1. WAND Sharing Day November 2013
Notre Dame University
Enhancing students’ problem solving skills by modelling how to “Work It Out” in a just-in-time learning environment
Dr. Chris Creagh,
OLT National Teaching Fellow
School of Engineering & Information Technology
Support for this presentation has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views expressed in this presentation do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.

2. OLT National Teaching Fellowships
– promoting good practice in learning & teaching in Australian higher education.
Work-It-Out Fellowship
Work-It-Out Teaching Strategy
Edge of ability activity (groups of 4) Group work
Expert video &worksheet (individual ) Just-in-time teaching & note taking
Analyse video (whole class) Understanding quality & modes of
communication
Focus activity (pairs) Practice and peer learning
Finish edge of ability activity (groups of 4) Practice and group work
Group presentation (groups of 4) Communication and judging quality
Dissemination
Word of mouth / via
Family & friends
Reference group
Reporting to line managers
Tutorials
Conferences
Seminars
Workshops
Presentations
Discipline home university
L&T home university
Discipline other university
L&T other university
Internet
University profile
YouTube
Facebook
Discipline friends
Personal friends
LiveJournal (blog the journey)
Research gate
LinkedIn
Others using your stuff
signature
Open Education Resources available on website or YouTube
Videos
Diagrams
Formula
Textbooks
Experimental design
Analysing data
Learning new material
Edge of ability activity materials
Video watching worksheet
Focus activity materials
Pedagogical background material available on website
My thoughts on the WIO teaching strategy
My research papers
Bibliographic references associated with the teaching strategy
Fellowship paperwork is available on the OLT website.

3. What is the problem?
Many students arrive at university without the basic skills and background they need to study Physics.
This has a significant impact on their success rate in any degree that has physics as a core subject.
This results in fewer students going on to major in physics / majors that require physics.
Resulting in lower course completion rates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics compared to other disciplines.
Assumptions
Students are not very good at being metacognitive
They do not know what they do not know
They do not understanding what they need to do to be good students
They do not understand the modes of communication within their chosen discipline
They do not understand the culture of the discipline
Other Problems
Large student to staff ratios in first year
Service teaching several different majors within the same unit
No quick way of remediating the gaps that we find in student’s knowledge
We have to find a way for students to
Be metacognitive
Take charge of their education
Bootstrap their own learning.

4. Who are my target audience?
Degrees
Physics
Chemistry
Engineering
Extractive Metallurgy
Mineral Science
Secondary Education
Background
First in family
Mature age (over 21)
Returning students (30+ yr old with/without previous qualifications)
ESL
Low socio-economic
Defence forces
Students preparing for degrees at other universities
Refugees
On-line domestic / overseas

5. Master-apprentice approach
Other training courses use the master – apprentice approach to help overcome gaps in the student’s knowledge and attitudes.
Physics teaching may use this approach at honours or PhD level but definitely not at the first year level.
The master – apprentice approach could work in first year except there are too many apprentices and not enough masters.
So capture what the masters do / think / say and get the students to analyse this.
More and more I keep coming back to the resonance between learning martial arts and learning the discipline of physics!

6. What is the WIO teaching strategy?
Activity
Student organisation
Pedagogy
Edge of ability activity with product being a group presentation
groups of 4
Group work / authentic task / Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development / communication skills
Expert video &worksheet
individual
Just in-time teaching & note taking
Analyse video
whole class
Judging quality / determining modes of communication
Focus activity
pairs
Practice diagrams skills / peer learning / communication skills
Finish edge of ability activity
Practice diagrams skills / group work / communication skills
Group presentation
Communication skills / judging quality / teaching is learning / chunking and scaffolding new material

7. Diagrams Tutorial
Edge of ability activity: Draw a free-body force diagram for the balancing rock in this picture.
A textbook problem was used previously but I think a picture will be better.

8. Expert video and worksheet
Video watching worksheet:
Why are diagrams important?
Why do S&E use diagrams?
Are there typical diagrams?
Where would you look for them?
What are characteristics of good di’s?
What are limitations of di’s?
What are strengths of di’s?
Explain how the specific case you are looking at becomes a generalise di.
Identify modes of communication.
Identify methods of communication.
What background knowledge is assumed?
How do the experts link info to everyday knowledge?
Video: A Toolbox of Diagrams
Students discover what they don’t know and identify ways of filling their knowledge, skills and communication gaps.
It also gives them the opportunity to identify the marks of quality in a presentation.

9. Analyse video Plenary session to get feedback from the worksheet.
At this stage it may also be possible to discuss other modes of communication that could have been used in the presentation.
Students are learning from their peers how to judge quality in presentation and content.

10. Focus activity
Matching pictures and diagrams

11. Focus activity
Have students working in pairs to match pictures and diagrams.

13. Finish edge of ability activity and give presentation
Allow the students to work on creating their presentation with the video and related activity as reference material.
Students are practicing what they have just discovered and can be assisted with leading questions from the tutor on a group by group basis.
Get 4 groups to give their presentation to their peers. (Worked well)
Students giving the presentation are learning about presentations as well as the knowledge they are presenting.
Students judging the presentation are learning about quality and modes of communication.

14. How long does it take?
Each skill could be covered in one 2hr tutorial or several smaller ones.
The tutorial is composed of smaller parts so educators can pick and mix if they wish.
The video material will be on-line so the students can access it afterwards as often as they feel they need to. They can stop it, start it, rewind it and play it again if they wish.
I don’t think everything should be taught this way it is just one teaching tool.
The video could also be used for tutor training.

18. Generalizability? Other students Other disciplines
Other universities with similar student cohorts
OUA / on-line students
Other countries (America similar problems in STEM)
People wishing to prep for university
Home schoolers
People taking advantage of MOOCs who need a bit of a boost
General interest scholars

19. Interrogating Formulas Tutorial
Used the same teaching strategy
Students asked to create a presentation about a related pair of formula
Video and worksheet
Plenary session
Focus activity
Students finish creating their presentation
Presentations given
Video:

20. Focus Activity – Matching diagrams, graphs and formula
Which formula/s can sometimes be represented by which diagram?

21. Focus Activity – Matching diagrams, graphs and formula
Which formula/s can sometimes be represented by which diagram?

22. Focus Activity – Matching diagrams, graphs and formula

23. Focus Activity – Matching diagrams, graphs and formula

24. Focus Activity – Matching diagrams, graphs and formula
Which formula/s can sometimes be represented by this type of graph?

25. Other Tutorials Skill to be learned Focus activity Reading a textbook
Quiz night type of activity where the answers can be obtained by examining different parts of the textbook with some answers needing a bit more thinking.
Constructing diagrams
Matching photographs to diagrams
Interrogating formula
Matching formula to diagrams and graphs
Designing an experiment
Students design a lab experiment for high school students to highlight a set of skills the high school students will need as first year university students. The skill set to be determined by the university students.
Analysing data
Matching data to formula, graphs, diagrams, lab experiments, and using it to work out answers to “table quizzes”.
Developing a modus operandi for learning new skills
Group discussion about how to learn a new language if you were dropped into a foreign country without any personal communications. What resources would you need, how could you communicate? The final presentation would be play acting a scene. The job of the rest of the class would be to tease out of the students play-acting how the situation might relate to learning any new material, physics, maths, engineering etc.

26. Would you like to be involved?
I would also like to build a community of scholars to trial and test the resources.
If anyone is interested in what I am doing
Dr. Christine Creagh
Senior Lecturer Physics & Nanotechnology
Murdoch University
phone: (08)
LiveJournal:

27. Bibliography
National Research Council, USA (2012). Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering. Editors: S.R. Singer, N.R. Nielsen, and H.A. Schweingruber
Committee on the Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research. Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioural and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Ghefaili, A. (2003) Cognitive Apprenticeship, Technology, and the Contextualization of Learning Environments, Journal of Educational Computing, Design & Online learning Volume 4
Kirschner, P.A., Sweller, J. & Clark, R.E. (2006) Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41,
McCarthy, T., Carew, A., Gardner, A., Goldfinch, T., Henderson, A. and Thomas, G. (project team) (2010) A pro-active approach to addressing student learning diversity in engineering mechanics. Office of Learning and Teaching, Australia. ISBN
Mills, D., Sharma, M. (Project Leaders) (2005) Learning Outcomes and Curriculum Development in Physics: A report on tertiary physics learning and teaching in Australia commissioned by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee, Office of Learning and Teaching, Australia. ISBN:
Redish, E.F., Steinberg, R.N. (1999) Teaching Physics: Figuring Out What Works. Physics Today, Vol. 52, pp
Wieman, C. (2007) Why not try a scientific approach to science education? Change, September/October pp

28. I gratefully acknowledge the support and encouragement of
Mentor and Inspiration
Prof. Les Kirkup ALTC Nat. Teaching Fellow, Physics & Materials UTS
OLT Support
Siobhan Lenihan Head of Programs OLT
Francine Bailey Admin Officer OLT
Murdoch Support
Ann Capling DVC Academic
David Macey PVC Faculty of Science & Engineering
Parisa A. Bahri School Dean Engineering & Energy
Philip Jennings Physics Discipline Head
Rick Cummings Acting Director CUTL
Denyse MacNish Projects & Awards Officer CUTL
Rhonda Oshanek Critical Reader
Miriam Everall School Admin Officer
Linda Butcher Teaching Grants & Projects Officer
David Hill OLT Fellow SE Asian Studies
My colleagues in the Engineering & Energy building at Murdoch University
Reference Group
Geoff Swan Edith Cowan University
Marjan Zadnik Curtin University
Jamie Quinton Flinders University
John Daicopoulos James Cook University
Dr. David Parlevliet Murdoch University
Evaluator
Rob Phillips
Website
Afshin Sadrich
Murdoch Teaching Team
Chris deSilva, Elaine Walker, Nick Wyatt, Nik Radevski, Justin Baltes
Video Cast
Rebbca Fisher, Nick Wyatt, David Parlevliet, Nik Radevski
Video Production Crew
Kris Borgraeve, Els Van de Veire, Eveline Masco, Pedro Sant’Ana
Personal Support Crew
Helen, Robyn, Gareth, Coral