REINVENTING TEACHING IN THE
- CLASSROOM OF THE FUTURE:
- The Political Science Laboratory Experience
- CLASSROOM OF THE FUTURE:
- CLASSROOM OF THE FUTURE:
- The Political Science Laboratory Experience
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction to "Chuck's Laboratory"
II. Initial Observations
III. The Study
IV. Aftermath
I. INTRODUCTION TO "CHUCK'S LABORATORY"
Just because we talk, doesn't mean they listen; just because they listen, doesn't mean they hear; just because they hear, doesn't mean they learn.
When I first started teaching in 1963 as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, I prided myself on my enthusiasm and my love of teaching. I was the center of activity - I lectured, I led the discussions, I tested. Over the years I gradually came to the conclusion that I was short-changing my students. I was limiting their potential. The key to successful learning was to have less of me and more of them.
I finally realized that my students have gone through the space age, MTV, and the computer age. They're living in the days of virtual reality and I'm still in the days of the wagon train - scribbling with chalk on the blackboard. I finally realized a basic axiom - make it exciting and they will learn. To paraphrase Edward R. Murrow, of CBS news fame, "The worst sin of a news reporter is to be boring."
Today's students, now more than ever, need an active, exciting learning environment. I simply cannot compete with the external stimuli that the outside world constantly bombards them. I came to the conclusion that I needed to reinvent myself as a teacher.
The passive classrooms of talk and chalk should be transformed to exciting workshops, studios, and laboratories whereby students learn by doing. Virtual reality, with and without computers, should be emphasized in order to reinvent the basic classroom as an exciting world full of hands-on experiential learning.
In the fall of 1995, as a member of Penn State's Schreyer Institute for Innovations in Learning, I transformed my classroom into a Political Science laboratory where the emphasis was on experiments. We experimented with democracy - both the structure and the process.
Basically, I redesigned and retooled my classes to revolve around extensive use of educational simulations, which deal with various phases of the political and governmental process. These simulations provide intensive, hands-on experiential learning whereby students learn by doing. They transport the students from the classroom to the virtual reality of foreign policy, a presidential election, a hostage crisis, a police patrol, a criminal courtroom, etc.
II. INITIAL OBSERVATIONS
As I reflect on the year there are several initial observations:
I have never seen such intensive and enthusiastic involvement among so many students for such a long time. There were times where they were actually chomping at the bit - ready to unleash their minds and their enthusiasm on the next simulation.
The competition between the groups (teams) and the cooperation within each group produced a synergistic effect that increased the enthusiastic involvement and the skill level of the students.
The synergism that emerged was simply beautiful. The high interest students, like a rising tide, raised the interest of students with less interest. The same phenomenon occurred with the high and low achievers. The students simply taught each other.
I am almost in a state of awe over the amount of learning that took place. The huge amount of outside preparation that several of the students undertook was extremely impressive.
I know I will never forget the presentations in our trial "The Court-Martial of William Calley." I attribute this to the synergistic effect of the competition between groups and the camaraderie that developed within each group. This effect was most noticeable when a male vs. female grouping emerged.
The lessons of teamwork, discipline, team spirit, cooperation, sacrificing individual goals for the good of the team, and leadership belong in the classroom - as well as at football, basketball, or baseball practice. Students flourish on this competition. This reinforced my hunch that all students, not merely the athletes, need to experience the virtues "learned on the playing fields of Eton."
This is another phenomena that really became obvious this semester. There is no reason why the only "healthy competition" has to exist on the playing fields. This sense of competition again contributes to the class synergism.
Be sure to note when students get highly involved, prepare for the unexpected:
a. A group of students were making a video on the 4th amendment rights. The scenario involved a driver being apprehended by the police, who proceeded to violate his rights and used excessive force. In our case, the driver was an African-American. The students wanted to emphasize realism so they staged and filmed the event on a city street. This generated over ten calls to the city police department. (LESSON LEARNED - film on campus!)
b. An argument over an incident in a simulation deteriorated into a scuffle in the hallway. There will be tension and there will be conflict when the students get highly involved. They're going to want to beat the other team. They need and want to experience "the agony of defeat and the ecstasy of victory." We short-change them if we do not give them this opportunity. These simulations are applicable to distance learning. The magic of the computer enables us to have classes at different campuses competing against each other in a simulation, "Bullets and Ballots," for example, (just like Penn State vs. Notre Dame in football) via picture-telephone and e-mail negotiations. What an exciting experience!
I have never been so excited about teaching since I first picked up a piece of chalk in 1963 as a Peach Corps volunteer. I can honestly say that the students got more out of the course than any others that I have ever taught. This has caused a complete change in my role as a teacher. Instead of an instructor and discussion leader, my role became that of a manager, mentor, and coach.
I am now firmly committed to the use of simulations in the classroom. They involve action and behavior rather than just the acquisition of facts. They allow students to study processes instead of events. In a simulation, students explore and test new ideas; they discover what happens when principles are applied to a situation, rather than merely learning about a set of specific facts and principles. Students become active and creative participants in the learning process. For a complete list of simulations that may be used in the Political Science Laboratory, see Appendix I.
For instance, simulations are more than a single learning experience; they are an introduction to a new tool for research; they are a lesson in life itself:
Simulations encourage and require imaginative thinking rather than rote learning.
Simulations give students experience in decision making, and allow them to quickly see the consequences of their decisions.
Students become explorers who create and follow their own hypotheses rather than mere observers reading what other people have done.
Learning becomes student-centered rather than teacher-centered.
Simulations are particularly appropriate when the inquiry process assumes that knowledge is cumulative and constantly expanding.
Simulations fit easily into interdisciplinary learning.
Simulation games, because of their intrinsic dual purposes of expanding knowledge and providing fun, provoke interest in learning about many subjects because of the rewards of "directed play." (SIM CITY 2000 by Maxis, Walnut Creek, CA.)
The words of Benjamin Disraeli never rang more true, "Experience is the child of Thought and Thought is the child of Action. We cannot learn (leadership) from books."
III. THE STUDY
In early Spring of 1996, I arranged for Penn State's Instructional Systems Program in the "Learning Systems Design Workshop" to evaluate the effectiveness of the non-traditional methods that I have implemented in my classes. The survey was developed and conducted by the Learning Systems Design Team to evaluate the impact these changes have had on student's attitudes and learning. My goals were the following:
1. Get students more involved in politics and society.
2. Increase communication skills.
3. Increase understanding of the political and governmental process.
4. Improve ability to function effectively as a member of team.
5. Increase self image and confidence.
6. Improve problem solving abilities.
7. Enable them to retain much more of what they have learned.
In late Spring of 1996. the Learning Systems Design team (led by Dr. Kyle Peck) and the Schreyer Institute for Innovations in Learning (led by Dr. Larry Spence) conducted the survey in my Political Science 1 class and classes at two different commonwealth campuses.
Berks Campus, Altoona Campus, and York Campus Political Science 1 students participated in this study. York Campus students learned the material for the course using a variety of techniques, of which simulations comprised a major segment.
The study consisted of several tasks: a survey asking for qualitative information regarding their impressions, attitudes, and habits in relation to this course and its broader sociological impact; a concept mapping task intended to capture the depth of understanding and the nature of the organized knowledge structures of students in Political Science 1; and an open-ended problem solving task consisting of an essay asking students to take a stand on an issue and formulate a plan to persuade others to adopt that plan. See Appendix II for the survey. Students at all three campuses completed all tasks during a regularly scheduled class session. Data collection occurred during the same week of the semester for all classes.
After careful analysis of the data, developed and prepared by the Learning Systems Design team, it is fairly obvious that the study produced mixed results, but was nevertheless successful. Of the seven major goals, five produced statistically significant positive responses using the Chi-Square test. The goals were:
*1. Get students more involved in politics and society.
*2. Increase communication skills.
*3. Increase understanding of the political and governmental process.
*4. Improve ability to function effectively as a member of a team.
*5. Increase self image and confidence.
*6. Improve problem solving abilities.
*7. Enable them to retain much more of what they have learned.
(* Indicates a statistically significant difference in favor of the York students.)
GOAL #1. Get students more involved in politics and society.
*There was a statically significant difference on the question, "I believe voting is important." Class membership influences the belief that voting is important. The control group (students at other campuses) disagreed that voting was important, whereas Penn State York students strongly agreed - 100% of the Penn State York students answered in the upper half of the intensity scale.
*On (Q 20), "I am involved in volunteer work in my community," the Penn State York students overwhelmingly responded in the upper half of the intensity scale 80%-20%. This is attributable to the "service learning" component that also was implemented in the 1995-96 experimental year.
There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups of students on the following related items:
Q1. Before this course, I was interested in what's going on politically.
Q2. Because of this course, I'm more interested in what's going on politically.
Q3. Because of this course, I'm more aware of what's going on politically.
Q4. I believe I can influence the political process.
Q21. I watch the news on TV.
There is a very interesting phenomenon here that was not statistically examined by the research team, but merits subsequent evaluation in future analyses. I call this "the modified halo effect." The survey questions that produced no significant difference primarily dealt with assessment of the individual's attitudes or actions. Whereas, on questions calling for an observation of classmates's attitudes or action, there are statistically significant differences. This effect becomes much more obvious on the goals dealing with communication skills, functioning as a team, and increasing self image and confidence.
GOAL #2. Increase communication skills
*The statement (Q8), "I saw other students develop communication skills because of this course," produced significant differences. Students at York agreed that this course helped other students develop communication skills. The control students disagreed that this course helped other students develop communication skills. Class membership does influence beliefs about seeing other students develop communication skills.
There was no significant difference on (Q7), "This course helped develop my communication skills: listening, speaking, writing."
GOAL #4. Improve ability to function effectively as a member of a team.
*"This course helped develop my ability to work as an effective member of a team," (Q5) produced a statistically significant difference. The York students agreed that the course helped develop the ability to work as an effective team member. The control classes disagreed that the course helped them develop the ability to work as an effective team member.
*(Q6) also produced a statistically significant difference on the statement, "I saw other students develop teamwork skills because of this course." It became obvious that class membership influenced beliefs about an ability to observe others develop teamwork skills. York students agreed that the course enabled them to see others develop teamwork skills; whereas the control classes disagreed.
These results may be attributable to the extensive emphasis on the principles of "active learning and collaborative learning" at Penn State York which are the goals of the Schreyer Institute for Innovations in Learning:
*Active learning is the goal. It emphasizes student responsibility. Active learning emphasizes advanced cognitive skills rather than the recall of basic facts and a devotion of life-long learning over one-time mastery. It moves beyond the theories of the textbook to the adventurous and risky business of using knowledge.
*Collaborative learning is the means. It emphasizes cooperative intellectual work among students in decision making, problem solving, research and analysis. Collaborative learning refers to demanding academic work that students do in groups, in or out of the classroom. The main activity is interaction. Students interact not merely to express their views but to justify, modify, and clarify their ideas.
It is expected that the classes at the other campuses were conducted in a more traditional method without the emphasis on active learning and collaborative learning.
GOAL #5. Increase self image and confidence.
*There were statistically significant differences on the statements, "This course helped me develop confidence." (Q9). and "I saw other students develop confidence because of this course" (Q10).
The York students agreed that the course helped other students develop confidence. The control group disagreed that the course helped other students develop confidence. The control group disagreed that the course helped them develop confidence and that the course helped other students develop confidence. All of these findings indicate rather strongly that class membership influences beliefs about developing confidence.
On related statements, there were no significant differences on (Q11) and (Q12) respectively: "Because of this course, I realize that I have leadership qualities," and "During this course, I found that other people will listen to my ideas."
GOAL #7. Enable them to retain more of what they have learned.
*(Q35) "I believe that because of the way this course is taught I will remember the content" produced a statistically significant difference. The responses indicated that class membership influences belief about remembering the content of the course. The control students disagreed with the idea that because of the way the course is taught they would remember the content. It should also be emphasized that 100% of the York students answered in the upper half of the intensity scale.
*(Q37) "The professor in this course has an interesting job," also produced a significant difference. It indicates that class membership influences the belief that the professor has an interesting job, as the control students disagreed that their professor has an interesting job.
Although not directly indicated or examined, it must be expected that a belief that the professor has an interesting job equates with interest in the material and the class activities. I am a strong believer that the extent of interest in a topic correlates directly with the retention of information about the topic.
*Regarding workload, (Q40) "Compared to other courses, the workload in this course was...(much easier to much heavier)," there was a significant difference in favor of the York students. The control students believed the workload was less than or the same as other courses; whereas, the York students believed that the workload was more than other courses. One student commented that she had more writing to do in this course than in her writing intensive class.
*Simultaneously, there was a significant relation between class membership and belief about the quality of the course. In (Q41), "Compared to other courses I've taken, this course was...(much worse to much better)." The control students believed that this course was worse than other courses they have taken. One hundred percent of the York students answered in the upper half of the intensity scale that the class was better than other courses.
There were no significant differences on these related questions:
(Q36) This course is about more than political science, it's about life.
(Q38) I'd like to take more classes that are organized in this way.
(Q39) How much time did you spend outside of class on an average week?
GOAL #3. Increase understanding of the political and governmental process.
To test the effects of the simulation class and traditional classes on the student's depth of understanding of the content, a concept mapping task was constructed that is titled "U.S. Government." The students were scored according to the number of concepts indicated and the relationship among concepts, indicative of the sophistication of a student's organized knowledge structure. No significant difference was indicated between the two groups.
GOAL #6. Improve problem solving abilities.
To test the difference between the innovative simulations class and the traditional classes on the students' problem solving abilities within a particular domain, the students were asked to respond to an open-ended essay question. The task given to the students was the "Speed Limit Problem." The students were evaluated according to a set of rubrics developed specifically to meet the directions and assumptions of the task. No significant difference was indicated between the groups.
It is clear that the concept mapping and problem solving phases of the study produced no significant differences in relation to the goals of increased understanding and increased problem solving. These results, however, seem to be strongly contradicted by the questions on the "breadth of awareness of political issues." Short answer questions were designed to assess students' perceptions on political processes. Students were simply asked, "In your opinion what are the most important political issues?" and "Politicians make decisions based on..."
Even though this wasn't statistically evaluated, the Penn State York students overwhelmingly demonstrated a greater awareness of the many diverse political issues and an even greater awareness of the factors influencing politicians' decisions. On these same questions, the York students identified 37 different issues, almost twice as many as the 20 generated by the control group. When the frequency of identification was included, the York students generated 75 separate responses to only 41 by the control group.
TABLE A. RECOGNITION OF POLITICAL ISSUES
YORK CONTROL GROUP
Number of Responses 37 20
Frequency of Responses 75 41
The members of the Learning Systems Design team concluded, "Students in the simulation class raised a variety of issues that appear to be more specific and in some cases more critical." They certainly indicate a much greater awareness of the factors influencing the decisions of actors in the political sphere.
On the political decisions questions, the York group identified 32 factors that could influence a politician's decision, whereas the control group could only identify seven factors. The difference in perception becomes even more remarkable when the frequency of identification was included. The York students generated 49 separate responses to only 11 by the control group. This is four times as many in both cases. The difference is vividly illustrated in the following table.
TABLE B. FACTORS INFLUENCING A POLITICIAN'S DECISIONS
YORK CONTROL GROUP
Number of Responses 32 7
Frequency of Responses 49 11
I would contend that these responses indicate a much deeper understanding and, possibly, better problem solving skills on the part of the York students than the control group. Because there was such an overwhelming difference on these questions, future studies are needed to determine if these types of questions do indeed demonstrate better understanding and problem solving abilities. Obviously, this is a dimension that begs for further analysis.
Finally, the study focused on students' preferences for certain classroom activities. They were asked to rank order the following different learning activities:
Discussions, E-mail, Lectures, Movies, Papers, Reading, Simulations, Volunteer work
On the question "how well you liked the different activities in the class," the responses were:
TABLE C: RANK ORDER OF TOP THREE FAVORITE LEARNING ACTIVITIES
YORK CONTROL GROUP
1 Simulations Discussions
2 Volunteer Work Lectures
3 Discussions Readings
On the question "how important were they to your learning," the results were:
TABLE D: RANK ORDER OF TOP THREE MOST IMPORTANT LEARNING ACTIVITIES
YORK CONTROL GROUP
1 Simulations Discussions
2 Lectures Lectures
3 Discussions Readings
It is obvious that the York students not only enjoyed the simulation approach, but, most significantly, also believed it best contributed to their learning. On a range of questions (Q24-Q34) designed to assess students' perceptions of the simulation activities, the students evaluated the simulations in the upper half (agree-strongly agree) on a range of 86%-95%. The range of responses in the two highest categories was 50%-82%. These questions included all of the above survey items, such as liking the simulations, being challenged to think, getting to know other students, working in groups, understanding the course, and developing the following skills:
conflict resolution decision making
communication leadership
problem solving
Interestingly, the four areas that the York students rank the highest (90%+ in the top three categories) were:
understanding of course content
problem solving skills
communication skills
challenged to think
As these students obviously perceived an increase in their ability to understand the material and an increase in their problem solving skills, this further substantiates the need for additional analysis and possibly more varied means of measuring the variables of understanding and problem solving skills.
See Appendix III for the Results of the '96 Survey.
The study confirms my confidence and belief in students and even in democracy. Give the students (and/or the people) the responsibility, the freedom, and the opportunity, and they will produce. This is particularly true if they have the enthusiasm for the subject and confidence in themselves.
IV. AFTERMATH
The success of the Political Science Laboratory led to the following significant developments:
I was invited to make a presentation on active learning and collaborative learning at Penn State's "President's Colloquy" in May '96.
I am conducting a special Innovative Learning project, whereby I conduct 2-3 hour programs using my simulations in 10-15 area high schools each semester. This serves the dual purpose of introducing the concepts of active learning and collaborative learning to the high school students and hopefully recruiting them as future Penn State students.
The experiment in distance learning was conducted with Dr. Chris Carney's class at Penn State Worthington-Scranton in the Spring semesters '96 and '97. The project involved the simulation Bullets and Ballots. The students at both campuses were divided into adversarial groups. All negotiations were conducted via e-mail and the four formal negotiation sessions were conducted via PictureTel. This project will be replicated during the Spring semester '98.
I have been appointed to Project Vision II. My Political Science 1 class for the Spring semester '97 was structured as an electronic Political Science Laboratory featuring extensive use of interactive CD-ROM simulations, an interactive electronic textbook and other computer simulations. Featured simulations include:
- The Doonesbury Election Game combines the realism of a political campaign with the familiar characters from the Doonesbury comic strip.
- Capitol Hill is an incredible interactive experience that turns you into a power politician.
- First Degree involves a sensational murder with you as the prosecuting attorney.
Other computer simulations include: Decisions...Decisions - Prejudice, Decisions...Decisions - Political Campaigns, Uncle Sam's Budget Balancer, The American Government Simulation Series (8 case studies), and Sim City 2000. Conventional simulations will also be utilized where all negotiations will be conducted via e-mail. For a complete description of all simulations, see Appendix IV.
I was invited to have an exhibit on my approach at Penn State's Continuous Quality Institute (CQI) Expo '97 in April, 1997.
I was selected by the Hugh O'Brian Youth (HOBY) Foundation to conduct the leadership training segment, featuring one of my simulations, at the annual convention for 230 high school students in central Pennsylvania in 1997.
The evaluation of my experiment by Penn State's Schreyer Institute for Innovations in Learning and the Learning Systems Design team will be continued during future semesters. Additionally, I will work with the Learning Systems Design team to experiment with the process of "concept mapping" as an instructional method, as well as an evaluative tool.
I plan to continue experiments in distance learning. An effort will be made to conduct the VOTES simulation involving several CES campuses via e-mail and PictureTel.
(NOTE: A special thanks for this study is due Dr. Larry Spence and Candy of the Schreyer Institute for Innovations in Learning and Dr. Kyle Peck, Namsoo, and Jane of the Learning Systems Design team.)