Session T4C

978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC 40th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference

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Tablet PCs in Undergraduate Mathematics

Carla A. Romney Boston University, Metropolitan College, Science and Engineering Program, Boston, MA 02215

Boston University School of Medicine, Division of Graduate Medical Sciences, Boston, MA 02118 romney@bu.edu

Abstract - Undergraduate students often struggle to learn mathematics because introductory classes are taught in large lectures that do not engage students in active problem-solving. These students do not connect mathematics to their lives and feel that learning mathematics is a solitary undertaking. We now use Tablet PCs in a networked classroom to address these challenges. Students in classes that use the Tablet PCs can view and annotate the instructor’s Powerpoint slides in real time and also participate in interactive problem-solving. Students save their own annotated slides for subsequent review. They also have immediate access to the synchronized screen capture and audio recording of the class since the instructor posts this file to the course management website. These technological interventions allow students to focus on classroom activities rather than on note-taking. To date, students have taken three introductory undergraduate mathematics courses (College Algebra and Trigonometry, Calculus I, and Calculus II) using Tablet PCs. Student attendance and retention were better in the cohort of students who participated in the Tablet PC courses than in comparable non-Tablet PC courses taught by the same instructor. The evaluation of the instructor was unchanged. Index Terms – computer, mathematics, tablet PC, technology.

TABLET PC USE IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS

Undergraduates often struggle to learn mathematics because they are required to process information effectively from lectures so that they can solve new problems using the content that they have learned. In typical mathematics classes, instructors focus on presenting the theoretical underpinnings of mathematics and modeling problem-solving strategies by using sample problems that should be accessible to students. During class, however, students in conventional “chalk talk” or Powerpoint slide-based mathematics classes do not engage in significant problem-solving during class because they are primarily concerned with recording in written form the comments made by the instructor as well as the content on the instructor’s slides or board work. Students often fail to process the information from class in a way that will lead to retention and deeper learning. Liberating students from their role as scribes allows students to focus on understanding the material presented in class [1].

While students in the humanities and social sciences often take notes directly on a laptop, this is difficult for students who take mathematics courses due to the highly symbolic content of the lecture. It is very time-consuming and cumbersome to format equations in Microsoft Word’s Equation Editor or in LaTeX and most students do not use these programs during lectures. Thus, students in most introductory mathematics courses still record their class notes by hand.

Another limitation of conventional models of mathematics instruction stems from the difficulty in integrating student work into the lecture format. When instructors incorporate problem-solving exercises for students to work on during class, they typically do not give students enough time to solve the problems on their own. Rather, they proceed to demonstrate how each problem is supposed to be solved and they model successful strategies for interpreting and manipulating relevant mathematical concepts. Other instructors pause and give students a chance to solve a problem on their own. In this case, students work on the problem and write in their own notebooks, but the instructor cannot easily review the students’ work. In this latter case, instructors present their own solution or guide students to collectively process the steps that lead to the solution. Some instructors look at their students’ work during class, but this is not typical in introductory undergraduate mathematics courses because they are often too large for this approach to be feasible.

When students have difficulty in an introductory undergraduate mathematics class, they often opt to drop or withdraw from the class rather than risk a low grade in a challenging course. As a result of their failure to progress in the introductory mathematics course sequence, these students are often forced to abandon their plans to enter quantitative disciplines such as the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Since there is a tremendous national need to produce a populace that is quantitatively literate, we seek to retain students who evince interest in fields that depend on mathematical understanding and problem-solving skills.

The use of Tablet PCs in mathematics classes offers a viable means to address these concerns and enhance student learning. Tablet PCs permit students to use a stylus to “ink” or write on the screen and free students from relying on keyboarding as the primary means of data entry. Using Tablet PCs in mathematics classes, students can handwrite their notes in an electronic form that can be shared with their instructor and/or with their classmates. Similarly, the instructor can electronically distribute the Powerpoint slides for a particular class session and students can use the Tablet

Session T4C

978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC 40th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference

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PC to take notes directly on the slides in real time during class. Since students have access to the instructor’s lecture slides, they do not need to focus on simply recording information from class and they are able to concentrate on processing the information that is presented. The Tablet PC environment facilitates a change in the fundamental activities of students from passive recorders to active participants.

Tablet PC technology also promotes interactive problem-solving and peer critiquing during lecture [1]. With networked Tablet PCs, students can transmit their work on problems to the instructor for display as part of class discussion. Instructors can select a variety of solutions- some correct and others incorrect- to generate discussion and elicit student participation. Students can also engage in peer-critiquing of their solutions and learn from both the mistakes and correct approaches used by their classmates.

Tablet PC based mathematics instruction also provides a powerful means to change student behavior. When students participate in a class in which their work may be presented (either anonymously or self-identified), the induced pressure or fear of mild humiliation when their work is displayed can motivate students who might otherwise not invest themselves in the classroom experience.

Further, using Tablet PCs in a classroom setting to present student-generated solutions is also a powerful tool to influence the normative behavior of students. When students see the work of their peers and realize that their own solutions or understanding are deficient, they discover this much sooner than if they had to wait for the results of an examination to be posted. This formative assessment can enable students to address their weaknesses before they become insurmountable obstacles to learning more advanced material.

The interactive Tablet PC classroom provides a novel means to minimize the difficulties faced by mathematics students, so we sought to determine whether using a problem-solving approach with these laptops in an interactive learning environment would improve student engagement, performance, and retention.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY’S TABLET PC MATHEMATICS

CLASSROOM AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENT During the 2007-8 academic year, the Tablet PC classroom was constructed with both Ethernet and wireless networking capabilities for use by 16 students and one instructor during a class session. The Hewlett-Packard Tablet PCs used the Microsoft Windows XP 2003 for Tablet PC operating system and were loaded with Mathematica and MATLAB to allow for in-class simulations. In addition, Classroom Presenter 3.0, a software package produced and freely distributed by the University of Washington (http://classroompresenter.cs.washington.edu), was installed on all Tablet PCs to permit real time bi-directional data transfer. The Tablet PC classroom is maintained by Boston

University’s Information Technology group and is regularly updated to the latest versions of these programs.

In addition to the software on the student Tablet PCs, Camtasia Studio 5.0 (http://www.techsmith.com) was installed on the instructor’s Tablet PC. Camtasia Studio is used to produce videos of the lectures that incorporate the instructor’s annotated slides, all student work viewed in class, and completely synchronized audio that captured both the instructor and student comments through an external USB microphone (http://www.bluemic.com/snowflake). The instructor prepared Adobe Shockwave (.swf) files and posted them on the course management website immediately after class. Students accessed the class recordings as often as needed to review the material.

Students obtain the instructor’s Powerpoint slides at the beginning of class through a broadcast to all computers [2]. Students save the Powerpoint slides to their own USB Flash drives and take notes by writing directly on the slides using the Tablet PC’s stylus. The instructor creates presentations that include opportunities for students to solve problems during class. Students submit their responses anonymously to the instructor. The instructor reviews the thumbnail versions of the submissions and selects representative correct and/or incorrect responses to facilitate discussion and highlight important issues.

DESCRIPTION OF TABLET PC CLASSES

The Tablet PC implementation was initiated by the Science and Engineering Program, a two year program that provides an enriched learning and advising environment for students who are interesting in studying a quantitative discipline but may benefit from smaller class sizes and more contact hours with the teaching faculty members. The Science and Engineering Program offers four undergraduate mathematics courses: College Algebra and Trigonometry, Calculus I (differential calculus of a single variable), Calculus II (integral calculus of a single variable), and Multivariate Calculus. Typically, students are placed into either College Algebra and Trigonometry or Calculus I upon matriculation.

To date, the Tablet PC classes have been restricted to those students who began their studies with the College Algebra and Trigonometry class. In Fall 2008, twenty students enrolled in the Tablet PC based College Algebra and Trigonometry course. During Spring 2009, all of these students continued to Calculus I and 7 of these students enrolled in Calculus II during Fall 2009. A substantial portion of the apparent attrition after Calculus I stems from the fact that many science majors are not required to take additional mathematics courses beyond Calculus I. In addition, a number of students elected to take Calculus II during summer school at another institution.

Session T4C

978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC 40th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference

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RESULTS AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES Preliminary results indicate that the Fall 2008 introduction of Tablet PCs has been beneficial. Student attendance was better in the Tablet PC College Algebra and Trigonometry class (99% in 2008 vs. 96% in three prior years when the class was offered by the same instructor as a conventional chalk talk without technology), retention was better (100% in 2008 vs. 93% in three prior years), and student performance was better (0 withdrawals and 1 C- in 2008 vs. 5 withdrawals, 5 D, and 3 C- grades out of 56 students in 2005, 2006, and 2007). The evaluation of the course was unchanged (score of 4.81 out of 5 in 2008, vs. score of 4.83 out of 5 in three prior years of the conventionally taught class). The students in the Tablet PC class accessed the CourseInfo course management site with much greater frequency. There were 4,884 distinct accesses by the twenty students in the Tablet PC course during the Fall 2008 semester. In contrast, there were 3,117, 1,096, and 2,708 distinct hits by students from the three prior years. When reported on a per student basis, there were 244 hits per student in the tablet PC class compared to 123 hits per student in 2005, 100 hits per student in 2006, and 136 hits per student in 2007 for the students enrolled in the conventionally taught course.

In Spring 2009, the twenty students who had successfully completed the College Algebra and Trigonometry class then enrolled in a Tablet PC-based Calculus I class, which was taught by a different instructor. Two students who transferred to the Science and Engineering Program for Spring 2009 joined the initial student cohort even though they did not have any experience with the Tablet PCs nor did they take a comparable preparatory course during the preceding semester.

The student performance metrics for Calculus I indicate that attendance was still greater than 95%, an unusual occurrence in introductory undergraduate mathematics classes. Student performance was similar to that of the conventionally-taught classes taught by this instructor during prior years. For example, there were 6 grades of C- or below and 1 withdrawal out of 22 students in the Spring 2009 class while there were 4 students who received grades below C- and 3 withdrawals among the 29 students who were enrolled in the conventional course in Spring 2008. These data are not significantly different.

Of the 22 students in the Spring 2009 Tablet PC Calculus I class, 7 students continued to the Tablet PC Calculus II class in Fall 2009. One student received a grade of C- or lower and there were no withdrawals. In the conventionally taught class in Fall 2008, all thirteen students received grades of C or higher and there were no withdrawals.

DISCUSSION

The use of Tablet PC-based mathematics instruction has become a signature attraction for students in the Science and

Engineering Program. The Program now offers four introductory mathematics courses using Tablet PCs and four instructors have now used the classroom for their classes.

Initially, some faculty members were apprehensive about incorporating the Tablet PC technology into their classes. They were afraid that the network would not be stable enough to permit real time data transmission and also feared reprisals on their teaching evaluations as a result of technological glitches that were widely anticipated. To abrogate these barriers to adoption, the Chair of the Science and Engineering Program taught the College Algebra and Trigonometry course during the first semester in Fall 2008. The scores on her course evaluations from the Tablet PC students were unchanged, so this helped to assuage the anxiety of the Program’s faculty. In addition, there were only positive comments offered by students in the narrative sections of the course evaluation form, so other faculty felt more comfortable with the idea of teaching with the Tablet PC technology.

A concomitant change in the perception of Tablet PCs may also have contributed to the success of this implementation. Tablet PCs have garnered increasing attention since Apple announced the development and launch of its tablet computer, the iPAD. Windows Vista and Windows 7 also incorporate inking into the operating system, so full stand-alone Tablet PCs and traditional laptop computers that are pen-enabled with an external slate are pushing tablet computing into the mainstream consumer marketplace. Tablet computers will, no doubt, be seen in the classrooms of colleges in the not too distant future, particularly since it is likely that they will become more affordable for students due to the increased competition in the computer market. [Since the iPAD is due to begin shipment in April 2010, I will update this section in time for final deadline in May].

IMPORTANCE TO THE EDUCATION COMMUNITY

Tablet PC technology may be an extremely beneficial adjunct to the pedagogical approaches used by instructors in fields that are graphics-laden. Graphics or non-Roman characters impede notetaking on non-Tablet PCs since it is awkward and time-consuming to accurately render these elements in an electronic form during class. For example, non-Roman alphabet foreign language courses (e.g., Arabic, Hindi, and Chinese), fine arts courses in which features of images are important, science and engineering courses that are mathematics-based, and even medical school courses such as physiology, histology, and anatomy may benefit from the use of Tablet PCs to reduce the technical challenges faced by both faculty and students in preparing notes and ancillary materials for classes.

An additional avenue to disseminate this technology is through the growing online and distance education niches. The technology described herein can be used not only in face-to-face instruction but also in online and distance education models. To date, the Science and Engineering

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978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC 40th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference

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Program faculty members have conducted several limited implementations of online transmission in a synchronous delivery model and this has been successful. Classroom Presenter allows remote access to a “classroom” when the instructor provides the IP address of the computer used to present the class. Skype or other VOIP (voice-over internet protocol) web-conferencing technologies also support Tablet PC presentations with full audio and video if a webcam is used to provide real-time video.

PROJECT STATUS

This project continues to expand in scope. In addition to developing lessons that rely on problem-solving, the Science and Engineering Program faculty members have complemented the hands-on inking experience with Mathematica simulations to enhance understanding through interactive visualizations of concepts that are difficult for students to grasp. In that vein, Tablet PCs will be used in Multivariate Calculus, arguably the hardest course for many students due to the need to visualize functions in three dimensions, in Fall 2010.

This project has also spawned similar initiatives at Boston University School of Medicine. For example, in Seminar in Clinical Research, the instructor uses a single Tablet PC and the students use this computer when they make their presentations of research papers. The classes are recorded from Powerpoint using Camtasia Studio 6.0 and the MP4 files are posted to the CourseInfo site to allow students to review the class material. Another instructor uses an external tablet slate to ink on slides that are part of the Medical Gross Anatomy course.

As electronic health records continue to expand and physicians’ offices embrace Tablet PCs, it is likely that medical schools may be a fertile ground for Tablet PC teaching and learning. Several medical schools have instituted Tablet PCs across their curricula and others list them as one of the alternatives for students to use in satisfying the institutional requirement for all students to have their own laptops.

While the experience to date supports the value of a networked Tablet PC classroom for undergraduate mathematics instruction, students from other disciplines in higher education may also benefit when an instructor uses a Tablet PC for teaching.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Several Science and Engineering faculty members have contributed to the development of the Tablet PC classroom and subsequent data acquisition. Fabian Torres-Ardila and Juan Pedro Paniagua have both shared their experiences and student performance data.

Tablet PCs were provided by a grant from Hewlett Packard’s Technology for Teaching program in 2007. A 2008 Boston University Provost’s Grant for Undergraduate

Teaching and Scholarship permitted students and faculty to collaborate on the development of the course materials.

REFERENCES [1] Huettel,L,G, et al. “Using Tablet PCs to Enhance Engineering and Computer Science Education”,The Impact of Tablet PCs and Pen-based Technology on Education: Beyond the Tipping Point, [Prey, J, C, et al., eds.] Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, IN, 2007, 59-66. [2] Anderson,R, et al. “Use of Classroom Presenter in Engineering Courses”, Proceedings of the 35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2005.