Melanie Wu, School of Informatics and Computing
Increasing Student Confidence: learning via group activities
I308 Information Representation
New course development
Support provided by Campus Instructional Consulting
Instructional Goals
- Mastering course fundamentals
- Using skills to analyze and solve real-world problems
I308 Information Representation is a required course for all Informatics majors and requires students to master the course’s fundamentals so that they can succeed in any of the informatics-related classes. Given the course’s emphasis on mathematical concepts that many students have not encountered in their other classes, Professor Wu’s main teaching challenge is to move students beyond rote memorization of class materials toward a more authentic performance of the skills they will need to analyze and solve real-world problems. To do this Professor Wu had to redesign the key concepts and assignments of the course, provide activities that help the students master the material, and allow students to experience the relevance and usefulness of the course in their lives.
In order to accomplish her goals, Professor Wu had to redesign the in-class discussions and activities, homework, and assignments for the course. She began by introducing group work, which had never been part of I308 before. Early in the semester, she assigned students to groups of three and asked each team to develop a semester-long project. The stages of the project corresponded with the course material, but students came up with specific project ideas themselves based on examples with which they were familiar, such as tracking stock and sales at a grocery store. Each group then presented their project idea to the class. Professor Wu also created group homework assignments in order to address the problem of individualized communication and instruction. Individual homework assignments involved practice exercises with more abstract, conceptual material. Group homework assignments asked students to apply the skills they were first exposed to in individual homework to real-world problems. These innovations encouraged students to help each other master the material and demonstrated that material’s relevance outside the course.
The changes Professor Wu instituted in I308 proved so successful that she has since expanded them for use in her other courses. Having students work on team projects kept them interested and engaged through the entire semester and demonstrated to them how the skills they were learning were applicable outside the classroom. Students seemed more proactive about course material compared to previous semesters, which made for a better classroom atmosphere, while the project ideas and solutions were meaningful and well-developed. Most importantly, student course evaluations demonstrated an increase in self-confidence related to problem solving and indicated that students found the course material engaging. Because of this increased confidence, more were willing to enroll in other Informatics courses.
Following the use of Active Learning in the I308 course, enrollment in Professor Wu’s follow-up course on information representation also increased, and students in that class demonstrated a readiness that previous students had not. This is because learning activities such as those she implemented helped to convince students of the course’s usefulness and to keep them engaged all the way through the semester. This was true even in required courses such as I308, where students do not necessarily enter with any particular interest or enthusiasm for the class topics. Using Active Learning has proven to Professor Wu the benefit of trying new teaching strategies and innovations in her classrooms and she encourages other teachers to do the same.
