Anthropology 2 | Computer Science 3 | History 7B | Physics 8A

Anthropology 2

Overview: Anthropology 2: Introduction to Archaeology combines inquiry-based and participatory learning with a shift in course content and the judicious use of technology to improve student learning of introductory concepts in archaeology. The course, required for Anthropology majors, explores the ways in which archaeologists work, how they make inferences about past human life, current issues in archaeological interpretation, and the place of ethics and cultural heritage in contemporary archaeology. The course enrolls about 200 students each semester and has an average of 18 discussion sections. The teaching of this course rotates among eight faculty; instructors have the flexibility to select their texts and to design their format, including the use of the weekly sections.

Impetus for Change: For a number of years, some of the faculty teaching Anthropology 2 had expressed dissatisfaction with the traditional lecture format and its passive transmission of knowledge. They wanted to focus the course on in-depth inquiry within the broader context of the field rather than to teach it as a large-scale survey, and they wanted to experiment with making a large lecture course seem small. Since first being offered in its new format in Fall 2001, the course has been the subject of ongoing critique and revision by multiple instructors.

Key Innovations: The traditional section model, 15 students working individually on a variety of exercises, was replaced with a weekly section that serves as a research and production team engaged in inquiry and collaboration about a specific archaeological site. The site chosen is one that reflects the GSI’s and/or instructor’s research program. The underlying premise is that better learning may be accomplished by in-depth inquiry of a limited knowledge base than by superficial exposure to a broader knowledge base. Course materials and lecture notes are often put on the course website in advance of the lecture, so that the lecture time is used for discussion, rather than presentation, of the material. Each section produces a final group project on its archaeological site, to be presented to the large-enrollment class. Often the sections’ production teams work as a group in the large-enrollment setting to respond to issues raised in the web-based lecture materials. The format promotes critical thinking, problem solving, and oral communication because the students’ diverse voices, interpretations, and ideas are integral to the project. Because archaeology is an inherently multidisciplinary and collaborative enterprise, the classroom practice provides real exposure to the nature of the practice and production of archaeological knowledge and research.

The model employs innovations related to technology and the use of GSIs. Beginning in Fall 2003, all sections of the course will use multimedia tools (currently about one half do) to support the production teams, drawing on the resources of the Multimedia Authoring Center for Teaching in Anthropology. MACTiA has been recognized through an Educational Initiatives Award in 2001 for its innovative contribution to learning. The GSI is trained to be a coach; students interact closely with their GSIs, who facilitate the work of the production teams and give each team a group grade. The training of GSIs to function in this different role and to grade for group efforts requires more consultation between the faculty member and GSIs. At the same time, administrative workload is reduced. Much section work is now part of the entire class, and the grading of lab exercises, which formerly required a great deal of oversight to ensure consistency across sections, is now replaced by the work of grading the production teams in each section.

Evidence of Effectiveness: Learning objectives for the course include (1) developing the skills to work together collaboratively as a team to solve a problem and produce knowledge; (2) understanding key concepts in anthropology and archaeology; (3) gaining experience in working with primary documents; (4) being able to evaluate research materials in the field of archaeology; and (5) integrating research, visuals and multimedia, and narrative into a coherent presentation that conveys substantive archaeological content and can be shared effectively with others. Students are assessed on the objectives through a midterm, final exam, and several short section assignments at the beginning of the semester and through the team project, which receives a group grade. Examples of student projects are available as CDs, which become part of the course materials for future Anthropology 2 students. The course and instructor are evaluated at the end of the semester through two forms: the standard departmental evaluation, and a form designed specifically to evaluate the production teams and group presentations.

In the Fall 2001 pilot course, all 197 enrolled students responded to a questionnaire on the newly structured section format. All but one of the respondents thought that the final project worked well and enhanced their understanding of basic concepts and issues. Faculty and GSIs teaching the revised Anthropology 2 have reported that they enjoy teaching this format. In fact, GSIs indicate that the new format saves them time in grading repetitive weekly assignments.

Sustainability/Portability: Direct and indirect resources to revamp this course were provided by the campus, the Anthropology library, MACTiA, and the Class of 1960 Endowed Chair. The department plans to continue the course indefinitely, and it has been further developed during the Summer 2003 Mellon Faculty Institute on Undergraduate Research. Course features that could be adapted for use in other large-enrollment courses include turning sections into group project or collaborative production teams, delivering web-based resources and materials in advance, and using lectures for discussion. Challenges include training GSIs to be effective in the new model and a lack of technology readiness in some classrooms. To ensure high quality of instruction across the sections, faculty meet with GSIs in advance to help them develop a set of resources for each project. A workshop on lesson plans and on different learning styles was also effective in making GSIs aware of pedagogical practices.

Computer Science 3

Overview: Computer Science 3: Introduction to Symbolic Programming uses synchronous laboratory-based technology to increase student-instructor contact and peer-based learning in a class in which computers are integral to the subject matter. A service course, CS 3 introduces students to computer programming, emphasizing symbolic computation and functional programming style, using the Scheme programming language. The course comprises one hour of lecture, one hour of discussion, and five hours of interactive laboratory each week. It typically enrolls 200-300 students each semester.

Impetus for Change: CS 3 had historically been taught in a traditional format with two hours of lecture, one hour of discussion, and two hours of lab per week. A confluence of factors led to the shift to a revised format: Computer Sciences instructors wanted to improve the effectiveness of the course by integrating more active learning and hands-on practice into the course; the department is engaged in a large-scale project to create a database of assignments, exercises, and other materials that instructors at Berkeley and elsewhere can use as raw materials to build computer science courses; and the CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research for Improving Society) project funded the development of a lab-based CS 3 course that would be exportable to UC Merced when it opens in Fall 2004.

A pilot section of CS 3 that was entirely laboratory based was offered in Summer 2002 with 60 students in three lab sections (Clancy et al., 2003); in Fall 2002, one section of 25 students was offered in the same format as summer with the remainder of students taking the class in the traditional format. In Spring 2003, all students in CS 3 took the new laboratory-based format.

Key Innovations: The interactive laboratory work forms a substantial part of the course. The Graduate Student Instructor serves as a tutor who monitors students’ online work synchronously using a system called UC-WISE (Web-based Inquiry Science Environment). This web-based system, developed by the Graduate School of Education and augmented with Learning Management System technology through CITRIS funding, incorporates all the material in the traditional lecture/discussion/lab version of CS 3 while promoting collaborative learning and problem solving. Students engage in the lab work in one physical location at regularly scheduled times (as opposed to distance learning). They often work collaboratively on web-based activities in pairs or small groups. Activities include online discussions, programming exercises, journal entries, and gated collaborations (opportunities for students to critique peer responses on a seed topic). Lab sessions typically start with a quiz about the previous day’s material, and then computer-based exercises lead the students step by step through material. The course has resulted in a higher proportion of supervised online activity, constant monitoring of students with timely tutoring, and a wider variety of activities including collaborations.

The GSI in charge of each lab section interacts daily with individuals and small groups of students, through online responses, in-person consultations, and mini-lectures on topics that a majority of the students are having difficulties with. Instructors receive immediate feedback about how well students understand the material. This course is ideally suited for the web-based format in part because it is computer-intensive and requires a large amount of problem-solving as part of the content of the course.

Evidence of Effectiveness: The course is structured so that students clearly understand the concepts and knowledge they are expected to learn and the tasks they will need to accomplish. Students in the lab sections are evaluated by online activities, quizzes, and tests, and their performance on tasks is monitored in real time by the instructor. As part of the assessment of the pilot study, students who took the final exam in Summer 2002 averaged 32.9 out of 60, as compared to a comparable exam given in an earlier semester in which students averaged 25.8 out of 60. On items that were duplicated between these exams, students in the UC-WISE course did almost 0.5 standard deviations better, on average. Course evaluation ratings for the pilot class were extremely high, and students found the course enjoyable; the majority recommended continuing this format. Students in the current format are doing as well or better than students in the traditional format.

Instructors generally like the revised course, though some faculty feel more comfortable with the lecture format, and some GSIs leading lab sections have been found to need additional training to function effectively in the interactive format. Also, the success of the course depends to a large extent on students learning the material at approximately the same pace, so the instructor needs to work hard to help students who are falling behind, and students who want to go faster may feel frustrated.

Sustainability/Portability: This course is institutionalized in the Computer Science division; the primary obstacle to its continuance is the availability of lab seats when enrollments grow. As an extension of the model, a UC-WISE-based curriculum is being planned for CS 61B: Data Structures, the second course in the lower-division sequence for CS majors, and the Chemistry department has submitted a National Science Foundation proposal to support the use of UC-WISE for one of its courses. Lower-division CS courses are being exported to UC Merced in Fall 2004, supported by the CITRIS project, and in Spring 2003 a version of CS 3 was run through Merced Community College to prepare potential UC Merced transfer students. Efforts are also under way to expand this instructional system to UC Irvine and UC San Diego. This pedagogical approach is potentially applicable to any course with a significant lab component (i.e., most engineering and science courses) or freshman and sophomore mathematics courses that do not use a lab currently but would benefit from online activities. The major challenges for a curriculum author are to break each topic into fine-grained components and to match topics with the various online activities provided in the UC-WISE authoring environment. CS 3 designers have developed substantial experience in these areas and expect to be able to provide assistance to prospective curriculum designers.

History 7B

Overview: History 7B: American Society, 1865 to the Present demonstrates how a large-enrollment course taught in a traditional lecture approach can incorporate innovative research-building skills in collaboration with the Library. This course fulfills the campus American Cultures requirement. One of the most popular courses in the History department, it typically enrolls between 600-725 students each semester, the majority of whom are undeclared majors in Letters and Science. As part of their coursework, students attend a two-hour library instruction session to identify and locate primary resources on a topic of their choice, covering American history from post-Civil War to the present. Each of the 30 sections of the class, led by a GSI, focuses on a different research area, for example, Labor in the Gilded Age, the Red Scare 1870s-1980s, or Berkeley in the 1960s. Library staff provide course-integrated library instruction to most of the sections of History 7B.

Impetus for Change: This course is most closely identified with a single faculty member who has been teaching it since the mid-1960s. He developed its current framework of using primary source research assignments as a key goal of the course to increase students’ understanding of how historical knowledge is created and to foster student engagement. The collaboration between the Library and the professor has been ongoing for the past decade.

Key Innovations: One of the primary goals for History 7B is to introduce students to the use of primary source materials early in their academic careers. Students write eight- to ten-page papers based on primary sources, which they have located in one of the campus library collections. In conjunction with course assignments, a series of library course-integrated research worksheets (worksheet one, worksheet two, worksheet three) are designed to help students build necessary library research skills related to the development of their topic. The Library has also developed a special Introduction to Library Research website for History 7B students. Instructional guides about finding Primary Sources and Primary Sources on the Web are also available.

The assignment prepares students to conduct original research by introducing them to the distinction between primary and secondary sources, and showing them how to use special collections libraries, locate primary sources, develop context for primary sources, and then read sources in relation to efforts to interpret the past found in course lectures and assigned readings. In most cases, students will not arrive at original conclusions, but they have been introduced to how historical argument begins with analysis of primary sources. Although many of the students will not go on to become History majors, they have learned valuable research skills and concepts that will be applicable in a wide variety of disciplines and contexts.

Evidence of Effectiveness: While the course and student learning are evaluated using traditional assessment techniques such as exams, the library assignments have been specially evaluated. Some of the learning outcomes for the three library assignments include the ability to (1) differentiate between primary and secondary source materials; (2) differentiate between catalogs, journal article databases, and web search engines and select the appropriate tool for the task; (3) identify and locate appropriate reference sources to obtain background and contextual information for the topic; and (4) translate the topic into constructive strategies for database searching. The effectiveness of the library sessions for student learning has been documented. The Library has conducted pre- and post-tests; for example, in Spring 1999, “[w]hile 51% of History 7B students received passing grades on the library skills pre-test, 90% received passing grades on the post-test, following two hours of library instruction.”

The impact of library class sessions is most evident in the product of the student work. The activity drives the learning and is specifically designed for students to demonstrate proficiency in specific learning outcomes. Students have expressed enthusiasm for working with primary sources, as documented in a recent library newsletter. Some important future directions for continuing to improve the library component of the course include integrating assignments better into overall course grade/assessment; working with section instructors as they develop course websites; identifying learning outcomes, including information competencies; and developing and implementing better assessment of the impact of library class sessions on student learning. History 7B students were also among the recipients of the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research in its inaugural year.

Sustainability/Portability: This course is fully institutionalized. Although the library course-integrated instruction is dependent on the interest of the professor teaching the class for its continuance, it is likely that any instructor taking over such a well-established and longstanding course would continue the format. The materials and expertise developed by the Library for course-integrated instruction in History 7B are often adapted and re-used in other courses and in other disciplines requiring research with primary source materials, in response to individual faculty requests for customized library instruction (e.g., History 101, History 100AC, Women's Studies 100AC). The primary obstacles to extending the model on the scale of History 7B are (1) the availability of staffing in the Library, (2) faculty interest in partnering with the Library, and (3) whether or not targeted courses have sections, which allow for more effective small-group instruction formats.

Physics 8A

Overview: Physics 8A: Introductory Physics demonstrates how GSIs can become more effective in a skills-based course using active learning and technology. An introduction to forces, kinetics, equilibria, fluids, waves, and heat, this course presents concepts and methodologies for understanding physical phenomena, and is particularly useful preparation for upper-division study in biology and architecture. Eighty percent of students who take Physics 8A are biological science majors or pre-meds and 15% are architecture majors. It enrolls 250-350 students in each of two lecture classes. On average, 18 instructors teach 24 laboratory/discussion sections each semester. As of Spring 2003, all 8A sections were taught in the integrated lab/discussion format described below.

Impetus for Change: Physicists are increasingly recognizing the deficiency of traditional instruction in helping students develop an overall conceptual understanding of physics. Physics 8A has been redesigned to transform it from a fact-based course to a skills-based course, the result of an evaluation process begun in Fall 2000. A special student survey indicated dissatisfaction with the course, and follow-up focus groups yielded more detailed feedback on course shortcomings. A pilot integrated discussion/laboratory section began in Spring 2001. The redesign of Physics 8A leverages the three years of knowledge and experience the department gained previously when redesigning Physics 7A, 7B, and 7C, introductory Physics courses for engineering and physical science undergraduates. The new version of Physics 8A is designed to help students achieve a stronger mastery of a smaller set of material than the previous version of the course.

Key Innovations: Key to the success of this course is its emphasis on training GSIs to be more effective. In the redesigned Physics 8A, the Physics department devotes more time to teaching GSIs about sound pedagogical practices. GSIs have three training sessions before the beginning of the semester and meet one and one-half hours each week to discuss pedagogy as well as the usual logistical preparation of most GSI meetings. All first-time Physics 8A GSIs are now required to take Physics 300 to teach them the skills and content to serve as GSIs.

The course is composed of three hours of lecture and four hours of active learning activities per week, as opposed to the old version, which had three hours of lecture and one hour of discussion section per week and three hours of lab every other week. While GSIs formerly spent discussion section time working out examples of homework problems on the blackboard for students, the new integrated discussion/lab sections emphasize the importance of students engaging in active learning exercises. Students work in groups of three or four under the guidance of a GSI on assigned exercises. The course’s active-learning format helps students work collaboratively to solve problems and increases student engagement. By focusing on skills development rather than the acquisition of facts, Physics 8A improves students’ critical thinking and research skills that they will use as they continue in their majors. The new discussion worksheets and lab exercises are designed to encourage students to make connections between the disciplines of physics and biology and to think in interdisciplinary terms. Students also use the CyberTutor web-based system to submit their assignments. The system tells students if the answers to particular problems are incorrect and provides step-by-step guidance until they arrive at correct answers, providing immediate feedback on performance.

Evidence of Effectiveness: In light of the previous course offerings in the new format, learning objectives for Physics 8A are currently under revision to improve student understanding. Students are currently evaluated through the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), a standardized test administered pre- and post-instruction to assess students’ gain in conceptual understanding of mechanics, and through departmental exams on which grades are based. Students taking the revised version of Physics 8A have demonstrated a stronger mastery of the course material compared to their predecessors completing the previous version of the course.

In an evaluation of the four Fall 2001 pilot integrated discussion/lab sections, students rated the labs at 5.3 and the discussions at 5.4 in a seven-point scale, compared with 4.8 and 4.0 respectively in the traditional sections. When asked, “How well did lab reports and homework evaluate your learning?” students in the integrated sections reported a mean of 5.1 while students in regular sections reported a mean of 4.5. The final exam grades of students in the integrated section had a mean of 68.2%, which is higher than the mean of 62.7% for the traditional sections. Learning was also evaluated through pre- and post-testing students on the FCI. The mean score increased from 40% to 59% between the testing dates. To better understand the impact of this course on student learning, a more comprehensive evaluation of Physics 8A is under way employing the FCI, a new web-based student survey, and focus groups. While most students have responded positively to the new format, approximately a third of the students in the course report some hesitance to participate in the group-learning exercises, perhaps because they are accustomed to achieving academic success through individual work. A challenge is to develop new ways of engaging reluctant students in these new learning methods.

Sustainability/Portability: Physics 8A is fully institutionalized, and can be taught by any instructor. The primary impediment for this model is inappropriate classroom space in the 1924 physics building. Enormous lab rooms originally designed for classes of 80 are shared by three or four sections meeting simultaneously, and the long fixed tables do not encourage group collaboration. Next, the Physics department will redesign Physics 8B which is an introduction to electricity, magnetism, electromagnetic waves, optics, and modern physics. A redesigned section of the course will be offered for the first time in Fall 2003. In Fall 2004, all students enrolling in Physics 8B will take the revised version of the course. In addition, Physics faculty are discussing the possible use of this model with the College of Chemistry.

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