Principal Investigator: Rob Elliott, Lecturer, Computer Information Technology Program, Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, IUPUI
Project Title: JITTer: The Just-in-Time Teaching -- Building an Automated Assessment Tool to Increase Student Engagement and Maximize Instructor Effectiveness
Funding Level: $5,000
Abstract:
Traditional classroom assessment techniques provide quick interactivity with course material and useful feedback for instructors. Their disadvantages include consumption of classroom time and an increased grading workload for instructors. Pedagogies such as just-in-time teaching and the flipped classroom rely on an increased number of short, targeted assessments to ensure students understand course contents. Advocates of these teaching techniques are likely inclined to include more assessments in their courses but each interaction costs time.
Educational technology has advanced to the point where a number of classroom assessments can be automated. Students can engage with course materials and assessments independently, outside of the classroom. Assessment activity can be automatically graded and reported to instructors. Many publishers provide interactive exercises and simulations for students, and there are an increasing number of web-based resources available. The downsides to using these tools include a lack of customization, fragmentation of student attention by directing them to so many disparate resources, and administrative demands on the instructor.
The open-source nature of Canvas allows the development of third-party applications that can interact directly with an instructor’s class portal. This project details the development of a “bridge” between SCORM-compliant interactive exercises and Canvas that will allow instructors to deliver e-learning modules SCORM-compliant interactive exercises and Canvas that will allow instructors to deliver e-learning modules to students while actively capturing student grades directly to the gradebook. This grant will support the development of interactive learning modules for a sophomore-level CIT course that has incorporated the flipped classroom pedagogy.
