Interdisciplinary Distributed Courses: A hybrid approach Lucy R. Hutyra Dept of Earth & Environment

Interdisciplinary Distributed Courses: A hybrid approach Lucy R. Hutyra Dept of Earth & Environment An experiment in parallel, distributed teaching on an interdisciplinary topic.

Across Within Disciplinary: Single disciplines work together Multidisciplinary: Different disciplines work sequentially using their own tools to a common problem Interdisciplinary: Different disciplines work jointly on a common problem. The Challenge Urban Ecology is the study of ecosystems that include humans living in cities and urbanizing landscapes. It aims to understand ecology of and in cities. Includes: ecology, geography, biogeochemistry, urban planning, sociology, political science, architecture, public health, etc…

The Experiment Use a 3-hour teaching block to allow for a variety of activities in class Use video guest lectures with national experts on each topic (tackle all those different disciplines & expose the students to a range of research) Link two classes today for an hour a week (each had its own instructor). Use a wiki & blogs to facilitate collaboration across the nodes. Video guest lectures now available through an NSF research coordination network (RCN) Guest speaker Parallel, distributed class

Challenge 1 – Hardware & Space Space for >20 people. Video Cameras Audio System ‘Screen’ We couldn’t find an existing space…so we created one in a conference room. Luis ‘Cuco’ Daglio (BU Media Services) configured a system. New equipment was purchased. But, it was not an official ‘classroom’ … Brian Anderson (CAS IT) serviced it HIMSELF. Equipment List (~$2500): LCD 60” HDTV and Mobile Cart 2 x Creative Technology HD 1080 webcams Polycom SoundStation with extra microphones Cable Accessories Cart

Challenge 1 – Hardware & Space

Challenge 2 – Software Not the typical ‘business’ application Not the typical ‘social’ application With different guest speakers every week it had to be stable, inexpensive, widely available, very easy to use, compatible with different operating systems, simple interface with a webcam, etc…

Google Hangouts positives: free, easy to use, capacity for lots of participants Negatives: inflexible with ppt display size. Mac/PC functionality differences. Challenge 2 – Software

Premium Skype: positives: low cost, easy to use, capacity for lots of participants negatives: inflexible with ppt display size. Frequent audio/video interruptions. No video capture. Challenge 2 – Software

Webex: positives: low cost, easy to use, capacity for lots of participants, good screen sharing, automated camera shifting, easy to install/run, video capture negatives: stability issues during busy business hours. Challenge 2 – Software

Slides Speaker NCSU Class Challenge 2 – Software

Challenge 3 – Cross-class interactions

The Good – Opportunity for students to hear from many experts and learn from experiments across the country Excellent networking for the students & faculty. Low cost guest lectures. Summary

The Challenging – Hardware & software issues consumed an enormous amount of time Video capture is poor Cross class interactions were not (yet) optimized Co-authored lecture summaries on the wiki were an enormous challenge for the students. The time requirements for this pilot class were significantly more than a typical class. Next scheduled to be taught in Spring 2015…

Dean Susan Jackson, CAS Sr. Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Luis ‘Cuco’ Daglio, BU Media Services Brian Anderson, Manager Computing Services, CAS IT Stacy Gianoulis, IS&T IT Help Center Amod Lele, IS&T educational specialist Curtis Woodcock, Chair of Dept. of Earth & Environment NSF CAREER program Thank You!!