HR: 10:20h
AN: ED42A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Analyses of Student Learning in Global Change
AU: * Takle, E S
EM: gstakle@iastate.edu
AF: Iowa State University, 3010 Agronomy Hall, Ames, IA 50011 United States
AU: Moser, H
EM: miraje@iastate.edu
AF: Iowa State University, 3010 Agronomy Hall, Ames, IA 50011 United States
AU: Sorensen, E K
EM: eks@hum.aau.dk
AF: Aalborg University, Kroghstraede 3 Dept. of Communication, Aalborg Oest, DK-9220 Denmark
AB: The Global Change course at Iowa State University is a senior undergraduate and graduate level course that has been delivered over the internet with online dialog and learning activities since 1995. Students may enroll in the course as a distance education course, but in doing so they engage in dialog with students in the conventional on-campus face-to-face course. Online delivery and student participation offer opportunities for promoting use of critical thinking skills and collaborative learning not available in face-to-face environments. Students are required to research, post, and defend with authoritative information their positions on a variety of global change issues and specifically identify how they have demonstrated use of critical thinking skills in their online postings. Threaded dialog is used for structuring interactions toward promoting collaborative learning. We analyze collaborative learning by use of a rubric based on the theory of language games. By random selection of 1,350 online dialog comments posted over the last 10 years we evaluated student response to requirements for demonstrating critical thinking skills and collaboration in learning. We found that, by itself, the requirement of demonstrating critical thinking skills in online dialog was insufficient in promoting collaborative learned as measured by the standards of language game theory. But we also found that if an online comment clearly defines a situation and makes a clear expectation of a response, the likelihood is high that a game will be created. And if a game is established, there is a high probability that it will be closed, thereby giving evidence that collaborative learning had occurred. We conclude that a key component in collaborative online learning lies in establishing a lead-off comment that provides sufficient background information to clearly define an engaging situation. It also must include a clear expectation that a response is expected that will provide dialog participants an opportunity to demonstrate critical thinking skills in their responding comments.
UR: http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0825 Teaching methods
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
DE: 0850 Geoscience education research
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting