One professor gives the teaching method, which combines materials on the Web with a lively classroom environment, high marks
As Brown faculty members search for ways to improve teaching and learning through the use of technology, a new method is getting favorable reviews from one physics professor and students.
David Lowe, assistant professor of physics (left), is using a method gaining in popularity among educators that combines materials on the Web with a lively classroom environment. A key part of this method happens before class: students read an assignment, then go to a Web page where there are three questions that ideally take 10 to 20 minutes to complete and send to Lowe just a few hours before class. "Just in time teaching" (JiTT) is the name its creators call the method.
Based on the answers Lowe sees before class, he tailors that day’s classroom discussion on what students seem to be having trouble with — and skips lecturing about the stuff they know.
"The main purpose is to prime students so we can spend classroom time talking about things that students are confused about. It makes things easier for them to ask questions during class, and I’ll try to firm up their knowledge of things," Lowe said.
Lowe has been using JiTT for two years, mostly with undergraduates
He first learned about JiTT at an American Association of Physics Teachers conference several years ago, and also attended a new mini-workshop given by one of four authors of the book, "Just in Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology."
"There is a big push in physics to make this subject more interactive," Lowe said.
All four authors are physics professors, but they write that JiTT is applicable to any field of study. In addition to making classroom time more interactive, Lowe says the method helps students organize their time better by forcing them to keep up with the reading. A small part of their grade is based on their response to the online questions.
"At first it was a little bit difficult to adjust. I wasn’t used to having such interactivity. But after I stopped complaining about it, I realized it was helping me," said Jason Young, ’01, a physics concentrator who plans to go to graduate school and eventually teach.
"In other classes, you can sort of escape them. Here, you have to keep up. It forces you to do the reading," said Young. "In other classes, it’s easy to learn a lot of equations and not feel you really understand."
Before moving on to the next lesson, there’s a weekly puzzle to solve online, which reinforces what they’ve discussed.
Lowe said the results have been positive.
"I find it lifts up the lower half of the class into the B plus range, those who might be getting B minuses or C’s. It really helps those students who are having trouble organizing their time. For those at the top of the class, it improves their writing."
"The response is better, the morale in class is much better, student evaluations are much better, and exam results from students at the lower end of the class are much improved," Lowe said.
Setting up the Web page for the course took work on Lowe’s part, and he got help from one of the book’s authors, Evelyn Patterson of the U.S. Air Force Academy. The simplest way to do JiTT would be e-mail if you have a small class, Lowe said. But for him, it was worth setting up the templates that organize all student responses into a single file. Templates can be downloaded from Web pages.
JiTT is one of the ways to use technology in teaching that is being explored by the Faculty Advisory Committee on Computing, according to chairman Terry Tullis.
Tullis heard of the method from a Harvard physicist who came to Brown to speak about technology in the classroom.
It’s unclear how soon JiTT might make it into more Brown classrooms. The university is in a stage of exploration and priority-setting for how to make multi-million dollar upgrades in its computing and information services, Tullis said.
In the meantime, Tullis believes it is important to explore the types of technology that might improve teaching so that Brown can make them available to faculty.
"I don’t think anybody wants to force anybody to do it. It’s a fair amount of work. But for the faculty members who are interested, we need to lay some of these things in forums; we need to provide them with enough resources," Tullis said.
An overview of Just in Time Teaching is available online
To see a sample of warm-up questions that students complete before class, go to David Lowe’s Physics 153 home page and click on Warm-Ups.
Just in Time Teaching will be one of the sessions offered in July at a Project Kaleidescope Summer Institute on undergraduate education.
The report of the Technology Review Committee convened by the provost is online
The CIS Information Technology Plan prepared as part of Brown's strategic planning process is online