Project Description

The Hart Leadership Program, directed by Alma Blount, is exploring different methods of assessment for their program.  The goals of this exploration include the following:

•    overall student work (yielded by improved and standardized assessment methods using rubrics and assessment technologies)
•    student engagement (measured by assessment technologies and past student ratings)
•    student and program exposure via eportfolio publishing and public press

Currently, program faculty and staff have chosen to use eportfolios as a means towards creating a standardized programmatic assessment by generating standard rubrics to assess writing samples (reflective pieces and full papers), along with a completed eportfolio presentation (public webpages generated by the students’ work).  The program has decided to use Chalk&Wire’s ePortfolio2 product to meet the aforementioned goals.

Project Started: Dec 2007
Funding: $4300

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Project Description

Cary Moskovitz has been using the concept of “think aloud” responses in his writing courses, getting professionals in various fields at Duke to record comments and feedback on student papers. Students gain valuable insight from a reader familiar with the subject area of the paper and gain a better sense of ownership of their writing in a “real world” situation.

To build on the success of this approach in his own courses, Moskovitz is now cooperating with the Duke Alumni Association to introduce this method into Writing in the Disciplines courses, by locating Duke alumni residing around the United States to serve as readers in three classes in Economics, History and Chemistry in Spring 2008.

During Fall 2007, Moskovitz will use CIT funding to explore the technologies which will be used to implement the full project in Spring 2008. Readers will use a webcam-assisted teleconference to virtually “meet” with their student partners, and web-based audio recording software to record a “think aloud” response on a student paper in the course. Students will be able to use the readers’ feedback to edit and improve their writing based on this professional input. The CIT is consulting on technology approaches, documentation for the volunteer readers and students, and evaluation of the project.

Project Started: 8/15/2007
Funding: $1,000 (Fall 2007)

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Project Description

Julie Reynolds and her colleagues Paula Lemons and Ahrash Bissell are developing a methodology for designing valid and reliable, discipline-specific, critical-thinking questions and grading rubrics that simultaneously measure student’s content knowledge and specific critical-thinking skills (e.g., application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Using this methodology, they are generating questions and grading rubrics, and beginning to use these questions to gather data on student learning of both content and critical-thinking skills.

To share their work and allow others to contribute, they are looking for a web-based tool that can manage this type of collaborative assessment design and modification. This grant funded an assistant to assess web sites that might be suitable for a critical thinking assignment repository. The ultimate goal is to find an appropriate on-line tool to build a scholarly community around critical thinking assignments and rubrics for grading. Criteria used to assess websites:

1. free
2. user friendly
3. contains a downloadable database of critical-thinking assignments related to the teaching of biology
4. allows for collaborative writing of critical thinking assignments
5. claims to measure critical thinking in student responses
6. actually can measure critical thinking in student responses

Of the 13 software or websites assessed, none met the criteria. Investigated software/websites included: CPR, FLAG CDT, LE3, InsightAssessment, CornellCT, 2Mpower, SmartPrim, Theseus, Trackstar, DevelopingCTSkills, Critical Thinking Co, Writeboard, and CLAQWA.

The assistant suggested designing a new system to meet the needs of the project.

Project Started: August 20, 2007
Funding: $2000

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Project Description

In Gereffi’s Marketing and Management capstone course, undergraduate students collect and analyze data involving several key North Carolina industries, helping Gereffi and his team (the Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness) create visualizations like value chains and maps for the public and highly-visible North Carolina and the Global Economy website.

CIT is providing funding and support to help Gereffi and his team develop interactive representations of value chains using tools like Flash, and to explore the use of mapping tools like Google Earth to rethink the way industry data can be presented visually in a more global context. The resulting developments will in turn create more and varied projects for undergraduate students in Gereffi’s capstone course.

Project Started: May 4, 2007
Funding: $11,000

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Project description

This project will support the development and exploration of teaching and learning in Second Life. Objects are being developed and explored during the summer for use in Fall courses. In the Fall, Second Life will be used in Focus 99.09: Special Topics in Focus: Virtual Realities. Students will explore the tool to build a gallery environment consisting of work done in the four courses of the cluster. In the course of this project, the value of Second Life as a teaching and learning tool will be assessing in three specific areas:

• Second Life’s effectiveness as a project display medium
• Second Life’s value as a hands-on exploration of metaverses and virtual worlds
• Second Life’s as agent for collaborative work among students.

The Second Life environment for the class will be demonstrated to the Parent and Students Weekend fair in the Bryan Center and available as a semi-permanent gallery space for others to visit when the semester ends. Second Life will continue to be explored in several courses during Spring 2008.

Project start date: 5/4/2007
Funding awarded: $ 2,500

More information:

Focus Cluster on Virtual Realities

Course descriptions

Project wiki

Second Life at Duke

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Project Description

The objective of this project is to develop a 3D virtual model of drug action at the molecular level that can be used in teaching undergraduates in Pharmacology 150. An interdisciplinary team of undergraduate students will work together to develop a molecular model of a basic pharmacologic principle such as drug action at a receptor-gated ion channel (an appropriate example could be alcohol binding at the GABA-gated chloride channel to produce intoxication). They will use the Visualization Lab and DiVE Tank to create a virtual 3D model as well as a 3D web-based version that can be used online.

The interdisciplinary team will also learn how to apply evaluation methodologies to assess the effectiveness of the instructional tool on student learning.

Project start date: 5/4/2007
Funding awarded: $ 6,500

Additional information:

Duke University Visualization Technology Group

DiVE Tank

RISE (Raising Interest in Science Education)

Other projects by Pharmacology 150

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Project description

To introduce authentic research methods and give students practice in research, students in the Methods Primate Field Ecology course will use a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit and accelerometer unit to track primates at the Duke University Lemur Center. The data will be collected and analyzed, and students will producing visual representation of time and space occupation of wild animals.   Current technology is being developed to be able to track the lemurs using collars to record position and acceleration.  When results are obtained, students will present the project both at Duke University and professional meetings.

The research experience will continue benefit the students, as they are gaining first hand experience in the challenges of field work and cutting edge technology.  When the visualizations are complete, they will encourage other students to participate in research experiences.

Project start date: 5/4/2007
Funding awarded: $3,200

The Center for Instructional Technology Web site has more information about visualizations and Google earth

Duke University Lemur Center

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Project Description

Portier-Young applied to the CIT for funding to adapt a publicly available 3D model of the ancient Israelite Tabernacle and Temple for for viewing in the Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE), by students in her course “Introduction to Old Testament Interpretation.” Portier-Young wanted students to better understand the design of the site and its use in worship activities by seeing the site on a full scale “virtual” tour.

The Virtual Tabernacle is a model of a key worship site used by the ancient Israelites; the model allows the user to see the layout of the site and explore it as a “walkthrough.” Since there is only minimal evidence in original texts about the site’s layout and construction, the model provided a starting point for discussions about interpretation of Old Testament texts.

Student assistants working with the DiVE director adapted the existing 3D model for the display equipment in the facility. In addition, funding was provided for a student assistant to handle the logistics of testing the model and taking the 170 students in the course on the tour in small groups.

All of the students in Portier-Young’s class viewed the tour and several faculty from the Divinity School examined the model to consider using it in their own courses. Portier-Young developed a survey instrument for individuals who viewed the model. The survey results indicated that the students felt the model increased their comprehension of the ancient site and how it was used; viewing the model in an immersive environment allowed the students to see the actual scale of the site and gain a deeper understanding of the site’s components and explore open questions about how worship would have been conducted, based on evidence in the Old Testament texts.

Project start date: 1/25/2007
Funding awarded: $3,325

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Project Description

Faculty in the Law School’s Clinical program sought to use their new facility’s video equipment to enhance clinicals and facilitate student self-evaluation as the students work with actual clients on real cases.

Students in the Law Clinics gain their first experiences with clients under the guidance of faculty. As part of this program, the students are trained in interviewing techniques and given practical legal instruction by the faculty as they work through cases. The faculty were seeking ways to use video recording of these student-client sessions to evaluate student interviewing skills, and to allow students to self-evaluate their performance.

Through a year-long Faculty Fellows program, faculty learned about using the classroom video systems in their facility, and practical ways to integrate video technologies into the student interaction observations. The Fellows met with other faculty from Duke who had used video for student performance evaluation, and had a campus visit from Larry Farmer, a Law faculty member at Brigham Young University, who has considerable experience in the use of digital video in student observations.

During the Fellowship year, faculty developed a rubric to evaluate student performance in interviews and logistics for recording material, including processes for obtaining releases from clients and access and disposal of video recordings to protect client privacy. In addition, the faculty, using local multimedia support staff, developed video examples of model client interviews used in training students in the orientation to the Clinical program.

Faculty noted improvement in interviewing skills of the students who used the rubric, and surveys of students showed that many students found the rubric helpful to examine and improve their own performance. The model video encounters created for training were helpful, allowing the faculty to use excerpts to make key points about interviewing and make the training more focused, improving on “live” model interviews done during student training in the past.

As the technology changes, the Fellows continue to explore the best ways to improve video for student performance evaluation, examining new technologies such as DVD recording and portable video recording on laptops, in addition to methods for easily marking and retrieving video segments for student discussion.

Project start date: 12/2005
Funding awarded: $19,000 (includes $2,500 stipend for each faculty member)

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Project description

EOS223S is an open, interdisciplinary elective in Nicholas School which satisfies a seminar requirement of Trinity undergrads; it includes topics in geology, engineering, energy, environment, and policy. The course focused on the actual conditions and plans for a US national high-level nuclear waste deposit in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, through a guided field trip to the Yucca Mountain site. Pre-field trip classes included lectures on Yucca Mountain geology and student-prepared seminars/posters on specific aspects of Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste disposal. Geology requires students to visualize both scales and complex three dimensional relationships from 2 dimensional maps, which is particularly difficult for non-majors. The Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE Tank) provided three dimensional visualization of the geology and subsurface engineering, and an interactive way to explore the scale of the field site.

By the end of the course, students stated that the use of the 3-D Visualization before the field trip helped to frame the spatial relationships between sediment layers, faults, and topography. The students were asked write a position paper on the integrated geological, economic, and social aspects of the proposed site and state their position on its licensing using the graphical evidence. Their papers showed that they achieved most of the following goals: they referenced appropriate data bases of existing documents, and related these materials to the actual scales lengths, including time, space, economic, social, and political dimensions associated with the potential site and its use.

Project start date: May 26, 2006
Funding awarded: $5,000

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