Electronic Portfolios: Enhancing Interactions Between Students and Teachers

An unabashed advertisement for the Internet

Funding: Retention of Students using Electronic Portfolios, Sloan Foundation Michael Fried, Professor of Mathematics, UCI, June 1994
mfried@uci.edu

A. WHAT WE DID IN A COURSE WITH 60 STUDENTS

Minority students show less confidence in using the instructor as a resource. To bring equity to the achievement of all our students here is what we did using technology.

Established quality student-instructor asynchronous e-mail communication
Gathered information on each student through e-mail questionnaires
Developed a system of automated portfolio creation with shell technology
Created a 3-stage process for developing individual and team projects
Provided continual e-mail reinforcement to maintain student initiative toward completion of the projects
Instituted weekly comment files for continual course responses to students and the assistant

These daily interactions brought more contact with students in one course than I had in 20 years of teaching. Without shell program technology, these interactions and their associate evaluations would have overwhelmed this instructor beyond measure. These portfolios started the process of documenting the value added by the instructor and the value of retaining these students. Many of these are minority students who were borderline for dropping out.

B. WHAT WE NEEDED TO DO IT

The background technology in this project is readily available to any university running UNIX in its e-mail accounts. Flexible shell programs can be used on many platforms, thus enhancing the portability of the project. The first step was to get students e-mail accounts and familiarize them with e-mail. Processing their responses and collating them into individual formatted portfolios would have been impossible without sophisticated shell programs.

Here is a portfolio extract from the almost 60 students in the course. These are available for evaluation of many kinds.

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 93 03:43 From: ____ ____ <_____@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Professor Fried, Here is what I have learned from purchasing a modem. I did not know how a modem worked or that there is a big computer and that my computer is just a terminal contacting this big main frame. There are only 36 lines available and you have access to so many things like Melvyl and AntPac. Also I haven't really figured out how Emacs works because someone told me that you could compile a Fortran Program in Emacs since it is hooked to a main frame or something---I don't really understand. Also, there are so many different commands to use. I get frustrated easily because I think I cannot figure out how to do something though I may have the handouts in front of me. I always felt it is something I don't know and completely over my head. ... It took many explanations to get me to see the picture. That is what I have the most trouble with: seeing it, visualizing it, and understanding. I don't know what I would do without my study Partner. I don't see how other people have no trouble while I struggle. I always wonder if I missed something all these years I have been in school or I have learned the wrong way because everything has to be systematic plug and chug for me to understand.
[MY REPLY] Dear _____, Your description of struggling with math is touching. Yesterday, one of my themes suggested we would use these projects to raise the esteem of students. ... Since we must try to do away with plug and chug, I've had to analyze carefully what could help us do that. Projects seem crucial for it. You have already gone further than you expected because of CAMP and your own growing initiative. ... Sincerely, Mike

C. WHY WE DID IT

Classroom time pressure cuts into the amount of feedback in two ways. Not enough time for more than a few students to interact. There's not enough time for students to think. In a practical way, classrooms are synchronous channels. The Internet provides an asynchronous communication that uses individual freedom to replace time constraints. Vector Calculus is a bottleneck prerequisite for completion of Physical Sciences and Engineering careers. This has its greatest impact on minority students. Their failure rate shows how unprepared they are for the spatial combination of algebra and geometry. Even those who do pass a second or third time through the course, suffer a retarded schedule toward graduation. The failure lies in the coordination of Algebra and Geometry in the early high school years. The problem: 9th and 10th grade algebra texts (excluding the Chicago Math project) have yet to show teachers how put the algebra and geometry modes of thinking together into one classroom. On our first questionnaire 85% of our students report having no recollection of a problem solving experience outside exercises from their textbook. Only two found it an enticing experience. Rather than being a teacher who showed them their first problem solving experience, I preferred raising their consciousness about their previous experiences. I stated two goals to the project repeatedly during our classes:

Raise student initiative: they take command of their own education
Raise consciousness on the value of a research experience

D. FUNDAMENTAL INGREDIENTS OF PORTFOLIO INTERACTION

The 3-stage project
Project and class evaluation
Electronic grading and evaluation tools
Day to day portfolio creation

3-stage project: With the programs in place, it was easy to gather student electronic responses to my early questionnaire. This revealed how unaccustomed students were to expressing initiative. Despite their sincere responses, it was evident they couldn't imagine what doing a project was about.

PART I: Project Involvement Stage
When they first came on e-mail students told me their fears and specific background deficiencies. Thus, this period resulted in the creation of interesting data in their cumulative portfolios. Many days in the middle of the quarter I received 20--30 e-mail messages from students. Processing these and collating them into individual formatted portfolios would have been impossible without sophisticated shell programs.We designed the questionnaire to reveal how much initiative they were willing to take. I declared I would help each of them find a project using this questionnaire.
A crucial step for handling such a large group: dividing the project types into subareas. Each subarea had between eight and fourteen students in it. Here are the items that advertised what projects had to offer to students.
1. Chance to creatively involve problems that span considerable material and several weeks of thinking; chance to show imagination using Mathematics.
2. Alternative assessment to tests and homework.
3. Chance to develop independence from the teacher, the text and the classroom.
4. Chance to coordinate writing with learning.

PART II: Project Proposal Stage
By the end of Part I, before the midterm, we had the students in project teams. Further, we divided these teams into five areas. Each area had a meeting with me to discuss specific possibilities for projects in their area. To continue the interaction and relate it to the class, each team wrote a Project Proposal: due three weeks from the start of the project period. This is an exact outline of the project that details what they proposed to do in their project. This was worth 50 points toward their grade; the final project report was worth 100 points. The pre-question form and their growing portfolios included considerable data about their backgrounds, aspirations and abilities. It was my job to create from this a project of which they could take ownership. This was tough, but with few exceptions we had this finished by the end of the sixth week, after the midterm.
Process for starting the project: ``Use an e-mail communication to arrange to see me.'' My personal and questionnaire response to their communication provided ways for them to relate to Categories of interest below:
- Using Mathematica for graphs and parametrizations[Mathematica comments]
- Relation between 2d vector calculus and high-school math courses
- Relation between dynamics, physics, economics course, etc.to 2D Vector Calculus
- Writing basic, C, or Pascal program to automate 2D vector calculus skills
- Apply vector calculus topics to a specific challenging problem

PART III: Project Report Stage
By the sixth week the class was accustomed to e-mail. Still, there was a need for extra support to explain the five areas of project types. My student assistant, a computer knowledgeable friend of his, and Kathryn Kjaer, the head of the Physical Sciences Library, ran general help sessions. These included discussions of relating Vector Calculus to engineering courses, how to use AntPac and Melvyl, help on word processors, sending files by modem and use of Mathematica. My job at that stage was to handle the intensive concerns of the few who thought their projects weren't working at all. At the end of the term students submitted a final report on their findings. This use of technology encouraged some students to pursue research projects.

E. GRADING HIGH LEVEL EXAMS WITH 1/3 RD THE EFFORT

When the user executes an interactive e-mail message, it poses questions to the screen to which the user responds. The program places these responses in key fields in eval. When the program has completed, and the user has finished her responses, the last line mails a copy of the program and responses to me. Finally, when these return, I use mva to place them altogether in a folder with the grading program key_eval for eval. I've gained systematic and timely responses to questionnaires and evaluation instruments. Even more, however, the user hasn't tampered with the internal structure of eval.
The instructor types key_eval, which puts a list of question titles on the screen in a menu. From it the instructor can choose any question. Then, key_eval will place the complete question at the top of the screen followed by a menu showing student responses to the question. This is the fundamental simplification in grading: having all answers to a given question appear together on the screen in a menu. The instructor can grade one question in a displayed batch. Improved efficiency comes from being able to develop key_eval to add responses and a grade to selected subsets having similar responses. The grader's responses and marks come from a command line; there is no need to move around files seeking the right place to place these. On completion of grading the question, key_eval fits each student's answer, with graded responses, back into the whole evaluative instrument.
key_eval can post several statistics on the grades: total grades or grade on any one question for each of the students; and class average on all or any specific question.

F. ELECTRONIC GRADING
Here is the beginning of an interactive questionnaire after a student saves a message from e-mail. The student's e-mail name here is byerly.
/home/users/student/byerly:113=>sh exper Extracting exp_ques1 Extracting exp_ques2 ... Extracting exp_ques6 Extracting pre_exp_ques ... Extracting prog_exp_ques
Dear Robert,
Try to answer the questions that appear in front of you briefly. I'm trying to find a way to automate more feedback from you, while creating no extra work for you, and not too much for me. If you need more than one line to answer a question, just keep typing before you press return. Once you press return you will have another chance to answer, but then this will move onto the next question.
Sincerely, Mike

Here is question 1.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
What days are OK for an extra class from 4-5? Type your answer and press <return>.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Respond to Question 1 by typing. When done, press <return>.
...
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How can I help you improve with the guess and check problem solving strategy? Possible answer: Give you more time in class to try problems which we grade in class.
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Respond to Question 4 by typing. When done, press <return>.
...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My feedback said some didn't really want to do a presentation, but since your grade last quarter was given for it, you felt you had to. Others clearly learned a lot from giving the presentation. Give some feedback where you stand on this. Honest, I won't get mad. Rather, I will try to find other ways to help involve you that don't necessarily put you in the position of making presentations.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Respond to Question 6 by typing. When done, press <return>.
Six questions with chances to respond if the student doesn't like her first answers. When the questions are done, the program mails them back to me. Back at my machine:
New mail for mfried@math.uci.edu has arrived: ---- Date: Wed, 18 May 94 02:03:06 PDT From: byerly (Robert Byerly) To: mfried@math.uci.edu Subject: exp_ques_response
A shell program mva automates moving this file to an appropriate directory for viewing along with others that have come in. I go to that directory with one command and then type gno to see this:
Do you want to look at responses to a specific question? y(es)/n(o) y Choose a number. 1. Show exp_ques <number> 2. Show responses to exp_ques <number> 3. Put output of responses to exp_ques <number> in a file. 4. See list of questions again.
I ask to see the answers to number 4, here is what I get:
\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%\%
akoines: I would like a regular written exam that will be like the qualifying exam.
alee: I realize any guess is better than no guess but I would feel more comfortable coming up with a guess that was somewhat on the mark. Ithink the in-class problems are very helpful, but I think they are more focused on checking rather than guessing. I have a hard time coming up with an educated guess when you ask a guess and check problem.
byerly: assign homework with hints on how to do the problems with guess and check
hly: There is no need to change because of the way the question is asked is at exactly the the level we are concentrate on and we are given sufficient time.
nunez: The guess and check strategy is something we all need to practice on our own, but I think a little more class time to practice this would be great.
rcollatz: Indeed, more guess and check opportunities in class would be welcome. Also, perhaps we might specifically devote some of the afternoon sessions to a few "practice" tests in which we would tackle problems of appropriate difficulty under pressure.
rmuir: give small problems in some organized manner, then give the solutions and explain how you got them. this could be done in class, or as take home problems. the book is full of topics but some are more important than others.
wprophet: I once had a basketball coach that told us over and over that practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. I feel that we should practice this technique in simulated "game situations" to develop it.
I can now respond to each of these or to them in groups. It is as if I pulled all their answers together from a bluebook and could respond to them collectively.

G. WHAT HAS BEEN DONE BY OTHERS

Calculus Listserves Automatic mailings and simple archivals put listserves at the level of newsgroups, with a significant difference. You must subscribe, and then you automatically get sent everything that comes to the listserve. Listserves are easy to set up and easy to maintain.
Example: calc-reform@e-math.ams.com: Reform and Pedogogy: Reform of curriculum and pedagogy for calculus/elementary linear algebra

Mathematica and Maple Every class we have taught in the last two years demonstrates Mathematica. We don't have the appropriate daily availability of a computer lab. When, however, it comes along, that will be part of our courses.
Portfolios for Evaluation: From the 3/24/93 Chronicles of Higher Education POINT OF VIEW. Karen (University Director of liberal education and assoc. prof. of Psychology at Miami University) and Karl Schilling (Director of the Assessment Forum at the American Association for Higher Education) discuss accountability issues for higher education.
"The call for accountability of higher education has a simple translation. The Public wants to know if students are learning the right things and if faculty are working hard at the right activities (teaching rather than research). The Public wants assurance its investment in higher education is well spent.
This article advocates using portfolio creation as a method for assessing the value of education offered at colleges. The goal should be to convey a story, supported by credible evidence, about what we do in our classrooms.
Words on low tech vs. high tech J. V. Lombardi, Campuses need not wait for snazzy new technology to enter Cyberspace, The Chronicle of Higher Education---Point of View, March 2 (1994), calls for another low tech use of the Internet. He, the President of the University of Florida, speaks for a simple resource in this direction [L]:
``As the number of television channels grows by the hundreds ... we have an extraordinary quantity of educational programs that could be put into the bandwidth at very little cost. ... They would simply be classrooms projected in their rough reality into the cyberspace. Because the cost of electronically transmitting education is so low and because the potential bandwidth will be so large and so sparsely occupied at the beginning, we would not need huge audiences to mike our new courses work. ... The technology exists through electronic mail on the Internet to support intense interactions between students and teachers about the academic substance of any course that is broadcast.''

Suppose we did the same for vector calculus. We would be distributing courses that aren't effective on a small scale to a multitude, who we couldn't evaluate or individually encourage at the rate they would receive material. Internet interchange has an informality of writing and emotional expression that invites sloppy syntax and poor reading habits. It is exactly that we need to improve student writing that implies we must add more structure and tools for student evaluation to such video offerings.