screenshot of student project

Glenn Wharton – Project-based Learning in Museum Studies

Posted on by ds4583@nyu.edu in Discipline, Humanities, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Glenn Wharton (Museum Studies) leverages project-based learning in his Museums and Community course. As a final research assignment, students work individually or in small groups to design fictional community programs for museums and cultural heritage institutions. Students create websites containing information about their programming. In addition to demonstrating content knowledge, students gain experience in website design and development.

Learning objectives

  • Increase student engagement through use of real-world scenarios
  • Leverage students’ existing knowledge
  • Develop students’ basic web design and production skills

Student experience

  • Students conduct research individually or in small groups to design a community-based, participatory program for a museum or cultural heritage institution
  • Students design and produce a website to display program information, including the aims of the program, activities, funding, etc.
  • Students peer review one another’s websites

Project workflow

In order to introduce students to web publishing technology that may be unfamiliar to them, Professor Wharton and an educational technologist collaborated on an in-class session on the basics of web design and building a website. The ed tech office also provided instructional materials and resources, as well as one-on-one consultations for students with follow-up questions. Whenever technology is used in a course innovation, we work with faculty to develop a support model that puts course content and knowledge building first.

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Students gain media literacy, website design and creation skills.
  • Students are better prepared for field where collaboration is an essential component.
  • Students are deeply engaged by real-world scenarios.
  • Students are agents of their own learning.

In the following video, Professor Wharton describes the benefits and challenges of incorporating project-based learning in a traditional humanities seminar. In particular, he notes the transformative potential of technology to move his teaching from a “top-down model” into a true “co-production of knowledge.”

Esferas cover

Lourdes Dávila – Experiential Language Learning through Professional Publishing

Posted on by admin in Discipline, Humanities, Language instruction, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Lourdes Dávila (Spanish & Portuguese) directed a team of current student and alumni editors to produce an online version of Esferas, a peer-reviewed, annual publication that publishes exceptional critical essays, visual art, creative writing, interviews, translations, and works related to Hispanic and Luso life within and beyond New York City.

Learning objectives

  • Allow for students to develop linguistic, technological, and professional skills
  • Facilitate collaboration among students through group work

Professor Lourdes Dávila, managing editor of Esferas, embarked on a full-scale re-design of the online journal to have a dynamic, modern showcase emerging scholarship, art, and writing from Hispanic and Lusophone culture. She identified NYU’s Web Publishing as a suitable environment since it mimics the hierarchical publishing structure, is supported by NYU, and allows for rich multimedia. She also developed a 2-credit course so that students could gain valuable experience contributing to the editorial process, while earning credit. In addition to current students, alumni, graduate students, and faculty work to realize the journal issue each semester.

Student experience

  • Participate in an authentic publishing process from start to finish
  • Learn new technologies
  • Collaborate with editorial board, artists, and authors
  • Showcase multimedia production and web publishing skills

Technology resources

  • NYU Web Publishing (WordPress), to house public-facing Esferas journal
  • NYU Box (file storage/sharing and document collaboration), to house submission iterations
  • Adobe InDesign, to format journal-ready articles and other submissions

Outcomes

  • Students have meaningful opportunities for real-world language use
  • Students work in a team-based environment on a real-world task (i.e. journal publishing)
  • Students hone transferrable professional skills
  • Students gain skills presenting knowledge with various media and in various modes.
Comer en NY Screenshot

Spanish Language Faculty – Learning Beyond the Classroom (Elementary Spanish)

Posted on by admin in Discipline, Language instruction, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professors of Elementary Spanish (Spanish & Portuguese) developed a shared project-based learning assignment across the 15 Fall sections and 11 Spring sections. In its current iteration, small groups of students visit an NYC restaurant of choice, write a review, and contribute a multimedia post on a blog shared across all sections.

Learning objectives

  • Allow for location-based language learning experiences, specifically highlighting the rich locations of New York City
  • Increase engagement as students learn requisite grammar
  • Facilitate collaboration among students through group work

Professors wanted to create a shared project-based learning experience across all sections, and settled on Comer en Nueva York, where groups visit restaurants and share their reviews with their peers learning beginning Spanish.  Directed by language coordinators Professors Roxanna Sooudi and Lorena Hernández, the assignment allows students to utilize linguistic skills in an applied, real-world context – i.e. visiting a restaurant.  They collaborate with their peers to complete the review, present orally to their classmates, and share a multimedia-enhanced review across sections.

Student experience

  • Engage with classmates outside of class to complete a real-world task in the target language
  • Showcase multimedia production and web publishing skills

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Students have meaningful opportunities for real-world language use
  • Students’ level of collaboration increases
  • Students gain skills presenting knowledge with various media and in various modes.
  • Future iteration will involve creating a collective travel e-magazine on locations around the city.
Comete el coco game

Elizabeth Augspach – Gaming for Grammar

Posted on by admin in Analytics + assessment, Blended + online, Discipline, Language instruction, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Elizabeth Augspach (Spanish and Portuguese) conceived of ¡Cómete el coco!, a mobile game that would provide her Intermediate Spanish students with fun, engaging ways to practice grammar topics. Students access the game via their phones, and challenge fellow students to grammar challenges that allow for socially-enhanced, informal language learning.

Learning objectives

  • Bridge informal and formal language acquisition through mobile learning
  • Increase engagement as students learn requisite grammar
  • Allow for socially-enhanced ways to review in-class material

Created in partnership with NYU IT, the ¡Cómete el coco! game is meant to foster collaborative, engaging ways to learn and review grammar.  Professor Augspach sought ways to make grammar more fun, and incentivize students to review more outside of class time.

Student experience

  • Engage with game outside of class to review and learn grammar
  • Challenge other students as they have low-stakes, fun competitions between their peers

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Students have increased opportunities for learning and reviewing grammar
  • In class and out-of-class learning is connected better
  • Students increase engagement with a fun context for practicing grammar.  The element of friendly, low-stakes competition amongst peers increases engagement
Tower of Hanoi - Richard Cole

Richard Cole – Blended Learning for Basic Algorithms

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Method, Sciences

Summary

Professor Richard Cole (Courant-Computer Science) developed instructional videos for his CSCI UA-0310 Basic Algorithms class, which introduces future computer scientists to the process of designing efficient and adaptable algorithms.  The videos detailed core concepts and reviewed points of confusion.

Learning objectives

  • Leverage instructional videos to scaffold students’ understanding of core topics
  • Increase engagement as students learn challenging material
  • Highlight points of confusion
  • Allow students to access materials anywhere, anytime (supports just-in-time learning)

In this example of blended learning that combines online materials and face-to-face instruction, Professor Cole recorded videos on key concepts known to challenge students in the past.  This meant that he strategically created videos based on level of concept difficulty rather than creating videos for every single topic.  Students were free to consult videos as many times as needed and at their own pace.  After the release of the first batch of videos, Dr. Cole conducted a formative assessment to gauge how students were using the videos.

Student experience

  • Watch videos as many times as needed
  • Have flexibility on which topics on which to concentrate

Technology resources

  • Video editing software, for producing videos
  • Tablet for real-time annotations and drawing
  • NYU Stream, to store video lectures

Outcomes

Video Repository: https://cs.nyu.edu/courses/spring14/CSCI-UA.0310-001/video%20repository.html

Results from a student survey indicated that:

  • 35% of respondents viewed the videos before the topic was presented
  • 100% of respondents viewed the videos after the topic was presented
  • 100% of respondents say they would be interested in having access to videos on additional topics
  • 94% of respondents thought the videos were helpful or very helpful
  • 41% of respondents used the videos as their primary reference materials and 50% used both textbooks and the videos; 0% used the textbook only as their primary reference material
  • 61% of respondents would have liked some way to self-assess (test) their comprehension of the videos (this was prior to the capacity of NYU Stream to deliver in-video assessments)

Selected student responses:

“The videos are a great supplement to the lectures. I personally watch them after the lectures and find them very useful to review and strengthen my knowledge of the material presented, which makes them especially helpful when I do the weekly problem sets.”

“Videos are great and very helpful for explaining the basic concepts of the lecture. I would like it if the video explained some more difficult concepts as well like sample questions that we do during recitation.”

Quantum billiards

Daniel Turner – Learning with Simulations (Quantum Billiards)

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Sciences

Summary

Professor Daniel Turner (Chemistry) conceived of a simulation that would provide his students  of Quantum Mechanics with opportunities to visualize subatomic objects and their behavior in an interactive environment. The underlying topic, electron correlation, is challenging for students to grasp due to its conceptual nature.

Learning objectives

  • Leverage interactivity to scaffold students’ understanding of a difficult STEM topic
  • Increase engagement as students learn challenging material
  • Provide hands-on experience with a theoretical topic

Created in partnership with NYU IT, the Quantum Billiards simulation is designed to teach electron correlation—an important but challenging concept taught in Quantum Mechanics. The game contrasts classical physics with quantum physics by allowing the user to play in both a classical mode, where balls occupy a definite point in space, and a quantum mode, where balls act as a wave of probability of where the ball is most likely to be found.

Student experience

  • Engage with simulation as an additional resource for learning about electron correlation

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Students learn about electron correlation through hands on manipulation of simulation
  • Students increase engagement with a real world reference point (billiards)

Italian Studies Faculty – Collaborative Assessment for Italian

Posted on by admin in Analytics + assessment, Discipline, Language instruction, Method

Summary

Professors of Italian Language (Italian Studies) developed a shared assessment bank to gauge students’ comprehension, listening, and writing skills.  Using the Tests & Quizzes tool within NYU Classes, they created rich, multimedia quizzes that provide automatic grading and instant feedback for students.  

Learning objectives

  • Increase formative assessment opportunities for students by providing instant feedback
  • Support collaboration in the assessment-building process
  • Allow for custom assessment creation associated with a department-created textbook

Italian Studies assessmentItalian Studies created its own textbook and workbook to reflect the cultural, grammatical, lexical topics prioritized by the Department, and provide a lower cost option to students. Formative assessment, ongoing monitoring of student performance and learning, is essential for learning as it helps students and instructors identify learning gaps or areas of improvement.  Director by Professor Nicola Cipani, Italian Studies faculty used the NYU Classes Tests & Quizzes tool to create a shared multimedia test bank that could be used by the entire department for courses in New York and Florence.

Student experience

  • Access multimedia quizzes through NYU Classes
  • Receive instant feedback

Project workflow

  • Coordination of assessment creation, distributed across multiple professors

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Online test bank that can re-used across professors and courses
  • Increased opportunities for students to assess their learning
  • Exploration of a low cost, online textbook (initial estimates could save 400 students in NYC and Florence between ~60 in textbook costs)

Naoko Sourial – Creating a Cross-Institutional Language Community

Posted on by admin in Discipline, Language instruction, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Naoko Sourial (East Asian Studies) designed a cross-institutional linked course project between University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) students (intermediate level) and NYU students (beginner level) of Japanese.  Students built a community of practice for shared learning by posting on a WordPress blog and engaging in collaborative projects.

Learning objectives

  • Beginner students: improve writing and typing skills
  • Intermediate students: learn to spot and correct grammatical and spelling errors
  • All students: engage in authentic written correspondence in the target language

Professor Naoko Sourial and her UPenn colleague designed prompts to leverage the diverse language levels and interests of the students.  Each week, NYU and UPenn students communicated through the shared blog, and supported each other’s learning. At the end of semester, Professor Sourial conducted a survey to assess effectiveness and student satisfaction with the project.  She incorporated theories on Communities of Practice, groups of people interested in the same topic that support each other in their learning.

Student experience

  • First week: post in English with option of posting in Japanese to create social bond between New York and UPenn Students
  • Next week: NYU Students post to blog as part of homework assignment. UPenn students work together in class to come up with correction/suggestions for NYU Students (which are then approved by the UPenn professor), and post to blog as part of homework
  • By the end of the semester: students recording and posting video comments as well as written comments

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • March 2016: presented at APVEA (Asia-Pacific Virtual Exchange Association) in Princeton with partner from UPenn and got suggestions for improving future iterations
  • 85% of students said the project was “very helpful” in improving typing skills (the remaining 15% ranked it as “somewhat helpful”; same distribution for improving grammar and vocab
    • “It pushed me to apply the Japanese we learned in context and construct original sentences and paragraphs.”
    • “I learned more about the other students because of their blog posts, but I didn’t really talk to many others very much.”
    • “I enjoyed having a mentor in my Japanese studies.”
    • Suggestions for improvement: more blog post assignments and more frequent communication with the UPenn students
Gen Physics - Mastering Physics

Andre Adler – Active Learning in the Large STEM Lecture

Posted on by admin in Analytics + assessment, Discipline, Method, Sciences

Summary

Professor Andre Adler (Physics) uses various online interactive platforms to engage his 350+ General Physics classes. Students engage in active problem solving before, during and after lecture.

Learning objectives

  • Foster engagement to counter restrictions of space
  • Increase opportunities to practice materials and identify points of confusion
  • Facilitate collaboration by offering problems that students work on together

In this video, Professor Adler speaks about engaging students and facilitating learning in a very large STEM lecture course. One challenging aspect of this 350+ student course is that it meets in the Skirball Theater, an amazing space that has fixed, theater-style seating and thus prevents active collaboration.  To counter the constraints of the space, Professor Adler used two online systems to spur engagement and link in class and outside of class activities.

Student experience

  • Access engaging and relevant practice problems before, during, and after lecture
  • Pose questions to the professor during lecture
  • Respond to fellow students’ textbook annotations and questions

Technology resources

  • Learning Catalytics, a classroom engagement system that delivers questions for group problem solving. Responses are entered using a laptop, tablet or smartphone.
  • Perusall, a platform that allows for text annotation and discussion
  • Mastering Physics, a tutorial and homework system that syncs to the textbook and offers pre-class and homework assignments. Pre-class assignments prepare students for lecture and homework assignments explore the concepts further through a variety of problem types not found in the textbook.

Outcomes

Charts, from left to right, asked the students to assess the following:

  • LC helped me to stay engaged during lectures
  • LC helped me to identify points of confusion during lecture
  • LC helped me to review for graded assignments outside of class
  • LC helped me to understand specific concepts

Selected students’ qualitative comments:

  • I thought that overall it was a very useful learning tool. While many science courses have sample questions in class, the fact that Learning Catalytics participation was graded provided an effective incentive to really stay engaged and work on the problems. Additionally, it allowed me to return to the problems later and review the answers.
  • I very much appreciated using the learning catalytics software, and wish that it was a resource for Physics I and any other science course. I liked that it kept us engaged during class, provided a useful study tool for exams, and I especially liked that we got credit for coming to lecture prepared.
  • It made it significantly easier to ask the professor questions, often it can be intimidating to ask in front of the hundreds of other students. Additionally it showed us what other students were thinking, and didn’t make us feel so alone if we got a problem wrong.
Aline Baehler

Aline Baehler – Experiential Language Learning in French

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Language instruction, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Aline Baehler (French) leverages web publishing tools for intermediate-advanced learners of French to use language skills in a realistic, experiential way. Her award-winning Papiers Mâchés and Capsules de grammaire are open source platforms for strengthening existing grammatical knowledge; the Scénarios site is a virtual apartment building where students role play as French-speaking residents.

Learning objectives

  • Create opportunities for intermediate-advanced students to review content learned in lower-level courses
  • Increase feedback for students expanding their linguistic skills
  • Provide immersive experiences to engage with the target language and culture
  • Foster collaboration among students, both in and out of class

In this video, Professor Baehler speaks about a role-playing project in her intermediate-advanced French course.  Students create fictional characters and collectively construct a vibrant apartment building in a francophone city of their choice through text, conversation, and multimedia.  By navigating daily life through the eyes of native speakers, students have authentic ways to explore culture, history, grammar, and vocabulary in the target language.  This innovation addresses the difficulty in providing students with immersive experiences in the target language and culture.

Another challenge of bridge language course is having time needed to review content learned in lower-level courses, while also expanding linguistic skills.  To this end, Professor Baehler has developed two interactive, open-source tutorials that guide students through grammar and writing activities.

  • Capsules de grammaire: provides students with grammar and vocabulary practice
  • Papiers-Mâchés: scaffolds students through the writing process (currently being re-designed for accessibility and user experience)

In both platforms, students receive automatic feedback and can go through the materials at their own pace.

Student experience

  • Engage with lecture videos, interactive modules, and simulations outside of lecture time
  • Participate in hands on lab activities
  • Collaborate on group activities and review material during lecture time

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Reflect the experiential act of language learning: Learning french30_collagelanguage is a social act, and creating a community where students can share and develop their language skills in a supportive environment reflects the reality of learning another language.  The Google Site also allows students to use language in a highly contextualized way, since they are using French as their fictional character.  
  • Create a participatory environment: Professor Baehler created a participatory environment where the instructor and students were full participants. Instead of completing assignments for the professor, students and professor had a collaborative role in building the online world.
  • More integrated curriculum: Professor Baehler found it easier to tie in discrete aspects of a foreign language curriculum since the virtual environment required students to use grammatical, semantic, and cultural knowledge in an authentic way.
  • Increased motivation: Professor Baehler found that students were more engaged with the language and sought out ways to showcase and use their linguistic knowledge.  Students collaborated and could be creative, adding images and rich background narratives for their fictional characters.