Individualized, Interactive Instruction (3 I): An Online Formative Assessment And Instructional Tool
- Conference
- Location
-
Honolulu, Hawaii
- Publication Date
-
June 24, 2007
- Start Date
-
June 24, 2007
- End Date
-
June 27, 2007
- ISSN
-
2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
-
Computers in Education
- Page Count
-
17
- Page Numbers
-
12.884.1 - 12.884.17
- DOI
-
10.18260/1-2--2328
- Permanent URL
-
https://peer.asee.org/2328
- Download Count
-
429
Paper Authors
Andre Encarnacao University of California, Los Angeles
Andre Encarnacao is currently working towards a B.S. degree in Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Andre plans to graduate in March 2007 and continue his computer science education at Stanford University. His research interests are in networking, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. In addition to working on the 3i system, Andre has previous research experience with the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS), and the Embedded and Reconfigurable Systems Lab, both at UCLA.
Paul Espinosa University of California, Los Angeles
Paul Espinosa is currently a senior at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studies Computer Science and Engineering, with plans to graduate in June 2007. Soon after entering UCLA, he joined the 3i: Individualized, Interactive Instruction project led by Dr. William J. Kaiser. His responsibilities included designing the software user interface, presenting the 3i system at poster sessions, testing and debugging the software, and making the system portable. When he’s not working on improving 3i, Paul enjoys studying modern cryptography, mathematical modeling, and music.
Lawrence Au University of California, Los Angeles
Lawrence K. Au received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2004. He is currently working towards an M.S. degree at UCLA. His research interests include embedded circuits and systems, energy-aware systems design, and wireless sensor networks.
Lianna Johnson University of California, Los Angeles
Lianna Johnson received her B.A. in Chemistry from University of Colorado in 1978 and her PhD in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin in 1983. From 1983-1986 she was a postdoctoral fellow at CalTech, and then moved to UCLA in 1986. In 1993 she became a lecturer in Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology and started developing software for use in teaching molecular biology and genetics. In 2001 Interactive Genetics was published through Hayden-McNeil Publishing. In 1996 she became Academic Administrator in the Life Science Core Curriculum and received the 2002 Copenhaver Award for Teaching with Technology. In addition to her teaching, she has published 29 scientific papers and presented talks at numerous conferences.
Gregory Chung University of California-Los Angeles
Greg is a Senior Researcher at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). His current work at CRESST involves developing computer-based assessments to measure problem solving and content knowledge in military and engineering domains. He has experience developing Web-based assessment tools for diagnostic and embedded assessment purposes using Bayesian networks, domain ontologies, and other advanced computational tools. Dr. Chung earned a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles, an M.S. degree in Educational Technology from Pepperdine University at Los Angeles, and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
William Kaiser University of California-Los Angeles
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Individualized, Interactive Instruction (3i): An Online Formative Assessment and Instructional Tool
Abstract
This paper describes a novel online tool, Individualized, Interactive Instruction (3i), that enables new instructional approaches based on formative assessment. The 3i system provides real-time feedback from students to instructors in the classroom. 3i directly displays each student’s progress on specific problem solving tasks that reveal understanding of instructional topics. The 3i system design ensures private and anonymous communication and thus encourages student participation. Most importantly, the combination of these characteristics allows a student-centered learning method that is convenient for students as well as for instructors. Moreover, the 3i system has been evaluated in multiple gateway Electrical Engineering and Life Science courses at the University of California, Los Angeles. This paper will describe the design and implementation of 3i as well as provide a detailed assessment of results from its evaluation.
Introduction
Traditional classroom instructions, while providing one of the more effective methods of learning, prove insufficient in many settings, especially in terms of overall student understanding of course materials. Much of the success in student learning is attributed to the interactions between the instructor and students.1,2 It has been shown that when students are actively interacting with the instructor, they are more engaged in learning.2 These interactions facilitate student participation, attentiveness, motivation and an overall desire to learn3. These are all reasons why interactivity is such a critical component in student learning.1,4 In typical classrooms, however, interactions are often one-way and lack feedback to an instructor – an instructor provides a lecture and students are restricted to only listen. Small interactions are common but still very limited for the following reasons: 1) limited class time is available for interaction; 2) oral questioning is usually one-on-one; 3) students are often not comfortable participating in the presence of a large class; and 4) mechanisms are not available to assess student comprehension of the course materials being covered at any given point in time during a lecture.4
These issues are particularly important in undergraduate science and engineering courses, where learning through lectures may become monotonous, impersonal, and perceived as boring to students.5 Recent studies report that 83% of science and engineering instructors use lectures as their primary method of teaching.6 This leads to “open-loop” instruction, where instructors cover challenging course materials with little or no student interaction and receive no indication of student understanding.5
By enhancing interactions in the classroom, students will be able to better engage themselves in the classroom, and this will inevitably make learning more effective.7 This effectiveness of classroom instructions on student learning has become a primary concern and priority in education. It is especially difficult in typical university classrooms where the student-to-faculty ratio can range from many tens to hundreds. In these environments, conventional methods that involve tracking the progress of each individual student are impractical, and often unfeasible. It is here that active learning and formative assessment techniques are particularly valuable.5 Active learning is a student-centered approach of learning designed to better engage students in the learning materials.5
Encarnacao, A., & Espinosa, P., & Au, L., & Johnson, L., & Chung, G., & Kaiser, W. (2007, June), Individualized, Interactive Instruction (3 I): An Online Formative Assessment And Instructional Tool Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2328
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2007 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015