Sabbatical Report for Dr. Steven P. Berg
December 1998
Introduction
This report is presented in an unconventional electronic form which is best able to illustrate what I have done with my sabbatical leave. To access the interactive sabbatical report readers must be using an internet browser directed at: http://bio.winona.msus.edu/berg/sabbatical/report.htm. The report is interactive and the author hopes that readers will fully explore the many primary links provided. These primary links provide access to about 4800 files and about 175,000,000 bytes of information. To produce the same content with paper would be literally impossible (see the animations and the tutorials) and to produce the static content of everything which is available from this short report would require vast amount of paper.
Student Learning and the Web
In recent years I have come to believe that the internet is powerful tool which can be employed to help increase student learning. My sabbatical goal was to further explore and to further develop my utility of this learning medium. Thus, during fall semester 1998 I prepared to more fully integrate web interactivity into the courses which I will be offering at Winona State University in the foreseeable future. Specifically, I substantially increased the extent to which students in my spring semester 1999 cell biology course will be able to interact with me through my Cell Biology 308 course web page. Having my courses linked to the web is not a new activity for me. I have had home page on the biology server for almost 18 months through which students can access information and interactively relate to all of my classes as well as to me as a person. To see what I have done in the past, readers may wish to peruse the course pages for fall 1997 General Biology, winter 98 Cell Biology and Biology Seminar and spring 1998 Membrane Biology and an independent study Cell Biology). I suspect that readers will find evidence that my web site has been one of the most elaborate on the WSU campus and that I remain one of the campus leaders in using the web for instructional purposes. This is especially true as a result of my productive fall semester sabbatical leave and the substantial improvements to my spring semester 1999 cell biology course page.
Readings
I focused my sabbatical reading on materials which emphasized student learning through the use of the internet. Thus, I studied selections in Khan's "Web-Based Instruction", Van Dusen's "The Virtual Campus" and Campbell and Smith's "New Paradigms For College Teaching". I was specifically looking for new approaches which would allow me to create web mediated materials for student interaction.
Development of Formative Assessments
I put a considerable amount of effort into creating a number of topic based formative assessments which cell biology students can use to determine whether or not they have learned enough cell biology to do well on the types of exams which I give. These formative assessments are ungraded and are provided to the students so that the students can know how well they are doing without taking a graded exam. The formative assessments have rejoinders which tell students why some answers are wrong and why other answers are right. I believe that students who use these formative assessments wisely can be better prepared for the exams which I give. All of the assessments with the -qp were produced during my sabbatical leave. Most of the other assessments were produced prior to my sabbatical leave. Note that the assessments are topical and are not associated with a particular chapter of a particular book. This is done intentionally to allow the reuse of the questions after changing texts. These -qp assessments were produced using software called QuizPlease. Using QuizPlease it is easy to edit the assessments and to add or remove questions when needed. Thus, with time, I foresee that I will be adding many additional questions to what I have already started.
Animations and Tutorials
During my sabbatical leave I created a number of animations and tutorials for web delivery. These materials will be available over the web to my students in cell biology and will hopefully assist in their learning of the some key concepts. Please note that the tutorials require the use of a current version of Netscape along with a FREE Netscape plugin called "Chime". Although downloading and installing "Chime" will take a few minutes, I am sure that you will be impressed by what Netscape can present when "Chime" is loaded.
Learning Software
During my sabbatical have had the time necessary to learn how to use QuizPlease, Adobe Illustrator and RasMol. Now, with my increased facility, I can use these softwares to create learning materials with far greater ease than I could previously. For instance, I can create an animation for the web like "Mechanism of the Action Potential Propagation" in about 1 hour, making it plausible to create new animations for my classes whenever they are needed. Similarly, I can create a tutorial like "Photosynthetic Reaction Center" using RasMol and Chime in an hour allowing me to create interactive models of protein structures.
QuizPlease
QuizPlease allows me create a variety of quizzes, tests and surveys for web delivery. I created many formative assessments using QuizPlease. I also created surveys and tests which can be given over the web and wherein the results are stored on the web server in a form compatible with Excel. Thus, for spring semester, I will administer a survey to all the students in my class. As well as answering a few questions about their backgrounds, students will provide me with their names (Last, First, MI) and their chosen secret ID code (*****). When the students have all responded, I can access the information which they provide using Excel and I will thus have all the information needed to start my Excel grade book. I will also be administering my course evaluation for spring semester over the web using a QuizPlease survey and a password mechanism to prevent students from "responding early and often". By giving students the chance to do their course evaluations over the web, I will save some class time for learning and I will have the data in an Excel file for easy analysis.
Adobe Illustrator
I have created a large number of animations using Adobe Illustrator. At first these animations required many hours of work for a single, simple effort. With practice however, my animations became more complicated but took less time.
Benefit to WSU
I believe that, as a result of my sabbatical leave, I am much more able to provide students with interactive learning opportunities over the internet. Further, I can provide students with a number of convenience features such as on line grade reports, access to all class materials and written answers to student questions which will be available to all of the students in the class. I believe that the materials which I have created during my sabbatical leave will help produce more student learning beginning with spring 1999 semester and that as the years go by I will be increasingly able to update the quality and quantity my web delivery. The skills and techniques which I am learning will not only benefit on campus students, but will make me a better facilitator of off campus (ie: distance) learning. In addition, I hope to work with pre-service secondary teachers on research-like projects aimed at using web-delivery to produce learning opportunities for secondary students. Thus, my ongoing interest in using technology to produce student learning may also become part of my scholarship at WSU.
References
Campbell, W.E. and Smith, K.A. (1997) New Paradigms For College Teaching, Interaction Book Company, Edina, MN
Khan, B.H. (1997) Web-Based Instruction, Educational Technology Publications, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Van Dusen, G.C. (1997) The Virtual Campus: Technology and Reform in Higher Education, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Volume 25, Number 5, The George Washington University Press, Washington, D.C.