Olympiad Survey showed that participants understood the nature of inquiry as a result of their role in Science Olympiad.

Participant reflections support this claim.  As one participant stated:

I definitely want to incorporate my event stations into activities that students could do in my future classroom. Rocks and Minerals can be boring for certain students but having activities to incorporate learning makes it more enjoyable for students. After taking several education classes I have learned through myself that hands-on activities give me a better understanding of information and make learning more enjoyable when you are able to be creative through acting and building things. The students really enjoyed looking at the rocks and minerals I had as samples and the students seemed to be very intrigued.

The Pearson test  components, as a standardized and quantitative measure of participant learning, can also be considered in concert with the Standardized Science Olympiad Survey. As can be seen, the means related to the subtests of of science content and pedagogical knowledge increase each testing year. As described in the Background section, the KIC was terminated by ACS after the Spring 2014 semester. Additionally, the Science Olympiad is held only in Spring semesters. EDUC 322 was offered every semester until Spring 2016 and thereafter was offered only in Spring semesters. Therefore, there were some participants who completed their licensure program and the Pearson test in the 2014–2015 and 2015–2016 testing years without having participated in either one of the EDUC 322 service learning activities. All participants who completed their licensure program and the Pearson test in the 2016–2017 testing year participated in at least the Science Olympiad activity. The increased means on the analyzed Pearson test component strengthen the conclusion that participants’ knowledge regarding both content and pedagogy increased, despite the technicality that EDUC 322 is not “supposed to” teach content. It is the assumption of this researcher that this outcome is due to the practical and engaged work in which participants were involved as part of their service learning.

Another project goal centered on the acquisition of professional dispositions candidates will need to be effective teachers in their future classrooms. The definition of professional dispositions has been widely disputed, as there are many dimensions through which the concept can be delineated. The quest to define dispositions dates back to seminal works, such as those completed by Arthur W. Combs in the 1960s, which sought to determine the dispositions that effective teachers must possess (Wasicsko 1977). There is also great deliberation over whether or not dispositions can be taught, or if they are simply acquired (Cummins and Asempapa 2013). Many researchers, such as Combs and Wasicsko, have developed a series of assessment tools related to pre-service teacher professional dispositions. But again, the tools are contested due to their content, purpose, and validity. Given these debates, many teacher education programs such as that at UNC Asheville provide their own definitions of professional dispositions, and seek to combine formal assessment of them through the use of prescribed tools with performance-based assessment as candidates are engaged in authentic experiences. At UNC Asheville, candidates displaying professional dispositions to a satisfactory degree are defined within the following parameters:

Collaborative teachers who demonstrate awareness of and appreciation for the communities in which they teach and who foster mutually beneficial relationships with the community.

Responsible teachers who exemplify the skills, behaviors, dispositions, and responsibilities expected of members of the teaching profession.

Reflective teachers who maintain a commitment to excellence and to the continuous assessment, adaptation, and improvement of the teaching-learning process.

Humane teachers who value the dignity of every individual and foster a supportive climate of intellectual inquiry, passion for learning, and social justice.

The themes that emerged from the Service Learning Survey results, as described in the Key Findings, show that project participants gained knowledge and skills in the area of acquiring desirable professional dispositions, especially when analyzed in conjunction with participant reflections. For example, one participant noted:

This Science Olympiad experience confirms my compassion and love for children and desire for being a teacher even during some crazy days. It also confirms my desire to help them learn and discover new knowledge while becoming confident in their science skills. This learning experience was really cool to be a part of and I felt like I was doing something truly important to further children’s interest in science and education. I am happy and proud to say that I was able to participate in the Science Olympiad and confidently show the work that my fellow peers and I produced for such a well-known competition. I will always reflect on the experience as a future teacher and use it to influence my decisions as a teacher in a positive way.

The supposition of this researcher is that the field work in which participants were engaged, which can actually be defined as service learning, and the specific Service Learning activities in which they participated can set candidates on the path to civic engagement. Specific civic engagement elements that were realized include the fact that sustainable partnerships were developed, the work was mutually beneficial, and candidates learned to serve a diversity of children. Participants were able to realize the potential for forming partnerships to benefit their future classrooms.  One participant’s reflection showed this clearly, as the participant stated:

If implementation of my own Science Olympiad were not supported in my school or district, I could look to the community and to private industry for support. The concept of the Olympiad is valuable to fostering scientific education and to meeting the current and future needs of the world. Science is life and to neglect it in our children’s education and preparation for life is not an option.

In summary, education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) competencies is a growing area in terms of career and workplace skills. Interest in this area has to be started in elementary schools in order to ensure that students are not only being introduced to science skills but are also actively engaged in scientific processes and engineering design cycles. The KIC and Science Olympiad were designed to support elementary science standards, and to assist teachers in fostering these skills in their students. The involvement of the pre-service teachers who served as participants in this study and created quality, age-appropriate science challenges for students, is helping to achieve these long-term goals for students and support STEM education.

ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is one of the most prominent professional associations in the field of Education. ASCD provides resources, training, research, and programs that emphasize transformational leadership, global engagement, poverty and equity, redefining student success, and teaching and learning (ASCD 2016). “The ASCD defines citizenship as a concern for the rights, responsibilities, and tasks associated with governing. It identifies citizenship competencies as an important component of civic responsibility. These competencies include acquiring and using information, assessing involvement, making decisions and judgments, communicating, cooperating, promoting interests, assigning meaning, and applying citizenship competencies to new situations” (Constitutional Rights Foundation 2000, 4). The participants in this study were introduced to this information toward the beginning of the EDUC 322 course. Then, throughout the course, discussions were held and activities were completed related to teaching candidates how educating students in STEM areas as well as helping them understand the ethical use of science and scientific data are contributing to candidates’ and students’ citizenship, civic engagement, and civic responsibility—both through their current engagement with students and schools and in their future teaching careers. All of this discussion and activity completion is grounded in the framework of strategies for effectively teaching a diversity of students in the public school classroom according to STEM education principles. Additionally, the participants in this project were provided with a responsibility to both teach and learn within a service and civically engaging context. As a result, they were able to learn to teach using discovery, while engaging in discovery learning themselves. Given their self-reflections, it is evident that the participants are excited about and prepared for the prospects of related responsibilities in their future teaching. And, given the results of the measure of student learning, each group of participants is entering the classroom more prepared in terms of their content and pedagogical knowledge than the one before it.

About the Author

Kim Brown is an Associate Professor and the Chairperson of the Department of Education at the University of North Carolina Asheville.  Kim teaches numerous licensure courses, including Inquiry-Based Science Instruction for candidates seeking elementary licensure.  For her curricular and service work in this course, Kim was named a University SENCER Fellow.  Kim has been very involved in work related to the University of North Carolina Asheville’s liberal arts model, serving as the chairperson of the university’s Integrative Liberal Studies Oversight Committee and the university’s representative on the state-level General Education Council.  Kim was the university’s recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Service Award.

References

ASCD. 2016. “ASCD.” http://www.ascd.org/Default.aspx (accessed June 8, 2017).

Constitutional Rights Foundation. 2000. “Fostering Civic Responsibility through Service Learning.” Fostering Civic Responsibility 8 (1): 1–15.

Cummins, L., and B. Asempapa. 2013. “Fostering Teacher Candidate Dispositions in Teacher Education Programs.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 13 (3): 99–119.

Davis, B.M., and D. Buttafuso. 1994. “A Case for the Small Liberal Arts Colleges and the Preparation of Teachers.” Journal of Teacher Education 45 (3): 229–235.

Wasicsko, M.M. 1977. Assessing Educator Dispositions: A Perceptual Psychological Approach. https://coehs.nku.edu/content/dam/coehs/docs/dispositions/resources/Manual103.pdf (accessed December 1, 2016).

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Community-Engaged Projects in Operations Research

 

Abstract

Community-engaged learning is not very common in technical fields, but including relevant projects in courses can make it feasible and successful. We present an implementation of an operations research course at a liberal arts college. Working with one of four nonprofit community partners to optimize aspects of their organization, students gained insight into relevant, real-world applications of the field of operations research. By considering many aspects of their solution when presenting it to community partners, students were exposed to some issues facing local nonprofit organizations. We discuss the specific implementation of this course, including both positive learning outcomes and challenging factors.

Introduction

Operations research, a “discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions” (INFORMS 2017), is used by many organizations. Southwestern University, a small liberal arts college, offers an operations research course cross-listed as business, computer science, and mathematics, which broadens opportunities for students to take computer science courses (Anthony 2012). While civic engagement is popular in colleges, its incorporation into the classroom is less prevalent in STEM disciplines (Butin 2006). Though some computer science courses incorporate community-engaged learning, it frequently occurs in a senior capstone experience (Bloomfield et al. 2014). An interdisciplinary course taken before the senior year can provide more realistic experiences in working with people from different backgrounds. Project-based courses are not uncommon in operations research; colleges are sometimes even paid by outside corporations for such projects (Martonosi 2012).

The operations research course’s popularity and increasing support on campus for community-engaged learning worked synergistically to have projects proposed by local community partners (nonprofit organizations) in 2014. The Southwestern University Office of Civic Engagement (OCE) helped facilitate these projects by aiding in the solicitation of partners, providing continuing education to the faculty member, and providing a student Community-Engaged Learning Teaching Assistant (CELTA), whose duties included serving as a liaison between student groups and community partners. The CELTA was a computer science major who had previously taken courses with the instructor and had worked for the OCE for multiple semesters. Together, the instructor and CELTA investigated the value that students found in the project experience, in terms of both more traditional goals of community-engaged learning and the content typical of an operations research course. In the four projects, students partnered with a hippotherapy organization, a local chamber of commerce, and two units on campus.

Methods, Projects, and Partners

Students engaged in a semester-long team project partnering with local nonprofit organizations to solve a problem in need of optimization. Four student teams, working both in class and on their own time, submitted a proposal, a poster with preliminary results, and a final report including an executive summary and full technical details. They also made a final presentation to classmates, the professor, and their community partners. The course is typically a student’s first introduction to operations research. Thus, students are learning the basics of the field while simultaneously applying the ideas presented in the course to their project with the community partner. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from students about their experiences, with approval from the university’s Institutional Review Board. Students were asked identical questions about their attitudes toward community service in general, taken from Bringle’s (2004) The Measure of Service Learning: Research Scales to Assess Student Experiences, before project groups were assigned and at the end of the semester, while final project reports were being prepared. All answers were given on a 1–7 Likert scale of likelihood (extremely unlikely to extremely likely) or agreement (strongly disagree to strongly agree). The qualitative data was collected from multiple sources, including meetings with the instructor and CELTA, peer and self evaluations, final exam questions, and course evaluations.

Two of the community partners came from area nonprofit organizations: Ride On Center for Kids (R.O.C.K.), a hippotherapy organization, and the Greater Leander (Texas) Chamber of Commerce. The other two partners were internal to the university: the Center for Academic Success and Records (CASAR) and the directors of the new incarnation of Paideia, an interdisciplinary curriculum program unique to Southwestern.

R.O.C.K. “provides equine-assisted therapies and activities to children, adults, and veterans with physical, cognitive, and emotional disabilities” (R.O.C.K.). R.O.C.K. aims to serve as many clients as possible while using limited resources (including staff, arena time, and horses) appropriately. Clients’ needs determine whether the therapy sessions are individual or small groups. Students formulated appropriate linear programs for modeling the constraints and objectives, and analyzed the solutions under various assumptions (such as the number of hours a horse can be used each day or week). They recommended that R.O.C.K. alter operating hours to better utilize resources while still serving the same number of clients and prioritize the acquisition of additional horses.

The Leander Chamber of Commerce (LCC) has four membership plans, with different prices and benefits. As a nonprofit, they want to be sustainable while providing value to their members. Students first used linear programming techniques to determine optimal pricing for each of the plans while keeping the same benefits, under the limiting assumption that members would stay on the same plan. They then used knapsack problem techniques to determine the ideal combinations of benefits in the plan that provide the most perceived value to the members for a given cost. As costs and perceived values change and new benefits are considered, LCC can use provided software tools to update offerings.

Currently at Southwestern, academic advisor/advisee assignments are made manually, a time-consuming and suboptimal process. Students worked with the Center for Academic Success and Records to convert their process into a flowchart, assigning measures for compatibility based on stated academic interest and predictors of transitional challenges. The assignment can now be considered as a transportation problem, maximizing the compatibility indicators of the entire incoming class while limiting the number of advisees assigned to any one advisor. The team used a Java program to parse data about students, fed that information to a tool called glpsol within the Gnu Linear Programming Kit (GLPK), to solve the transportation problem, and again used Java to present the output cleanly.

Beginning in Fall 2014, as part of a reconfigured Paideia program, all students are part of an interdisciplinary cluster, making connections across disciplines through a subset of required courses. There are numerous tradeoffs to be considered, for faculty, students, and the university as a whole, when considering the ideal number of clusters, courses, and faculty per cluster. Students developed an Excel tool to model these relationships that will be used by present and future Paideia directors in their decision making. Their recommendation of three new clusters per year provided an ideal balance of number of courses available to students and faculty in the cluster, while allowing for changes in class size in future years.

The creation of groups in a course project often poses an interesting dilemma. Each group had at least one person from each of the three predominant majors represented in the course: computer science, math, and business or economics. For the projects where it was anticipated that higher-level programming languages would be used (as opposed to Excel), multiple computer science majors were assigned. Students were required to complete a questionnaire with questions including their preferences among the projects, their willingness or ability to work with an off-campus partner, and published personality questions in a STEM text (Burger 2008). The instructor and CELTA then assigned groups, based on those responses and their prior experiences in the classroom.

Research on Student Experiences

In the following table, we report some of the statements that most students agreed or strongly agreed with. We also note that most disagreed with the claim “without community service, today’s disadvantaged citizens have no hope.”

Responses to the final survey were largely similar to the preliminary survey with regard to the number of students who felt an outcome was likely or agreed with a statement, but when quantified as described above, many of the averages for each question fell. (Given the small sample size, 21 students, we look more at general trends than actual numbers.) The other statements in Table 1 changed by at most 0.1 points.

The differences in the average responses are small. Students answering less enthusiastically (e.g., “somewhat likely” instead of “likely” or “agree” instead of “strongly agree”) may have felt no differently in the final survey and simply had a hard time discretizing their response. Alternatively, a slight decrease in enthusiasm in final responses may be indicative of end-of-semester fatigue. As students typically did not interact directly with clients of the nonprofit partners, they might not have been able to see the outcomes and benefits of their projects. They might have also recognized that many clients served by their partners are not socio-economically disadvantaged and perhaps not people whom they would see as “in need.”

Since team dynamics can play an important role in the success (or lack thereof) in any group project, students periodically evaluated the contributions of their group members. They rated each group member on a scale of 0 to 4, including themselves, indicating whether they were a team player, the amount of effort put forth, whether they were dependable, their intellectual contribution, and their overall contribution. Student were told that specifics would not be shared with the group members, but the instructor would be speaking with anyone who did not seem to be contributing adequately, in an effort to allow them to improve their performance. Additionally, evaluations would be considered in calculating each student’s participation grade, but except in extreme cases, would not affect the project grades. The provided instructions and reminder that it is highly unlikely that everyone is excellent at everything seemed to lead students to give considered answers. In addition, they wrote a single sentence for each group member (including themselves) about their overall impression of said member’s performance. These comments typically suggested most group members were pulling their weight. Sometimes their disciplinary backgrounds meant they were a stronger contributor in one area than another. For example, a student who had more accounting experience might be especially skilled at reading financial statements and explaining their contents to others who have more programming experience. This exercise, along with in-class discussions, seemed to help mitigate some of the tensions that occasionally arose with the differences between majors/backgrounds.

The final exam included questions eliciting the benefits and drawbacks of having a group project with a community partner. A few students felt the group project prevented them from learning additional course material because of the time devoted to working on the project. However, most enjoyed delving into a large and real problem.  One student noted that “it exposed us to another learning method,” another said through the projects students “saw applications of theory which reinforced the ideas learned in lectures,” and a third indicated that “‘What can I do with this class/theory?’ actually gets answered.” (In accordance with the IRB consent forms, student quotes are not being attributed to specific individuals.) While many people often think of the benefits of operations research first in terms of money (whether increasing profit or cutting costs), the projects helped students focus on other things that can be optimized, as illustrated in this response: “The group projects gave much more of a feel of the complexities of optimizing real world situations, particularly when profit is not the most important quantity to an organization.” Other students talked about the benefits of the project being in the “real world,” and of working in teams similar to their anticipated future work environments. A student summed up much of the motivation for doing the group project with community partners in the observation that “reading case studies or doing fictitious projects does not provide the same sense of urgency and rewards as doing a project for someone who can actually benefit from it.” The student comments echo many of the benefits purported in literature about community-engaged teaching, including deeper understanding of course material and the ability to transfer knowledge (Furco 2010).

Most drawbacks students reported were logistical in nature, either with their group members or community partners. Frequent concerns were difficulty scheduling meetings (with or without the community partner) and having access to information. One indicated that “people bringing different backgrounds was a benefit in tackling our project, but it was hard to balance the work and make sure everyone pulled equal weight,” which led to concerns about receiving a group grade for the project (cumulatively, twenty-five percent of the final course grade). Another stated that community partners “did not fully understand the benefits and applications an OR student can provide” and had nebulous expectations, whether expecting too much or too little. Only a few students indicated a concern that the project resulted in “less time learning concepts with the professor,” and most viewed the experiential learning as likely to be retained longer. Most students indicated a desire to keep this component of the course.

Just as the small sample size limits statistical analysis, the frequency of the course offering (typically once every two or three years) and the varying nature of the projects and partners limit meaningful longitudinal studies. One wonders whether such projects increase student engagement and satisfaction, possibly with positive impacts upon retention and graduation. Anecdotally, all non-visiting students in the course have in fact graduated from Southwestern, but given that the students were typically juniors or seniors, that is unsurprising. Likewise, with the variety of majors enrolled and the differences in the projects, other assessments of impacts on overall academic performance are limited. However, in the future it may be possible to determine whether there is a correlation between students’ performance on exams and the specific skills and techniques used in their projects.

Discussion: CELTA, Community Partner, and Instructor Reflections

Each team met with the CELTA three times. The first meetings were primarily introductory in nature. Each group had held its first meetings with community partners and was involved in initial planning stages. The two groups working with on-campus partners both had a strong start, with detailed plans in place to find their solutions. Likely because of the connection to campus and the professor’s connection to these projects, the expectations were communicated more clearly than those tied to the projects that were based off campus. In contrast, the off-campus partners had more of a vision to be interpreted than a concrete plan to be executed. Though students are often more comfortable with precise directions, the real-world experience of uncertainty and ambiguity is quite valuable.

In the second round of CELTA meetings, group members were still excited but now had some concern about partially completed projects and looming deadlines. The groups had all made substantial progress and were working on posters to be presented at a campus symposium. Three of the four groups were now experiencing more of the challenges of a real-world project, where the scope or goals can change over time. The Academic Advising group felt that some of the partner’s requests were growing beyond the original requirements, but had difficulty scheduling face-to-face meetings to discuss the limitations. The Paideia group had the fewest communication obstacles, likely because the primary contact is a professor in the math department. As such, many group members already had a working relationship with her, and would often drop by her office for immediate feedback.

At this point, groups had already considered the obvious stakeholders, but were now asked to reflect further on the non-obvious stakeholders affected by their project, which can be equally important when modeling problems. The Academic Advising group had identified students and professors as the obvious stakeholders, with counseling services and parents as non-obvious stakeholders; both are concerned with students’ overall well-being and stress levels, which can be impacted by advising. The Paideia group noted students as the obvious stakeholders, and considered professors as non-obvious stakeholders, due to teaching load and leave considerations. The projects with off-campus partners, not surprisingly, had different stakeholders, with interesting implications. The member working with R.O.C.K. identified the horses as a non-obvious stakeholder. While meeting the needs of obvious stakeholders (the clients, and if they are minors, their parents), it is important to ensure that the horses do not get overworked. Accordingly, group members had to familiarize themselves with seemingly restrictive regulations that R.O.C.K. adheres to concerning the number of hours a horse should work per day and needed to incorporate those into their problem formulation and solution. For the LCC, member organizations are obvious stakeholders, and group members identified residents of Leander as non-obvious stakeholders, since each new resident of Leander receives a directory of businesses that are chamber members, and said membership confers certain credibility. In all groups, students realized that projects can have far broader impacts than initially considered.

The final round of CELTA meetings occurred toward the end of the project, while groups were finalizing their linear programs and solutions and writing their final paper. The completed project portfolio was provided to the instructor and the community partner, and each group gave a final presentation to the entire class, inviting their community partners to attend. While not all partners were able to attend, the possibility that the partner would be present ensured that students had to thoroughly motivate the assumptions made for the project and explain why they were reasonable. All groups already had experience presenting as a team from the campus symposium. Additionally, the poster presentations had increased student enthusiasm when they realized how interested their peers and faculty were in their projects. This was especially true for the groups working with on-campus community partners; students and faculty were able to ask specific questions because they were already familiar with Paideia and the Academic Advising process, which alerted members of these groups to issues with their solution that they might not have previously considered. Many group members talked about broader implications of their projects. A Paideia group representative considered optimizing Paideia to be part of the legacy he leaves behind upon graduation. The R.O.C.K. representative appreciated that the project had relevant business applications, and was excited to be able to apply the knowledge learned in the real world. Overall, group members expressed the opinion that it was a positive, albeit challenging, experience.

During the semester, morale was often correlated with the level of engagement of the community partner; groups that maintained good communication with their partner felt more positive about their projects. Communication challenges occurred with both on- and off-campus partners. While the instructor reassured students that projects could earn good grades despite incomplete partner information (with students making reasonable assumptions based on the information they did have), students naturally wanted to deliver products that met their and their community partner’s expectations. Groups that believed their partner would implement the proposed solutions were more satisfied with the experience; yet implementation was not always feasible for the partner. Not surprisingly, when a community partner is more invested in a project, a group often does better work. Accordingly, in future offerings the instructor will have more up-front discussions with both the students and the partners about how to facilitate such communication and commitment.

All community partners gave positive feedback about the work completed by the students. The LCC president has benefitted from the tools (e.g. Excel spreadsheets that are easily updatable without any operations research background), the analysis from students, and recommendations from the group about plan offerings and costs. Likewise, R.O.C.K. appreciated the information and made plans to present it to their board. However, like many nonprofit organizations staffed primarily by part-time employees and volunteers, R.O.C.K. experiences frequent staff turnover; the main project contact left the organization shortly after the project was completed, so follow-up has been limited. Likewise, a new director for the Paideia program was selected from the faculty shortly before the class project was completed; she has since used the spreadsheet and tools created and has given positive feedback.

The tools for assigning advisors to advisees require ongoing updates and maintenance by people with sufficient Java knowledge to reflect annual changes such as the number of advisees an advisor currently has. In addition, since the students who need to be assigned are new each year, there is some data processing involved in converting the information students provide on a web form into the format needed for the Java programs and GLPK. Full implementation has not yet happened for various reasons unrelated to the course, but there is support from CASAR staff for eventual usage, and the instructor is willing to do the updates.

One final exam comment was positive overall about the project, but the student wished that the group had “had more time to do more.” This issue of the semester-long lifetime of the project is an issue the instructor continues to struggle with. While the deliverable at the end of the semester is expected to be useful to the community partner, often some continued involvement with the partner after implementation would be ideal. Some students may be able to continue the partnership as an independent study, allowing the community partners to have the model refined as they realize limitations, whether due to assumptions the students had to make or to factors that were not readily known in the original problem.   

We believe that these projects are in fact rightfully viewed as partnerships, with students acting in a consulting role for the organizations. While there are inherent dangers in community-engaged learning programs that try to “fix” what is “wrong” with a community (Cooks 2004),  the partners themselves responded to offerings of these optimization services, and they chose the problem or issue. And of course they also remain in control of how the resulting information is used. Though the instructor and students did have a role in deciding which projects were selected—which does confer a degree of power (Mitchell 2008)—choices were largely based on suitability of the problem for the course (i.e. an optimization problem, not a website redesign). The concern about developing tools without providing people and resources to maintain them long-term, paralleling the concerns of do-gooders who impose their will on others, is worth acknowledging (Illich 1968). We are up-front with the community partners about the time span and limitations, aim to provide useful tools that are easily modifiable, and typically use software (frequently Excel) that their organization already uses.

Partners greatly valued the community-engaged learning relationships with the university, but, consistent with the literature, logistics (student schedules) and communication issues are not easy to overcome (Vernon and Ward 1999). While partners were invested to some degree in the projects, the projects were not their highest priority (nor were they expected to be). The instructor can be more proactive in future years about outlining the expected time commitments and flexibility needed to both the partners when selecting projects and the students when they register for the course. Having tangible results from the 2014 offering may make it easier to solicit future projects, and partners may be more invested when they have a fuller understanding of expected benefits. 

Conclusion

This Operations Research course was a productive and positive experience for students and community partners alike. Students benefitted from the hands-on project that required them to apply their knowledge outside of the typical classroom, and gained experience working and solving problems in a large group. The Community-Engaged Learning Teaching Assistant and instructor witnessed student learning in and out of the classroom, and they were able to educate students about community-engaged learning in general while further motivating course content. Finally, the community partners each received a solution to a problem from skilled students, which further strengthened the partnership between Southwestern University and the Georgetown community.

The instructor is committed to continue offering this course with nonprofit partners. Since ideally each project ends with a “solved” problem, partners will often differ from year to year, unlike many community-engaged learning courses which are able to work with the same partners for extended periods of time. Yet organizations may have new problems in mind that are in need of optimization, and can be partners in future offerings. Including presentations from community partners early in the semester could be beneficial, since passion about a project often leads to stronger teamwork, dedication, and enthusiasm about the experience. Though there will always be logistical challenges in courses of this nature, offering a community-engaged learning component in an operations research course is a worthwhile endeavor that results in beneficial learning outcomes and hands-on experience for students, and in tangible products for the partners.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dr. Sarah Brackmann, Director of Community-Engaged Learning at Southwestern University, and to the community partners and their primary contacts: Bridget Brandt (LCC), Jerry Fye (R.O.C.K.), Dr. Alison Marr (Paideia), and Kim Morter (Center for Academic Success and Records).

About the Authors

Barbara M. Anthony, (anthonyb@southwestern.edu), the instructor for the operations research course, is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She received her PhD in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. She is active in the computer science education community, with a particular interest in introducing students from underrepresented groups to the discipline, and finds ways to bring her theoretical computer science interests into multiple courses.

Kathryn M. Reagan, (kathryn.m.reagan@gmail.com), the CELTA for the operations research course, is a class of 2016 graduate of Southwestern University in computer science. She is currently a consultant software developer for ThoughtWorks. Her passions lie in social and economic justice and computer science education, and she loves finding ways to work within the intersection of those passions.

References

Anthony, B. 2012. “Operations Research: Broadening Computer Science in a Liberal Arts College.” Proceedings of the 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’12): 463–468.

Bloomfield, A., M. Sherriff, and K. Williams. 2014. “A Service Learning Practicum Capstone.” Proceedings of the 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’14): 265–270.

Bringle, R., and M. Phillips. 2004. The Measure of Service Learning: Research Scales to Assess Student Experiences. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Burger, E. 2008. Extending the Frontiers of Mathematics: Inquiries into Proof and Augmentation. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.

Butin, D. 2006. “The Limits of Service-Learning in Higher Education.” The Review of Higher Education 29 (4): 473–498.

Cooks, L., E. Scharrer, and M.C. Paredes. 2004. “Toward a Social Approach to Learning in Community Service Learning.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 10 (2): 44–56.

Furco, A. 2010. “The Engaged Campus: Toward a Comprehensive Approach to Public Engagement.” British Journal of Educational Studies 58 (4): 375–390.

Illich, I. 1968. “To Hell with Good Intentions.” Address, Conference on Inter-American Student Projects (CIASP), Cuernavaca, Mexico, April 20, 1968.

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences [INFORMS]. 2017. “What is Operations Research?” https://informs.org/About-INFORMS/What-is-Operations-Research (accessed May 27, 2017).   

Martonosi, S. 2012. “Project-Based ORMS Education.” In Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science, J. Cochran, ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Mitchell, T.D. 2008. “Traditional vs. Critical Service-Learning: Engaging the Literature to Differentiate Two Models.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 14 (2): 50–65.

R.O.C.K. (Ride On Center for Kids). www.rockride.org (accessed May 27, 2017).

Vernon, A., and K. Ward. 1999. “Campus and Community Partnerships: Assessing Impacts and Strengthening Connections.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 6: 30–37.

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The Draw-an-Ecosystem Task as an Assessment Tool in Environmental Science Education

Robert M. Sanford, University of Southern Maine
Joseph K. Staples, University of Southern Maine
Sarah A. Snowman, University of Southern Maine

Introduction

Environmental science is a broad, interdisciplinary field integrating aspects of biology, chemistry, earth science, geology, and social sciences. Both holistic and reductionist, environmental science plays an increasing role in inquiry into the world around us and in efforts to manage society and promote sustainability. Mastery of basic science concepts and reasoning are therefore necessary for students to understand the interactions of different components in an environmental system.

How do we identify and assess the learning that occurs in introductory environmental science courses? How do we determine whether students understand the concept of biogeochemical cycling (or “nutrient cycling”) and know how to analyze it scientifically? Assessment of environmental science learning can be achieved through the use of pre- and post-testing, but of what type and nature?

Physics, chemistry, biology, and other disciplines have standardized pre- and post-tests, for example Energy Concept Inventory, Energy Concept Surveys; Force Concept Inventory (Hestenes et al. 1992); the Geoscience Content Inventory  (Libarkin and Anderson 2005); the Mechanics Baseline Test; Biology Attitudes, Skills, & Knowledge Survey (BASKS); and the Chemistry Concept Inventory (Banta et al. 1996; Walvoord and Anderson 1998). Broad science knowledge assessments also exist, notably the Views About Science Survey (Haloun and Hestenes 1998). Some academic institutions have developed their own general science literacy assessment tool for incoming freshmen (e.g., the University of Pennsylvania [Waldron et al. 2001]).  The literature abounds with information on science literacy. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) are leaders in developing benchmarks for scientific literacy (AAAS 1993; www.NSTA.org).

Perhaps the closest standardized testing instrument for environmental science is the Student Ecology Assessment (SEA). Lisowski and Disinger (1991) use SEA to focus on ecology concepts. The SEA consists of 40 items in eight concept clusters; items progress from concrete to abstract, from familiar to unfamiliar, and from fact-based (simple recall) to higher-order thinking questions. Although developed principally for testing understanding of trophic ecology (plant-animal feeding relationships), this instrument can be used in most ecology or environmental science classes, even though it does not address all aspects of environmental science (for example, earth science, waste management, public policy).

The Environmental Literacy Council provides an on-line test bank that can be used for assessment (http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/580.html).  Results of this and other instruments suggest that the average person’s environmental knowledge is not as strong as he or she thinks (Robinson and Crowther 2001). Environmental knowledge assessment may help us to determine what additional learning needs to be done in creating an environmentally literate citizenry—an important public policy task (Bowers 1996).  However, a major reason for assessing environmental knowledge is to improve teaching. If we can assess how students conceptualize an ecosystem at the start of a course, then we can measure the difference at the end of the course. Additionally, understanding what knowledge they possess at the start of a course will help us expand their knowledge base in a manner tailored to their initial understandings and their needs.

The challenge lies in deriving a rapid assessment tool that will help determine abilities to conceptualize and that also has comparative and predictive value.  It is quite common in environmental science courses to ask students to draw an ecosystem—it can be done as an exam question, as homework, or as an in-class project.  Virtually all environmental science textbooks contain illustrations of ecosystems.  An environmental laboratory manual we frequently use (Wagner and Sanford 2010) asks students to draw an ecosystem diagram as one of the assignments. But what about examining how the students’ drawings illustrate growth in knowledge and understanding—their ability to use knowledge gained and to communicate ecological relationships in a model?  We needed an instrument that provided immediate information, could be contained on one page, would not take a lot of class time, and that did not look like a test. The draw-an-ecosystem instrument meets those criteria, but there is a price: the difficulty of quantifying and comparing the drawings. It seemed a worthwhile challenge to work those bugs out, and even if that proved to be impossible, the students themselves could see the increased ecological sophistication of their drawings and would experience positive feedback from the change.

The Draw-an-Ecosystem Approach

Figure 1: A representative ecosystem drawing from the first day of class

Our approach is to use a pre-test and post-test in which students draw and label an ecosystem, showing interactions, terms, and concepts (Figure 1 and Figure 2).  The assignment is open-ended. We hand out a page with a blank square on it and the following directions:

Date_______. Course ________. Please draw an ecosystem in the space below. It can be any ecosystem. Label ecosystem processes and concepts in your diagram. Take about 15 or 20 minutes. This will not be graded, it isn’t an art assignment, and the results will be kept anonymous.

We tried out this assessment in our graduate summer course in environmental science for sixth–eighth grade teachers (even short-term courses can produce a change in environmental knowledge according to Bogner and Wiseman [2004]) and in our Introduction to Environmental Science course.  We developed a rubric to evaluate and score the pre- and post-test ecosystem diagrams drawn by students.  The rubric included eight categories, each with a 0–3 score, where 0 represented no display of that category and 3 represents a comprehensive response. The categories, labeled A-H, cover ecosystem aspects (listed below). Certainly, not all eight categories are equal, nor should they be equally rated or represented; however, since we are examining pre- and post-course conceptualization of ecosystems, the comparative value of the scoring remains, and we decided it was reasonable to sum the category scores for a final score. Accordingly, the maximum possible score was 24. The scores were then compiled and analyzed to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference in pre- and post-test scoring.

Figure 2: Typical drawing of an ecosystem at the end of a semester-long environmental science course

To interpret the student ecosystem diagrams, we examine the following factors:

  • Presentation of the different spheres (hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and cultural sphere)
  • Proportional representation of species and communities
  • Recognition of multiple forms of habitat and niche
  • Biodiversity
  • Exotic/invasive species
  • Terminology
  • Food chain/web
  • Recognition of scale (micro through macro)
  • Biogeochemical (nutrient) cycles
  • Earth system processes
  • Energy input and throughput
  • Positive and negative feedback mechanisms
  • Biological and abiotic interactions and exchanges
  • Driving forces for change and stability (dynamics)

Initially we used the above factors as a guide in interpreting the drawings and comparing the pre-test and post-test drawings for each student—we did not compare one student’s work with another. However, if the ecosystem test can become a valid and reliable standardized assessment, then comparison makes sense and will inform how an entire course makes a difference in student learning rather than just the progress of an individual student.  Accordingly, we developed a scoring rubric (Table 1).

In determining the categories and weights for each scoring rubric, we consulted three other environmental science faculty with experience in teaching an introductory environmental science course. We sought a scale for which both beginners and professionals would achieve measurably distinct scores. To ensure objectivity, we scored multiple examples before settling on the final rubric elements and weights.  This is similar to the norming approach used by the College Board in scoring Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental Science exams. The final scores reflect a student’s holistic understanding of ecosystems.  The maximum score for the pre- and post-test is the same, 3 points x 8 categories = 24.  Analysis of pre- and post-course test scores using a Student’s t-test for independence, with separate variance estimates for pre-test and post-test groups, was conducted using Statistica v.10 (StatSoft, Tulsa, OK).  Analysis revealed a significant enhancement of students’ abilities to communicate their understanding of ecological concepts (t = -10.77, df = 364, p < 0.001) (Figure 3).  We also tested the scoring system on a small group of workshop participants at the New England Environmental Education Alliance conference (October 2014). Participants included members of their state’s respective environmental education association, plus  a mixture of grade school teachers and non-formal educators (with environmental education equivalent to or higher than that achieved by the post-course group of students).  The scores by these educators averaged 13 and ranged between 10 and 15.

Figure 3: Draw-an-Ecosystem Rubric Test Scores. Average test scores with SE (bars) for freshmen/transfer undergraduate students in first semester Environmental Science. Pre-test (n=297, mean=4.7) and post-test (n=60, mean=8.6).

 

Discussion

The draw-an-ecosystem test provides an open-ended but structure-bounded means to gauge a person’s understanding about ecosystems. We measured change between the first week of a semester-long environmental science course (four credits of lecture and lab) and the last week. The change showed an approximate doubling of scores. The drawings provide clues to where the students are for their starting points and provide a way to indicate possible misconceptions about science or the environment—misconceptions that may need to be cleared up for proper learning. Thus, the drawings can be a useful diagnostic tool for both the student and the teacher. They may also give insight into geographical, cultural, or social biases. For example, many ecosystem drawings were of ponds, not surprising given the water-rich environment of Maine.  None of the over 300 drawings were of desert ecosystems, yet such might be conceptually more common for people from an arid region such as the Southwest.  Another aspect of the sample ecosystem drawings is that they tend to be common rather than exotic, leading one to wonder whether we care for what we do not know, or if perhaps the opposite is true—a “familiarity breeds contempt” scenario in which the vernacular environment is seen as less important due to its commonality. A related question is whether or not the ecosystems selected for portrayal change as a result of education. Not only might students think more deeply about ecosystems, but perhaps they are more aware of and value the greater variety of them.

Another benefit of the ecosystem drawing is that it adds another dimension to the learning process. It provides a different way of assimilating and processing information, although according to our sample, artists tend to score about the same as those with fewer artistic skills, suggesting that perhaps a drawing assignment validates their supposedly lesser artistic abilities. Certainly, an exercise that incorporates multiple modes of representation, expression, and engagement—such as drawing and writing—fits better with a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach; these modes are the three principles of UDL (Burgstahler and Cory 2008; Rose et al. 2005).

In the future, we may seek a way to reduce the large number of categories in the scoring system, especially if the test is to be used with younger age groups. We should also attain a more comprehensive method of assessing inter-rater agreement for scoring the drawings. We may also explore use of the ecosystem drawings as discussion starters for peer evaluation and collaborative learning. Ecosystem concepts seem to be a powerful way of capturing and reflecting student thinking about environmental settings as dynamic systems.

Acknowledgements

Maine Mathematics and Science Teaching Excellence Collaborative (MMSTEC), an NSF-funded program, inspired the initial idea of this paper. Professors Jeff Beaudry, Sarah Darhower, Bob Kuech, Travis Wagner, and Karen Wilson provided insight.

About the Authors

Robert M. Sanford is Professor and Chair of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Southern Maine. He is a SENCER Fellow and a co-director of SCI New England.

Joseph K. Staples teaches in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Southern Maine. He was recently appointed a SENCER Fellow.

Sarah A. Snowman works at L.L. Bean and is a recent graduate of the University of Southern Maine, where she majored in Business and minored in Environmental Sustainability.

References

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 1993. Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Banta, T.W., J.P. Lund, K.E. Black, and Frances W. Oblander, eds. 1996. Assessment in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Bogner, F.X., and M. Wiseman. 2004. “Outdoor Ecology Education and Pupils’ Environmental Perception in Preservation and Utilization.” Science Education International 15 (1): 27–48.

Bowers, C.A. 1996. “The Cultural Dimensions of Ecological Literacy.” Journal of Environmental Education 27 (2): 5–11.

Burgstahler, S.E., and R.C. Cory. 2008. Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Environmental Literacy Council. Environmental Science Testbank. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/580.html (accessed November 30, 2016).

Halloun, I., and D. Hestenes. 1998. “Interpreting VASS Dimensions and Profiles for Physics Students.” Science and Education 7 (6): 553–577.

Hestenes, D., M. Wells, and G. Swackhamer. 1992. “Force Concept Inventory.” The Physics Teacher 30: 141–158.

Libarkin, J.C., and S.W. Anderson. 2005. “Assessment of Learning in Entry-Level Geoscience Courses: Results from the Geoscience Concept Inventory.” Journal of Geoscience Education 53: 394–201.

Lisowski, M., and J.F. Disinger. 1991. “The Effect of Field-Based Instruction on Student Understandings of Ecological Concepts.” The Journal of Environmental Education 23 (1): 19–23.

Nuhfer, E.B., and D. Knipp. 2006. “The Use of a Knowledge Survey as an Indicator of Student Learning in an Introductory Biology Course.” Life Science Education 5 (4): 313–314.

Robinson, M., and D. Crowther. 2001. “Environmental Science Literacy in Science Education, Biology & Chemistry Majors.”   The American Biology Teacher 63 (1):9–14.

Rose, D.H., A. Meyer, and C. Hitchcock, eds. 2005. The Universally Designed Classroom: Accessible Curriculum and Digital Technologies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Maine Mathematics and Science Teaching Excellence Collaborative (MMSTEC). http://mmstec.umemat.maine.edu/MMSTEC/

Sexton, J.M., M. Viney, N. Kellogg, and P. Kennedy. 2005. “Alternative Assessment Method to Evaluate Middle and High School Teachers’ Understanding of Ecosystems.” Poster presented at the international conference for the Association for Education of Teachers in Science, Colorado Springs, CO.

Wagner, T., and R. Sanford. 2010. Environmental Science: Active Learning Laboratories and Applied Problem Sets. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley & Sons.

Waldron, I., K. Peterman, and P. Allison. 2001. Science Survey for Evaluating Scientific Literacy at the University Level. University of Pennsylvania. (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/faculty/Teaching_Resources/home/sci_literacy_survey.html).

Walvoord, B.E., and V.J. Anderson. 1998. Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

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Geek Sneaks: Incorporating Science Education into the Moviegoing Experience

Dan Mushalko, WCBE 90.5
Johnny DiLoretto, Gateway Film Center
Katherine R. O’Brien, Ohio State University
Robert E. Pyatt, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University

Abstract

There are many published examples of strategies for using movies in science education, ranging from individual activities within a class to complete courses like “The Biology of Jurassic Park” at Hood College or “The Physics of Film” at the University of Central Florida (Borgwald and Schreiner 1994; Dubeck et al. 1988; Dubeck et al. 1995; Firooznia 2006). However, all of these strategies employ the use of the film within a formal classroom setting. This paper describes a collaborative program connecting hands-on science activities and new release motion pictures for informal science education in the innovative setting of a movie theater.

Initial Development

The Gateway Film Center (GFC) is a not-for-profit theater which includes eight screens, an art gallery, an upper level bar/ lounge area, a large lobby, and a lower level nautical-themed restaurant.  In 2015, the theater was recognized by the Sundance Art House Project as an independent theater of excellence based on “high standards including: quality programming, deep involvement with their local communities, strong financial standing, and recognition from their peers and their communities”(Madden 2015).

The GFC initially began experimenting with science-related supplemental programming through discussions following showings of the film Gravity and the TV series Cosmos in 2013. Based on the success of those events and a love of science by the GFC staff, the theater was interested in broadening that concept to a wider range of new release films. Beginning in 2014, we formed a collaboration with the GFC to develop supplemental science programming related to and in support of films shown at the theater. The mission of the Gateway Film Center includes an educational component, but this traditionally had referred to cultivating film appreciation, movie criticism, and production skills.  However, they also promoted their facility as a “learning lab” to promote curiosity and the seeking of new knowledge. We felt that this inspiring philosophy could also apply to science education and the use of the theater as an informal learning environment.  This initiative was founded on the goals of (1) integrating science engagement into a unique part of popular culture, (2) exposing moviegoers to real scientists and real science questions, (3) facilitating learning in an informal environment.

During the 2014 summer blockbuster season, we spearheaded a series of panel discussions hosted by ourselves and other scientists from our immediate area in conjunction with three new films.  As one journalist noted in a piece to promote these events, “You can’t spell ‘science fiction’ without ‘science'” (Madden 2014). Discussions were held after the 7 p.m. show on consecutive Fridays during the month of May and included topics such as “The Monstrosity of Science in Film” for the movie Godzilla and “The Science of Mutation” for X-Men: Days of Future Past (Figure 1).  The series concluded with a discussion on the relative importance of scientific fact or narrative development in motion pictures.  All panel discussions were held in the upper level lounge area of the theater and announced at the end of the film screening to encourage people to stay afterwards and attend. Most seats in the lounge area were usually filled for each panel and attendees were typically adults. Discussions were lively and included both expert commentary and audience questions to allow individuals the opportunity to directly interact with scientists around topics they were familiar with (e.g., comic books, superheroes, and monsters). When possible, we also supplemented panels with interactive displays such as a collection of insects for “The Hero: Fact vs. Fiction” discussion for the film The Amazing Spiderman 2.

Science and the Geek Sneaks

While the panel discussion format had proven successful, we wanted to develop science programming that was more interactive, broadly appealing to younger audiences/ families, and would extend across a larger range of time/ movie show times.  We expanded the scope of our efforts and began developing science-related content for the Geek Sneak series at the GFC.  Geek Sneaks are advertised as “the ultimate geeking-out atmosphere: parties, unique pre-show entertainment (think behind the scenes and rare footage) and themed drink and dining specials, with a group that loves the movie as much as you do!” Geek Sneaks are held the Thursday before a film opens nationwide and consist of multiple showings of that movie during the evening hours. As promotion for the Geek Sneaks highlighted special pre-show entertainment, this seemed like an excellent environment in which to incorporate an informal science education component.

Science activities related to each film are designed to be of short duration (completed in roughly ten minutes or less) and suitable for small groups of people (the typical sizes commonly attending movies). All activities are designed to be hands-on and focused around science content related to themes in the associated film. The GFC hosts multiple Geek Sneak programs throughout the year, but only those movies with science-related premises were deemed suitable for related science activities. In addition to our work, the GFC also arranged other science guests for some Geek Sneaks to further develop the educational message and promotion around some films.

The GFC has eight screens, and Geek Sneak science activities were typically hosted in the lobby area, which allowed them to be accessible to all moviegoers and not just those attending the Geek Sneak.  For example, the Marvel Studios movie Ant-Man opened in June of 2015 and tells the story of a superhero who has the ability to shrink in scale thanks to a super suit created by his scientist mentor. As a superhero fantasy, there are many components of the story that lack scientific accuracy, such as the suit’s implausible ability to shrink a person to insect size, Ant-Man’s superhuman strength, and the ability of a human to go sub-atomic and survive in the quantum realm at the film’s conclusion. However with a plot and hero based at least in part on real science principles, we felt that this movie offered an excellent opportunity to couple some related science activities. Two such activities were set up in the theater lobby from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. the evening of the Geek Sneak so that they were prominently visible to all theatergoers. The science activities for Ant-Man included one focused on air pressure as a mechanism to shrink or enlarge marshmallows using a hand pump or a vacuum chamber, as this most directly connects with the movie’s plot and the hero’s abilities (Figures 2 and 3). Each activity was accompanied by basic background information on the topic, which in this case included a brief definition of air pressure, a description of the composition of marshmallows, and a short discussion of how changing pressure makes them grow or shrink. Participants were also given markers and encouraged to create their own Ant-Man character with the marshmallow before experimentation. Additionally an entomologist and representatives from a local conservatory were also invited to present displays on ants and insects respectively.

For the film Jurassic World, we conducted DNA extractions from wheat germ so that moviegoers could take a sample of DNA they had processed themselves into the theater for the show, and a display of fossils was presented by the Ohio State University Orton Geological Museum including an impressive T-Rex skull. For the film Fantastic Four, science activities included light refraction experiments to mimic the powers of the Invisible Woman, and melting a small piece of the metal gallium (melting temperature 85.58°F) in the hand to mimic the heat of the Human Torch. For Star Wars: The Force Awakens, activities based around the Force focused on magnetism and static electricity (Figures 4 and 5). We have continued to develop film-related science activities with the GFC and have adopted a hybrid approach based on our experiences. For films with broader appeal that are more likely to pull in family audiences, we continue to develop hands-on, film-related science activities for Geek Sneaks associated with those movies. For the film X-Men Apocalypse we presented activities allowing theatergoers to search the human genome using a computer or test their own genetics of bitter taste [Figure 6]. For the film Star Trek Beyond, attendees could examine the warping of space or explore the International Space Station through a NASA computer simulation (Figure 7). Most recently, for the release of Shin Godzilla we showed the random nature of radioactive half-life using M&Ms and demonstrated the use of a Geiger counter with common household radioactive items.

For documentaries or other films aimed at more adult audiences, we have moved to hosting panel discussions in the theater’s restaurant area to continue conversations about film-related topics after the film has ended. For example, recent screenings of the documentaries The Last Man on the Moon and Science, Sex and the Ladies were followed by lively discussions on the future of manned flight and female sexuality. While documentaries typically do not have the same appeal as Hollywood blockbusters, we find many adult audience members are more interested in digging into the respective topics in greater detail through discussion sessions following the showings.

Audience Reactions and Challenges

Moviegoers have been generally positive towards this unusual science programming, and we frequently receive comments like “That’s really cool!” or “Why do you guys do this?” We see individuals coming to Geek Sneaks and checking in with us to see what new science activities we have planned for that film. For Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, we conducted “super” experiments to see how a person’s grip strength and total lung capacity would compare to Superman’s given some of the feats we’ve seen him demonstrate in movies. We also recorded both measures on a large board for all participants as a comparison across Geek Sneak attendees that evening. We found that not only did moviegoers enjoy these activities, but some came back repeatedly throughout the evening to check their scores compared to others. A few even asked to repeat the activities to try to improve their scores, allowing us to discuss ways they could do that long term.  We would also see one individual from a group complete the activities and then go and bring their friends over to try it as well. Most encouraging, however, is seeing groups who have completed the activities walk away discussing their results, which serves as further reinforcement of those concepts. We love watching informal science learning happening in a movie theater. 

Given that the reason people are at the GFC is to see a movie, we try to be respectful of their time as they interact with us.  We don’t want to make anyone late for a movie. If attendees decline to participate, we graciously thank them for looking and comment that we hope they enjoy their movie. When individuals do participate, we often will ask when their show time is and modify our presentation accordingly if their time is limited.  The popularity of a given movie directly relates to the number of attendees we will see for a Geek Sneak. For a film with reasonable popularity like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, we saw forty people participating in at least one of the activities during the roughly two hours we were present for the Geek Sneak.

The participation of moviegoers was observed during the American premiere of Shin Godzilla. Two activities were run simultaneously for 45 minutes, and 34 moviegoers participated in at least one of the activities; most people did both. Participation was measured if an individual spent at least one minute on an activity. Gender (male; female) and age (child; teenager; adult) were recorded, as perceived by the observer, and each participant was also asked what movie they came to see as part of the demonstrators being cognizant of movie start times. Participation was scored by counting the unique ways moviegoers participated, including if the participant asked a question, answered a question, participated in the hands-on activity, watched the Geiger counter demonstration, helped another participant with the hands-on activity, or shared a story with the demonstrators. Participation scores ranged from a 1 (for someone who, for example, just watched an activity) to a 5 (for someone who, for example, actively participated). An example of a high participation score is the first female participant. She saw another movie but was interested in the activity because her mother is a statistician. While at the table, participant 1 asked and answered questions, shared her mother’s occupation, observed the Geiger counter and participated in the hands-on activity. The average level of participation for a participant was 2.5, indicating that they engaged in between two and three unique activity modalities. 

Most participants were adults (82%), possibly due to the lateness of the show, as well as the movie being in Japanese with English subtitles, which skews viewership based on reading comprehension levels. Furthermore, most participants were men (70%); however, this seemed representative of the gender skew of moviegoers who came for the Godzilla movie. Of the 10 women who participated, three (30%) women came to Gateway to view another movie, while of the 24 men only four (16%) came to see a movie other than Godzilla. There was no statistical difference between how much men and women participated, though they participated in different ways. Men were more likely to be the first to start the hands-on activity, ask a question, or share a story, while women were more likely to answer a question or help with the hands-on activity.

Conclusions

A recent report by a committee convened through the National Research Council described the venues of informal learning as occurring in the context of three areas: everyday (life) experiences such as personal hobbies, designed settings like museums, and after-school and adult programs (Bell et al. 2009). Studies by Falk et al. have shown that the public has a broad interest in science, and a 2007 survey identified the “lifelong predominantly free choice nature of science learning” as the primary method of science education (Falk et al. 2001; Falk et al. 2007). Based on their results, the authors then recommend “a more holistic approach to science education” which “integrates school, work, and leisure time learning experiences” (Falk et al. 2007, 464). While extensive research has focused on designed settings such as museums or planetariums and informal programs such as out-of-school clubs and citizen science projects, there is considerably less information about informal science education in everyday settings.   

A recent publication by Bultitude and Sardo described a new subclass of everyday settings they termed as “generic,” which included locations designed primarily for leisure activities, where participants have chosen to be, but for reasons unrelated to science or science learning (Bultitude and Sardo 2012). In their article, the authors describe three such everyday settings including a collective of science communicators called Guerilla Science presenting at a music festival, a physics demonstration set up at a garden festival, and a biological survey (Bioblitz) conducted at a large country park. Through interviews and structured observations, the authors found that attendees of these “generic” events valued “audience participation opportunities and hands-on nature of some activities.” The authors subsequently concluded that “holding activities within a relaxed but not habitual environment, where participants are at their leisure, offers clear advantages in reaching non-standard audiences”(Bultitude and Sardo 2012, 32). Our experiences using the innovative setting of a movie theater as one such “generic” everyday setting for informal science education would confirm this. While we have only anecdotal responses from participants, we have observed that hands-on activities and discussions in the theater stoked curiosity and promoted science learning in theatergoers. Especially following panel discussions, we observed that participants seemed to connect to a movie’s science content in more personal ways. Finally, these science activities and discussions were excellent material for the Gateway Film Center to use in advertising and promotions which solidified the collaborative nature of this program.

At a recent Geek Sneak during the  summer of 2016, we were approached by an attendee who was excited to talk to us. He had attended a previous Geek Sneak for X-Men Apocalypse and had participated in the activity around bitter taste genetics and the TAS2R38 gene. He excitedly told us that since that film he’d read a couple of articles which mentioned the TAS2R38 gene; he had remembered the gene from our activity and had gone to look up additional information on it himself. While it is only a single piece of anecdotal evidence, this is exactly the impact we are aiming for.

About the Authors

Dan Mushalko is General Manager, Operations and Program Director at the National Public Radio affiliate 90.5 WCBE, a division of the Columbus City Schools District. He is also the host of “The Amazing Science Emporium,” which mixes music, puns, and other offbeat elements to teach science. Mr. Mushalko holds several journalism and education awards, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science Journalism Award. He focuses his avocational activities on education, teaching writing at Thurber House (a non-profit literary center) and conducting in-school science demonstrations. 

Johnny DiLoretto is a longtime Columbus media personality and performer. Johnny graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Film Studies in 1997 and began his career in print in 1998 as a film critic for The Other Paper. He transitioned to television in 2002 when he became the entertainment reporter, film and food critic for WSYX ABC 6 and WTTE Fox 28.  From 2012 to 2016, he was the director of communications at the Gateway Film Center, an independent, non-profit movie theater dedicated to the art of cinema and its transformational and educational potential.

Katherine R. O’Brien is a contractor with the Center for Life Science Education at the Ohio State University. She received her M.A. from Clark University and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.    Dr. O’Brien supports increasing diversity in STEM by developing connections between universities, the arts, museums, and the communities they serve. 

Robert E. Pyatt is an Associate Director of the Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics Laboratories at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and an Associate Professor-Clinical in the Department of Pathology at The Ohio State University. He received his M.S. from Purdue University and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.  Dr Pyatt is passionate about science education, especially developing new avenues of informal delivery. 

References

Bell, P.B., B. Lewenstein, A.W. Shouse, and M.A. Feder. 2009. Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Borgwald, J.M., and S. Schreiner. 1994. “Science and the Movies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Novel Interdisciplinary Course for Teaching Science to Nonscience Majors.” Journal of College Science Teaching 23 (6): 367–371. 

Bultitude K., and A.M. Sardo. 2012. “Leisure and Pleasure: Science Events in Unusual Places.” International Journal of Science Education 34: 2775–2795. 

Dubeck, L.W., S.E. Moshier, and J.E. Boss. 1988. “Science in Cinema: Teaching Science Fact through Science Fiction Films.” New York: Teachers College Press.

Dubeck, L.W., S.E. Moshier, and J.E. Boss. 1995. “Using Science Fiction Films to Teach Science at the College Level.” Journal of College Science Teaching 25 (1): 46–50.

Falk, J.H., P. Brooks, and R. Amin. 2001. Free Choice Science Education: How We Learn Outside of School. New York: Teachers College Press.

Falk, J.H., M. Storksdieck, and L.D. Dirrking. 2007 “Investigating Public Science Interest and Understanding: Evidence for the Importance of Free-Choice Learning.” Public Understanding of Science 16: 455–469.    

Firooznia, F. 2006. “Giant Ants and Walking Plants: Using Science Fiction to Teach a Writing Intensive, Lab-Based Biology Class for Nonmajors.” Journal of College Science Teaching 35 (5): 26–31.

Gateway Film Center. n.d. “Education.”  http://gatewayfilmcenter.org/films-cool/ (accessed December 17, 2016).

Gateway Film Center. n.d. “Geek Sneaks.” http://gatewayfilmcenter.org/featured_film_series/geek-sneaks/ (accessed December 17, 2016).

Madden, H. 2014. “Discuss Science and Superheroes at Gateway Film Center.” http://www.columbusunderground.com/discuss-science-and-superheroes-at-gateway-film-center-hm1 (accessed December 17, 2016).

Madden, H. 2015. “Gateway Film Center Wins Sundance Honor.” http://www.columbusunderground.com/gateway-film-center-hm1 (accessed December 17, 2016).

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A Research Project in Inorganic Chemistry on the Flint Water Crisis

Stephen G. Prilliman, Oklahoma City University

Abstract

Students in an introductory inorganic chemistry course conducted a semester-long literature-based research project on the then-ongoing drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, USA. Students presented their findings at a poster session that was open to the public. The implications of choosing an ongoing news story as a focus and the ability for such a project to shape the curriculum in a broad introductory course is discussed.

Introduction

If organic chemistry is the study of carbon, inorganic chemistry is the study of all the other elements on the periodic table. The breadth of possible topics in an undergraduate introductory inorganic chemistry course can thus present a challenge for the instructor. In fact, the topics actually taught in inorganic chemistry vary substantially from one institution to another (Raker et al. 2015). At Oklahoma City University, Inorganic Chemistry is a one-semester, lecture-only course for upper-level chemistry and biochemistry majors. The course covers orbitals, periodic trends, bonding, symmetry, transition metal complexes, acid-base chemistry, redox chemistry, and solid state chemistry.

The addition of a research project with societal implications to this course came about because of the demise of another course. For several years students in our college were required to take a senior seminar in which they would investigate and write policy proposals for problems facing humanity in the 21st century, e.g., pollution or climate change. The course proved difficult to staff, and departments were instead asked to offer upper-level courses with a strong research component. However, this research project, initially an “add-on,” became central to the course experience.

A number of factors made the Flint crisis a good choice for an inorganic chemistry research project, including

  • A sense of immediacy due to the ongoing nature of the crisis
  • Strong curricular overlap
  • Availability of information from journalistic sources
  • Availability of independent data from the Flint Water Study (2016)
  • Strong social justice aspect
  • A story impacting a diverse urban area not unlike our own

Several other recent chemistry-related events were considered, including the explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas (Chemical Safety Board 2015) and the Gold King Mine contaminated water release impacting the Navajo reservation (Environmental Protection Agency 2015), but neither had all of the advantages listed above. Local cases were also considered. The abandoned Tar Creek mine in far northwest Oklahoma (Barringer 2004) lacked the timeliness of Flint, while the recent earthquakes in Oklahoma stemming from wastewater injection at well sites required knowledge deemed to be beyond the scope of the course.

Overview of the Flint Water Crisis

In 2012, the city of Flint began investigating cheaper alternatives to its water purchasing agreement with Detroit. At the time, Flint was under the administration of a state-appointed emergency manager due to ongoing fiscal difficulties. Flint officials decided to join a regional effort to construct a treatment plant on Lake Huron by 2016 with an anticipated savings of $200 million over 25 years (Kennedy 2016). In the interim, the city would  treat its own water from the Flint River beginning in April, 2014. Residents quickly complained of yellow and brown water. The city had trouble regulating, alternately, E. coli bacteria and chlorination by-products. Corrosion found on newly made parts prompted the General Motors engine plant in Flint to discontinue use of city water in October 2014. In January 2015, the first elevated lead levels in drinking water were found. Michigan state officials dismissed independent results showing elevated lead levels until October 2015, when residents were told to stop using Flint city water for drinking, cooking, or bathing. A more thorough overview of the crisis can be found elsewhere (Flint Water Advisory Task Force 2016; Kennedy 2016; Wisely and Erb 2015).

Mechanics of the Project

Students in the inorganic chemistry course were assigned to research and present a poster on some aspect of the Flint water crisis. Learning objectives for the project are listed in Table 1. Posters were chosen as the final research product so that students could present their research in a forum that encouraged community engagement and discussion. A poster session would also give students an authentic experience in explaining their findings to both scientists and non-scientists who might be in attendance.

In the second week of the semester the students read a newspaper article (Wisely and Erb 2015) and a trade journal article (Torrice 2016) in class. Students were given two additional days in class for research and consultation but were mostly expected to complete their research on their own. Halfway through the semester students were required to turn in a summary of their research up to that point.

Results

Students’ topics fell into two broad categories that we referred to as “people” and “pipes.” Most students in the “people” group focused on the mechanism of lead toxicity. Two students examined biological pathways in which lead ions displace calcium ions. Another looked at using the common ligand molecule EDTA as a treatment for acute lead exposure. Those focusing on “pipes” looked at the chlorination byproducts acting as oxidizing agents that converted lead metal to soluble lead ions. Several others focused on whether treating water with phosphates might have prevented pipe corrosion by creating and maintaining a solid layer of iron/lead phosphate on the interior of city and residential pipes.

Each of the thirteen students in the class presented a poster at the end-of-semester poster session (Figure 1). In addition to students, faculty, and staff who attended, a reporter from the local independent weekly newspaper, the Oklahoma Gazette, also attended, resulting in an article in her newspaper (Estes, 2016) and providing students an authentic experience in explaining science to the public.

Discussion

There were two unplanned benefits of this project. First, many of the students addressed the social justice aspect of the crisis. While students had been instructed to be sensitive to the fact that real people were affected, many decided that it was important to discuss the injustice of the situation. One student’s poster prominently displayed a quote by Mayor Dayne Walling declaring the Flint River “good, pure drinking water, and it’s right in our backyard.” Another student expressed to the Oklahoma Gazette reporter her incredulousness upon realizing that city and state officials “were really letting this happen to people.”

Another unplanned benefit was how the project motivated study and reinforced course material. Student research projects discussed redox chemistry, electrochemistry, chelation, and periodicity. This made it easier to motivate students to study these subjects and gave the course a sense of coherence. In this way, the project, which was originally an addition, became a focal point for the entire course. As one student put it, “Once we found the water reports and the results had shown a high chlorine residue, I felt like the chemistry became real for me.”

We missed one opportunity when we failed to reach out to Oklahoma City community members with specialized knowledge in water treatment and water quality to add a local dimension to the project. Although the students showed a remarkable capacity to empathize with the citizens of Flint, a local connection would have added greater relevancy to their research. Providing students a rubric for the poster at the beginning of the semester and additional checkpoints throughout the semester would have ensured that expectations were better understood. A formal method of assessing students’ perception of learning during the project (rather than an assessment for the entire course) should have been established also.

Conclusion

The project, which focused on a current news topic and culminated in a public poster session, presented students with a unique opportunity to experience the need for expert analysis on an ongoing news event. The chemistry was neither simple to understand nor to explain. Students needed to integrate their scientific knowledge with information gleaned from news reports to explain the salient chemistry to both scientists and non-scientists. Students were thus provided with an experience that lies outside the norm of most undergraduate programs and which might not have been possible with a more traditional case study or research project.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the students of the course for their hard work on their projects and to Rod Jones of the Oklahoma City University Communications and Marketing Department, for inviting the reporter to cover the poster session. Thanks also to Traci Floreani and Joe Meinhart for their work on the original “21st Century Problems” course.

About the Author

Stephen Prilliman, Ph.D., is an associate professor and department chairperson of Chemistry at Oklahoma City University. For the past ten years Stephen has taught both high school and college courses using the POGIL (Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) method of teaching and is an active participant in the POGIL Project. His research is focused on the development and assessment of inquiry-based activities and labs that address persistent misconceptions.

References

Barringer, F. 2004. “Despite Cleanup at Mine, Dust and Fear Linger.” http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/12/us/despite-cleanup-at-mine-dust-and-fear-linger.html (accessed December 20, 2016).

Chemical Safety Board. 2015. “West Fertilizer Explosion and Fire.” http://www.csb.gov/west-fertilizer-explosion-and-fire-/ (accessed December 20, 2016).

Environmental Protection Agency. 2015. “Emergency Response to August 2015 Release from Gold King Mine.” https://www.epa.gov/goldkingmine (accessed December 20, 2016).

Estes, L. 2016. “Oklahoma City University Students Research Facets of Water Crisis.” Oklahoma Gazette, May 5, 2016, 4−5.

Flint Water Advisory Task Force. 2016. “Final Report.” http://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/FWATF_FINAL_REPORT_21March2016_517805_7.pdf (accessed December 20, 2016).

Flint Water Study. 2016. “Updates.” http://flintwaterstudy.org (accessed December 20, 2016).

Kennedy, M. 2016. “Lead-Laced Water In Flint: A Step-By-Step Look At The Makings Of A Crisis.” http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378/lead-laced-water-in-flint-a-step-by-step-look-at-the-makings-of-a-crisis (accessed December 20, 2016).

Raker, J.R., B.A. Reisner, S.R. Smith, J.L. Stewart, J.L. Crane,  L.Pesterfield, and S.G. Sobel. 2015. “Foundation Coursework in Undergraduate Inorganic Chemistry: Results from a National Survey of Inorganic Chemistry Faculty.” Journal of Chemical Education 92: 973–979.

Torrice, M. 2016. “How Lead Ended Up in Flint’s Tap Water.” Chemical and Engineering News 94 (7): 26–29.

Wisely, J., and R. Erb. 2015. “Chemical Testing Could Have Predicted Flint’s Water Crisis.” Detroit Free Press, October 11, 2015. http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/10/10/missed-opportunities-flint-water-crisis/73688428/ (accessed December 20, 2016).

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Winter 2017: From the Editors

We are pleased to announce the Winter 2017 issue of Science Education and Civic Engagement: An International Journal. This issue provides a variety of articles that describe successful strategies for engaging students.

L. Jay Deiner (New York City College of Technology, City University of New York), Gregory Galford (Chatham University), and Nancy Trun (Duquesne University) describe an innovative strategy to assist students to understand complex, multidisciplinary community issues. A partnership between students studying chemistry and those studying interior architecture created a mutually beneficial learning environment in which all students could approach a brownfield redevelopment project from multiple perspectives.

Steve Cohen and Melanie Pivarski (Roosevelt University) partnered with Barbara Gonzáles-Arévalo (Hofstra University) to examine how the integration of projects into a Calculus II course impacted students who were designing the projects and those who were serving as embedded tutors. The authors evaluated the project using surveys, interviews, and classroom observations. Based on these data, they conclude that tutors reported greater confidence in the knowledge and teaching of calculus, whereas project designers gained educational benefits that were similar to those obtained from an undergraduate research experience.

Dan Mushalko (National Public Radio), Johnny DiLoretto (a performer), and Robert E. Pyatt (Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Ohio State University) created a program for informal science education that invites moviegoers to participate in hands-on science activities prior to seeing a newly released film at a not-for-profit movie theater. Their approach has been successful at providing engaging enjoyable science experiences in an unexpected setting.

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, was widely publicized in the news media. Stephen G. Prilliman (Oklahoma City University) used this incident as the foundation for his upper-level inorganic chemistry course. Students performed literature-based research projects that examined topics ranging from the aqueous chemistry of lead to therapies for treating lead poisoning. The instructor noted that the project was particularly effective at enabling students to make connections among various inorganic chemistry topics, while also prompting them to appreciate the connection between chemistry and an important civic issue.

What type of assessment strategies can be used to gain insight into students’ understanding of a complex scientific concept like an ecosystem? Rob Sanford (University of Maine) has developed an assessment tool that asks students to draw an ecosystem and score the results using a rubric. Comparing students’ ecosystem drawings at the beginning and end of the semester revealed a statistically significant improvement in their understanding of ecosystems processes and interactions.

We wish to thank all the authors for sharing their insightful work with the readers of this journal.

Trace Jordan and Eliza Reilly, Co-Editors-in-Chief

Access individual articles here:
Read and download the full issue:

 

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The following photographs were used under the Creative Commons license: Roosevelt University (Ken Lund), Gowanus Canal (Allison Meier), Flint, MI (USDA/Lance Cheung), and Cloud Pond (lawepw). The photograph for the Geek Sneaks article is courtesy of Robert Pyatt.

Students as Partners in Curricular Design: Creation of Student-Generated Calculus Projects

 

Steve Cohen, Roosevelt University
Melanie Pivarski, Roosevelt University
Barbara Gonzalez-Arevalo, Hofstra University

Abstract

In recent years advanced undergraduate students have developed projects for our redesigned Calculus II classes. Our student designers create new mathematics projects and present their work at conferences and in local talks. They are often mathematically early in their college careers, and so we can involve students of all levels in research projects.

Our course redesign affected three groups of students: those taking the class, those designing projects for the course, and embedded tutors. This qualitative study examines how the second and third groups of students benefited from their experiences and how we can modify our program to improve it. Evidence was gathered from interviews, surveys, and observation of student research work and its implementation in the classroom. Tutors reported more confidence in their knowledge of calculus and insights into teaching it, and project designers experienced benefits similar to that of a traditional undergraduate research experience.

Introduction

The extensive use of undergraduate research in mathematics is fairly recent, dating back to the 1980s with the widespread introduction of the NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates programs (Lopatto 2010). Most of these experiences are designed for advanced undergraduates who are in their junior or senior years, and they are often used to help prepare these students for graduate study. By using undergraduate students to develop projects for use in a Calculus II classroom, we can give freshmen and sophomores the opportunity to work on research. The purpose of their research is clear; our students are motivated by helping their peers learn. Developing the calculus projects as well as using them to teach calculus helps to contextualize the mathematics curriculum, which is seen as “a promising direction for accelerating the progress of academically underprepared college students” (Perin 2011).

The use of undergraduates as embedded peer tutors is common; see e.g. Evans et al. (2001) and Goff and Lahme (2003). Tutors attend most classes, and depending on the instructor, sometimes work with students during the class sessions. Tutors can connect more deeply with the material, increasing their calculus skills as well as their ability to communicate and collaborate effectively.

In order to avoid ambiguity, we use “embedded tutors” or simply “tutors” to refer to the embedded peer tutors and “project designers” or “student researchers” to refer to students who, after completing Calculus II themselves, worked on researching a project for use in a future Calculus II course. We refer to students who were currently taking the course simply as calculus students.

In the section Connecting Students to the Course, we briefly describe our Calculus II course and the overall role of the tutors and project designers. As this varied by semester, we elaborate with more details and context in the Experiences and Results section. In the section Curricular Design as Student Research, we discuss definitions of student research that occur in the literature and how these connect to our curricular design. In the Methodology section we describe the methodology used in our study. In the Experiences and Results section, we delve into the results of the study, providing and elaborating on themes found in the student responses. In the Conclusions section, we summarize our results with a list of best practices.

Connecting Students to the Course

At Roosevelt University, semester-long projects with a civic engagement component became a regular part of all sections of Calculus II in Spring 2010 (González-Arévalo and Pivarski 2013). Calculus projects help students explore STEM applications, acquire library research skills, and develop communication skills. Beginning in Fall 2010 each class was assigned an embedded undergraduate tutor who attended class at least once a week and helped students in and out of class. Starting in Summer 2011, undergraduate research students had the opportunity to work on designing materials for class projects. Their work involved picking a topic of civic importance, finding appropriate data sources, considering issues related to calculus, and linking these together. There are many possible outcomes for these projects: use in a Calculus II class, honors theses, research talks, and starter ideas for more advanced mathematical research. We consider all of these to be successful outcomes. We also had some unsuccessful outcomes where students failed to progress.

This course redesign originally developed as a result of our involvement with the Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) project. Over the years, our continued involvement with SENCER helped us incorporate students as partners in our curricular design. At the end of 2013 we published a project report (González-Arévalo and Pivarski 2013) detailing the redesign of the course and what we then thought would be the benefits. The current paper provides a qualitative assessment of the newest components of this redesign, namely calculus project development by advanced undergraduate research students and the incorporation of embedded tutors. We provide a description of how we use the embedded tutors in class, as well as how students work on the design of calculus projects. Some of this is explained in our aforementioned project report but we have included it here also for the convenience of the reader.

Embedded Tutors

Each semester at Roosevelt University there are one or two Calculus II sections, each with between nine and thirty students. Because there are only one or two calculus tutors per semester, we do not have a formal tutor training process. Each section instructor informally trains their own tutor. Typically, an experienced instructor acts as a secondary faculty resource. The designers do not work directly with the tutors, except in the cases where an individual student acts in both roles. In that instance, the tutor has a deep knowledge of the goals of the calculus project; we elaborate on this in the section Theme A: Insight into better learning processes. We intend for tutors to

  • attend all classes,
  • hold regular office hours,
  • test out the computer labs ahead of time, and
  • work with groups both inside and outside of class.

In practice, we often are unable to find qualified students whose schedule allows them to attend all class meetings, and so we loosen the requirement to attendance at least once per week. Tutors are not needed as graders, as the homework is online. Instructors grade weekly quizzes by hand to gauge where the class is mathematically. Instructors also grade the project parts. Tutors are student workers paid hourly; their salary is part of the institutional budget, often including Federal Work Study.

The use of the tutor varies by instructor. Some embedded tutors help students when they are working on problems during class, but others merely observe the class. When they are made available, some tutors try the class’s computer assignments ahead of time. The tutors always help out during class periods involving computer use.

Project Designers

At Roosevelt University many students transfer in or take calculus their sophomore year, which means they are not ready for a traditional undergraduate research experience until their senior year. Therefore, students need to have research opportunities requiring less background knowledge. Project creation allows student researchers to choose an area for the calculus application.

In the initial course redesign process, research students compiled a literature review on calculus projects. This review and previous semesters’ calculus projects provide a foundation for our project designers. Although they are mathematically constrained to construct a modeling project for a calculus class, designers independently explore an application of their own choosing. We ask that it involve actual data and ideally a social justice component. As they develop their plans, we meet weekly with the research students to discuss their ideas, progress, and challenges. During the week, they work independently, although we are always available either in person or by e-mail. At Roosevelt, students are funded through an NSF STEP grant (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program) shared with the sciences, and through our university’s honors program.  At a school without funding, project design can act as an independent study project. 

Some students had their own ideas for projects, and others modified existing projects. For example, one student found a project that involved studying population growth through a series of biology experiments. She wanted the project to be compelling to the many science majors taking the class. The original project involved studying population growth in simple life forms and in humans. Since growing cell cultures involved more lab time than was realistic for a calculus class, she arranged to use some existing yeast data from one of our biologists’ research labs. She investigated curve fitting with MAPLE, split the problem into discrete assignments, and structured the investigation to fit the topic schedule of the calculus course. We helped her with this process over the summer and made adjustments during the semester that we used her project.

Design typically happened over the summer, but it sometimes occurred during the semester.  At any given time there are at most two students working on design.  Although they had access to them, the designers did not formally review past projects, and they did not have formal discussions with tutors.  They instead drew informally from their own experiences and anecdotes from their friends.  The designers whose projects were used in courses saw the results of the students’ work through a STEM poster session.

Curricular Design as Student Research

The work that our students do creating calculus projects is a distinctive research experience that has much in common with a traditional undergraduate research experience. In the report “Mathematics Research by Undergraduates: Costs and Benefits to Faculty and the Institution” (MAA CUPM 2006), the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics of the Mathematical Association of America lists four characteristics of undergraduate mathematics research:

  • The student is engaged in original work in pure or applied mathematics.
  • The student understands and works on a problem of current research interest.
  • The activity simulates publishable mathematical work even if the outcome is not publishable.
  • The topic addressed is significantly beyond the standard undergraduate curriculum.

Although these guidelines were originally designed to describe a traditional mathematics research project, they apply in many ways to the work that our research students do. Our research students create projects for use in a Calculus II classroom, and so theirs is more of an applied curricular design research project than a traditional mathematics research project. Because of this, the first item is only partly true; the work is often adapted for a Calculus II classroom from another source. The second item holds, and it was a significant motivator for our research students when they chose the topic of their project. The third holds in the sense that their work, when completed, is made public through use in our classrooms. This is similar to an applied project being used by a company. For our students, two of six projects reached this point. Others either lacked time or good data sets or transitioned from a Calculus II project into applied math research for an honors thesis. The final point applies in the sense that it takes them outside the traditional curriculum. While the mathematics might be found in an undergraduate math modeling course, the act of designing mathematics activities that relate to a social justice theme provides a deeper challenge. At the same time, this allows our student project designers the chance to work on research very early in their undergraduate studies.

Dietz (2013, 839) defines three levels of student research activities:

Guided discovery: In these classroom activities, students make step-by-step progress toward a standard (but unknown to them) mathematical formula, or other result, via open-ended, but guided questions.

Independent investigation: In these multi-day activities, the instructor asks open-ended questions that require independent exploration by the students. Results may not be surprising to professionals, but they cannot be easily found in the literature.

Scholarly inquiry: In these intense activities, students engage in scholarly work that is typical of a given field of inquiry.

Our research students engage in curriculum design, researching applied areas and educational theories in order to develop a guided discovery project for the Calculus II class. The process of creating a new calculus project is an independent investigation; for one of the students it moved beyond this into the area of scholarly inquiry where she analyzed the efficacy of her project. For another, her work extended beyond that of a typical Calculus II project and became scholarly inquiry in the area of actuarial science.

There are multiple layers of learning, where advanced students progress beyond Calculus II while helping students currently taking Calculus II. When surveying the literature, we have found a few instances where advanced students created mathematics materials for introductory students. In Duah and Croft (2012), four mathematics students worked with lecturers to create materials for a module in vector spaces and complex variables. The authors noted the call for student-led curricular design in the UK (Kay et al. 2007; Porter 2008), which other fields have responded to. The authors also noted that there was a paucity of literature on student-created mathematics curricula. At least two papers were written in response to Duah and Croft (2012). In Hernandez-Martinez (2013), two students at an English university worked to create mathematical modeling teaching and assessment tasks for a second-year mathematics for engineers course. In Swinburne University of Technology in Australia (Loch and Lamborn 2015), a team of engineering and multimedia students created videos for engineering students to demonstrate how mathematics is used in engineering. In Pinter-Lucke (1993), the program of Academic Excellence Workshops (AEW) at Cal Poly Pomona involved STEM upperclassmen as leaders of cooperative learning-based workshops for underclassmen in courses ranging from college algebra through calculus. Student facilitators selected materials and led weekly problem sessions. The facilitators met weekly with faculty who were teaching the course, and they went to an intensive two-day training session. Although the paper does not mention whether the problems are student-created or student-selected, the process of choosing appropriate course materials is an advanced one, and so this is a notable example of students contributing to the enhancement of mathematics curricula.

Some institutions involved with the SENCER project are also working with students to create curricular materials, notably in biology (Goldey et al. 2012), where students are used to create and update labs. At Guilford College students are creating a new course as a part of their independent study,  and at New England College a proposal is being piloted.  At the United States Military Academy students are doing in-depth assessment research of the university’s curricular design across the STEM disciplines (United States Military Academy 2014).

In many of these cases, a small number of students were selected to participate in this work, but without a particular common experience to draw upon. In our project we bring students into the experience systematically and intentionally, which leads to the following multi-level learning experience: students have the initial experience of working on a Calculus II project as students in the class, then are given the opportunity to work as a peer tutor or project designer (or both). Their subsequent work then impacts the next set of potential tutors and designers. The depth and detail of the work done by our project designers appears to go beyond that of the AEW leaders, and so the combination of multi-level learning with the depth of experience appears to be unique to our endeavor.

Methodology

In this qualitative study, which received IRB approval, we interviewed each student with several open-ended questions (Appendix A) to get them to reflect on how they were affected by the experience.

We created a survey after we interviewed a few of the students, and it included questions that were based on the interviews. The survey itself was anonymous, and it was used to corroborate the interviews. This qualitative study involves a relatively small number of potential subjects: six project designers, one of whom was also a tutor, and eight additional students who were embedded tutors. Eight students, four of whom were project designers, agreed to be interviewed; four of these also completed a follow up survey. Two individuals, including one project designer, completed the survey, but not an interview. Four did not respond to our contact request. Due to the small sample size it was not possible to conduct a quantitative study of these results, and we have therefore avoided all numerical data throughout the paper (since it would not be statistically valid). Instead, we present the results of the qualitative study of the interviews. The survey was only used to triangulate the results of the interviews.

To categorize the responses, the three authors independently reviewed the interview transcripts and labeled responses according to a variety of categories (Appendix B). The labels were compared and discussed until consensus was reached. The results are organized into three main themes as follows:

Theme A: Insight into better learning processes.

Theme B: Insight into applying mathematics/calculus.

Theme C: Feedback on improving the experience of embedded tutors and researchers.

Experiences and Results

In the first part of this section we will describe some of our observations made as course instructors and research advisors. In the second part of the section we will concentrate on the actual results of our interviews.

Experiences

Overall, our experiences have been positive. While some of our embedded tutors merely benefited from a review of calculus, others developed into expert teachers. All students surveyed confirmed that they gained in some way in varying amounts.

At the beginning, we hoped that the use of tutors would contribute to a sense of community among the students in the class and in our major. We also hoped that the class’s mathematical skill level would increase along with the tutor’s mathematical skills. We hoped for smoother computer labs, smoother group dynamics during the project, and a source of peer advice. Two of the tutors explicitly commented on the increased sense of community; we observed this as well, both in the classroom and among the tutors. Due to the small number of class sections observed it was difficult to discern whether embedded tutors consistently improved the mathematical skill level of the class and to assess their group dynamics. But tutors had a noticeable effect on the computer labs; these benefited greatly from the extra support. The amount of peer advice given varied by tutor; some of them commented on this in the interviews. Students in sections where the embedded tutors helped during the class period appeared to be more likely to work with the tutors outside of class.

There has not been a good mechanism for class feedback on the tutors; an online survey had a low response rate, but informally they praised tutors who were actively involved.

Our experiences with student researchers have also been mixed. They have definitely learned the difficulty of finding data, since much of what is found online is processed data that give only means, medians, and standard deviations rather than raw data. They found that government sites are usually a good data source. As a result of their work, we used two student-created projects in our course; these are on modeling population and modeling air pollution. Those student researchers gave talks on their projects, both internally and externally. Two students developed more involved research projects on actuarial and head injury models that were not used in class because they were too advanced for a Calculus II class but which resulted in internal and external talks. Two projects (population, actuarial modeling) developed into honors theses, with the first thesis also studying the impact of the population project on the class using it. Two projects were not finished. One of the student researchers, working on temperatures, was stalled in the data collection stage, and did not relate the topic to calculus. The other, working on planetary motion, had planned activities but lost the plans in a move. After this, we started making students type up their results part-way through their research project to prevent the loss of work.

In our experience, project designers have the best results when they fill out weekly timesheets rather than being paid in a lump sum for their summer research. Timesheets appear to help with their pacing and accountability. In a situation where a designer is working in an independent study, the structure of the independent study course can be used to aid in pacing.

Results

The student interviews indicate that the students benefited from their experience as tutors and designers as well as from working on the Calculus II projects. They also provide valuable feedback on the curricular design. Note that we have removed words such as “Uh, um, like” as well as repeated phrases from the transcription quotes without explicitly labeling each occurrence.

Theme A: Insight into Better Learning Processes

This theme encompasses the students’ sense of themselves as learners and tutors, how math instruction is enhanced by students working on open-ended problems, and the components of effective project design. All of the tutors and designers report gains in their understanding of calculus and in becoming better students themselves. All appreciate the value of a required Calculus II project.

Tutors and designers put considerable thought into what students need to be successful. All of the tutors helped with the technology. One noted that they wanted students to see that the computer is doing something you can do by hand but just much faster. Tutors noted the value of learning to work in teams and that talking about a project is a good way to communicate to outside people what you learned in the class. Tutors noted the value of sitting through the class a second time. They were able to work on their problem areas and to look for connections among the topics and applications. Having experienced the challenge of working on a project that is more open-ended than a typical homework problem, they are in a position to coach students through the process. One tutor spoke at length about the psychology of a student facing a difficult subject. Knowing that their tutor struggled with calculus when they first took the class can reduce the student’s own stress and self-doubt.

Project designers tried to include elements that connected naturally to particular calculus concepts. For example, population growth naturally associates with differential equations. But more importantly they tried to make the project connect to students’ own majors such as biology. The project designers discussed how they had to think about what calculus topics students needed to know and how the project could help them with difficult concepts. One project designer explained that conceptually, integration is difficult for students, and so he wanted the project to connect integration to a real life problem. They are interested in making the topics current such as using calculus to study greenhouse gasses. By putting more emphasis on a meaningful situation, students would naturally move away from a more mechanical view of calculus.

Several tutors viewed the project as motivating interest in math. Previously their math classes involved memorization and refinement of processes. As embedded tutors they appreciated a mathematically relevant context. One said, “I think that it was really interesting getting to do lots of different things, but I also think that it is something that students talk about especially within the same degree program. So if we did something that was more biological, population based… one semester when I had a classmate who did something that was more ecological, like the oil spill one, we could have those conversations about how we’re applying the same skills in a very sort of different context.”

It is evident that tutors and creators think a lot about the students. They care about whether the project is feasible and relevant to student interests. The majority of the students in Calculus II are science majors, so project designers looked for projects that related to biology and chemistry, as we do not offer a physics major at our institution. Typically, projects are related to an important social issue (e.g. climate change and overpopulation). Several tutors expressed empathy for the students and were motivated to help students practice, find related problems in the homework, and discover new ways to explain things.

Tutors took advantage of their unique relationship with the students. Tutors know what the students are hearing from the instructor; they can fill in gaps from the instructor to the students and can also give some of the students’ perspective back to the instructor. This advocacy for the students helps the instructor better understand the needs of the students. The tutor’s view is different from the instructor’s; their recent mastery of the material helps them to understand the students’ thought processes. Students often felt more comfortable talking to a peer.

One tutor had designed the project that was being used that semester.  This experience was especially fruitful, as they had thought very deeply about what they wanted to include in the project, how students learn, and where they were lacking in skills. They reported that this greatly increased their effectiveness as a tutor for the course; this self-reporting is consistent with our observation.

Theme B: Insight into Applying Mathematics/Calculus

Our main motivation for incorporating projects in Calculus II is to give all students the ability to talk about calculus and its uses. The project challenges students to think about the mathematical concepts in a contextualized situation that requires imagination and technological assistance. Our tutors and designers reflected about their time as calculus students, both here and elsewhere, in their interviews. Calculus II students must communicate among themselves about mathematical modeling in order to successfully complete the project. Many cited this communication as crucial.

One described group work in their previous calculus class at a different school: “It was never actually going out into the world and presenting your findings and being knowledgeable of what you were talking about, so I liked that as a component.” One said their experience as a Calculus II student here helped them talk to professionals at a job fair.

The project designers’ reflections deepened when discussing the thinking that went into designing a project. Project designers looked for ideas that were feasible for Calculus II students to complete in a semester. Designers wanted their projects to be socially relevant and therefore searched for an interesting area and then had to deconstruct it; one chose to study head injuries and came across the head injury index. That led to a new kind of analysis for her, working backwards from a formula to work out its derivation. The designers intended for students to experience how a model may be limited, but they still wanted students to make valid inferences about what formulas would be reasonable to try. One designer noted his own growth as a student through understanding why concepts are true rather than simply accepting them as an established principle.

The project designers applied knowledge acquired since having had Calculus II. One, an actuarial science major, designed a project using mortality tables. Reflecting on the project done and the project design led to the problem of data. The projects needed some publicly available data to analyze. They could see that the data used when doing the project as a Calculus II student had problems. Most of the designers expressed awareness of the difficulty of doing a project with real data, in particular, finding a good source and dealing with flaws in the data themselves.

There is consensus among the designers that the project brings value to the class. It gives insight into how calculus can be applied in the real world, and the learning that is needed to navigate the project provides an incentive for students to learn more about calculus itself.

Theme C: Feedback on Improving the Experience of Embedded Tutors and Researchers

Tutors and researchers gave feedback on how to run the different activities. The tutors felt strongly that more preparation and better coordination between instructors and tutors was needed. They gave suggestions about the structure of the class and insights on the value they should bring to it. Tellingly, the project designers did not express concerns about what was expected of them. Their biggest concern regarded the difficulties of finding good projects, particularly those with usable data sets. Because the designers met regularly with their research mentor, they remained informed of the goals and expectations of the project.

Most tutors saw the value and importance of integrating technology into the class, but most did not feel that their skill level improved while tutoring. Many pointed out the need for more training for students, tutors, and instructors. The tutors believe that students in the class need more formal instruction on using the software, noting that much class time is spent troubleshooting the difficulties students are having or getting them started. The tutors felt that more training for them would improve their effectiveness, as they were unable to answer some questions students had. Finally, there are indications that the instructors also need additional training, both on the software being used and on the way to utilize the tutors effectively. In some cases the instructor relied on the tutor to troubleshoot any problems arising with the software. Most tutors felt instructors only explicitly engaged them when technology was being used in that day’s class. In fact, many of the tutors were not active during class unless there was an activity involving computers.

It is not surprising then that communication was the most cited concern among tutors. Several of them said they wished they knew more about the instructor’s goals. The true value of the embedded tutor is to act as a partner of the instructor, and for this he/she needs to be aware of what the instructor is trying to accomplish. Some tutors tended to hold back and not be proactive about helping, in part because they had no direction and in part because of their own inexperience and lack of training.

Many noted the value of having the time structured so that tutors are available to students both in and outside of class. Opportunities to be active in the class were important to the tutors, though some needed more prompting from the instructor. This suggests that some changes in the structure would help facilitate the tutor’s activities. Possibilities include more training involving all members of the team, regular meetings between tutor and instructor where plans for the class are discussed, and a set of prompts for the instructor to help guide the tutor.

Conclusions

Our experiences with student researchers mirrored those of others, even though our student research had a curricular focus instead of a mathematical one. In Seymour et al. (2004), a survey of seventy-six student science researchers at four different liberal arts institutions was compared with literature from fifty-four different papers on hypothesized benefits of being a student researcher.

They found that students reported gains in many areas, including confidence in their ability to do research, finding connections between and within science, their organizational and computer skills, their enthusiasm, enhanced resumes, and their attitudes towards learning and working as a researcher. In our study, we also found these gains, giving evidence that this type of student research project has many of the benefits of a traditional research project.

The main advantage of research with a curricular focus is the possibility for students to work when they are just beyond the calculus level. In our study, designers and tutors gained a deeper knowledge of how to apply mathematics and use technology. Both reflected on what makes a good teacher, indicating this type of experience could greatly benefit undergraduates who are interested in teaching. They also provided thoughtful comments on how to improve the program, most notably the need for consistent communication between tutors and instructors.

4.1 Best Practices for Incorporating Students in Curricular Design

Given the extensive amount of research on embedded tutors, we will concentrate primarily on best practices for student researchers.

  • Meet student researchers and tutors at least weekly.
  • Be available for tech support, orienting all students to new software.
  • Pay students using timesheets rather than lump sums.
  • Encourage researchers to become embedded tutors for the course (both before and after creating a project).
  • Have a set of background literature, including previously used projects, available for new student researchers.
  • Don’t be too prescriptive. Let them brainstorm ideas and act as a sounding board for them.
  • Have at least two students working at the same time; they can give feedback to each other, and bounce ideas off each other.
  • Communicate your expectations to help them steadily progress.
  • Use file sharing (Dropbox, iCloud, etc.) to prevent the loss of student work.
  • Proofread and give feedback on projects and talks. Be supportive and encouraging.
  • Make students aware of speaking opportunities (with enough time to write an abstract, to plan a trip, etc.).
  • Provide internal venues where they can present their work.
  • If the topic gets too deep for calculus allow it to become a more traditional research project.

Recommendations for Further Study

We would love to see a quantitative study on our style of design process. For this, a large university or community college would have to undertake these activities in Calculus II or a similar course. We are also interested in more studies on the impact of doing research early on in college. In our specific work, it would be interesting to increase interactions between the embedded tutors and the project designers.  It would also be interesting to have new project designers formally review old projects.  This would structure their introduction to the design process and help them to think critically about issues involved in the design.  Similarly, when possible, one could have the tutors formally review the current semester’s project in the week prior to the semester as a form of tutor training.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Amy Dexter, Bethany Hipple, Sherri Berkowitz, and Amanda Fisher for giving us pointers on the qualitative research process. We would like to thank the SENCER project for the initial impetus to redesign our Calculus II course. Thank you to the reviewers for helpful feedback. Thank you to the NSF STEP grant and the honors program for supporting the student researchers financially, and to the Provost’s office for providing support for some travel and a student worker. Thank you to Janet Campos for her work transcribing the interviews.

About the Authors

Steve Cohen is an associate professor of mathematics at Roosevelt University. He teaches courses to both majors and non-majors throughout the curriculum with particular interest in the History of Mathematics and Abstract Algebra. He is a member of the steering committee of the Chicago Symposium on Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Mathematics and Science. He earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois Chicago and served as a visiting assistant professor at Loyola University of Chicago. Steve likes to play undisclosed games of uncertain outcomes. He also bakes an excellent cheesecake whose outcome is much more certain.

Bárbara González-Arévalo is an associate professor of mathematics at Hofstra University and a SENCER Leadership Fellow. Previously she was an associate professor of mathematics, statistics, and actuarial science at Roosevelt University. Her current research interests include Statistics, Applied Probability and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Mathematics. She earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in statistics from Cornell University, and worked as an assistant professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She enjoys baking and has two beautiful boys. It is important to note that she does not bake the boys.

Melanie Pivarski is an associate professor of mathematics at Roosevelt University and a SENCER Leadership Fellow. She is currently serving as the department chair for mathematics and actuarial science. She earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Cornell University and worked as a visiting professor at Texas A&M University.  Her current research interests involve heat kernels and their applications in metric measure spaces. Recently, she has been inspired to include students in her research work. This led her to work in the scholarship of teaching and learning mathematics. She likes to eat her co-authors’ creations, as she is too busy chasing her toddler to bake on her own.

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