End-user Education and Outreach: Teachers and Students

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End-user Education and Outreach Teachers and
Students

• Maggie Niess, Pejmon Sadri, Kwangho Lee Gogot
  Suharwato
• Science and Mathematics Education
• Oregon State University
• niessm_at_onid.oregonstate.edu

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End-Users Teachers from previous summer

• Followed to the classrooms
• Barriers to teaching about spreadsheet design and
  dependability
• Difficulty handling students with access to
  hands-on use of technology
• Lack of school technical support
• Lack of access to technology - labs used for
  testing (NCLB emphasis)
• Technical requirements when incorporating
  technology
• Lack of problems and ways to integrate into
  curriculum.
• Supports for teaching about spreadsheet design
  and dependability
• School support and encouragement from others such
  as the principal
• Access to computer labs
• More practice working with students and working
  with the technology in mathematical lessons.

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End-users Middle School Girls First Spreadsheet
Experience

• Saturday Academy Hurricane Katrina Problem
• Design playhouses for playgrounds destroyed by
  Hurricane Katrina
• Cost must be within the amount donated 500,000
• How dependable is your spreadsheet?

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What happened in just 2 hours -a quick glimpse!
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What the girls said after the class

• Majority liked working with the hands-on model
  building activity with the spreadsheet lesson.
• None found the spreadsheet work confusing.
• Wanted more work with spreadsheets - where they
  could create the spreadsheets from scratch to
  solve problems.
• They were mixed (half yes-half not sure)
  concerning interest in computer science as a
  career.

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http//oregonstate.edu/dept/sci_mth_education/euse
s/
Focus Curriculum
Focus Teaching students
Follow-up to classroom
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The one week course
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Focus on Designing Problems
Dynamic Linear Function Machine
Wind Frequency
DVD vs. Satellites
MMs Experiment
Number Trick
El Nino and La Nina Impacts on Temperature and
Precipitation
Math Target
San Diego Zoo
Forest Thinning
Airplanes taking off and landing
Solar Panels
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Goals for the Course Spreadsheet Scaffolding,
Teaching Strategies, and Assessing Students

• Design lessons that teach both the
  science/mathematics content and about spreadsheet
  design (dynamic and dependable).
• Use spreadsheets as tool for extending problems
  dynamic spreadsheets require students to learn
  about designing dependable spreadsheets.
• Dont embed values
• Use built in formulas
• Reference cells in formulas
• Understand absolute vs. relative cell referencing

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Teachers Designing Problems to Guide Student
Learning Math/Science With Spreadsheets
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What the teachers said

• I envision integrating spreadsheets throughout
  the school year by starting with some very simple
  ones and then building up the students' skills so
  they can use more and more intricate
  spreadsheets. 
• If it weren't for this program, I wouldn't even
  know what a spreadsheet was! Because of this
  program I now feel like an "expert" within my
  school.  I have been asked to chair the math
  department's integration of spreadsheets for the
  school.  Through using excel last year, I found
  that kids were really excited about math and I
  felt like I gave them a tool that they can use
  for the rest of their life. 
• I feel that I have a stronger understanding of
  how spreadsheets can be applied to lessons in my
  classes.  There were several examples introduced
  throughout the week long course that will help me
  in developing my own lessons.  I especially liked
  the MM lab and have thought of several lessons
  that I relate this to.
• It has provided me with material to use,
  spreadsheets I can use with students to begin
  scaffolding their learning of math to
  spreadsheets.  It demonstrated to me how easy it
  can be to get the spreadsheet to do the basics
  yet it has the power to allow for very complex
  applications.  I think its going to actually be
  easier to integrate my math curriculum with
  spreadsheets than I had earlier thought.
• This program has shown how to use examples that
  are more aligned with student experiences to
  scaffold the stepping stones that reach more
  difficult concepts that may be more unfamiliar to
  students.
•      

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The two-week course

• investigated designing and scaffolding needed to
  incorporate dependable spreadsheets in exploring
  math/science problems
• worked in the EUSES lab with the prototypes
• taught the Harry Potter Saturday Academy class

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Teaching Students about Dynamic and Dependable
Spreadsheets using a Harry Potter Theme
Harry's Wands
Magic Squares
Dynamic MMs
Sorting Hat
Number Tricks
Library at Hogwarts
Vampires
Dynamic Airplanes
One inch tall
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Hermiones Magic Square Problem

• Place the numbers 1-9 in the cells so the sum of
  all rows, columns and diagonals is 15
• Create this spreadsheet
• Emphasis on dynamic spreadsheets
• Entering formulas in cells to do calculations
• Discuss importance of dependable spreadsheets
• Create a 4X4 magic square

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Hogwarts Expansion

• What should the new Hogwarts houses look like?
• Castles?
• Fortresses?

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Emphasizing Testing of Spreadsheets in EUSES Lab

• Explored gradebook spreadsheets, investigating
  the formulas used to do the calculations
• Searched to correct errors in a similar gradebook
  using the WYSIWYT prototype

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(No Transcript)
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Harry Potter Class Website
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New Student Creations
Final Problem!
1. Create the formulas
2. Change the quantities
Pay Attention to this Spending Limit
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Guiding Students Learning About Designing and
Working with Dependable Spreadsheets
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Guiding Students Learning About Designing and
Working with Dependable Spreadsheets
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What the teachers said

• My main vision of implementation is to make
  spreadsheet use an integral part of my lab
  activities.  This will include instruction as
  well as student use.  The resource cards are labs
  that I am already doing, so it will be easy to
  implement spreadsheet instruction from the very
  beginning of the school year.  
• I see the spreadsheets as being much more
  versatile than I realized.  I did not realize the
  dynamic nature of it and how that could be used
  to ask a variety of "what If" questions. This
  makes exploring the math and science much more
  interesting to the students and gives them
  practice in more complex reasoning skills.
• I am really excited to use the spreadsheet tool
  in my classroom.  Telling acomputer what to do
  and seeing it happen right away is empowering.
   I'll takeany opportunity for my students to
  experience instant success with theirscience
  education.  Turning numeric data into visual data
  is so developmentally appropriate for junior high
  kids.  Using spreadsheets to analyze information
  isreally going to work in my classroom!
• This class has made me see that getting
  spreadsheets is something that can bedone with a
  wide variety of lessons.  There are several
  things that I reallywant to do in my class, and
  I feel like I am more equipped with how to
  getstudents up to the skill levels that they
  need.  When using the lab in thepast, I was
  always apprehensive about students abilities with
  the computer, and now I feel more equipped to
  teach them the skills they need.

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So? Whats Next?

• Follow teachers to the classrooms to gather data
  about the teaching with and about spreadsheets
• Creating a Teacher Resource link for the EUSES
  website
• Collaborate around learning spreadsheets and CS
  preparation - with
• Oregon Pre-engineering and Applied Sciences
  Initiative (OPAS)
• Engineering and Technology Industry Council
  (ETIC) Computer Science Task Force
• Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement
  (MESA)
• Presentations AMTE, NCTM, others
• Papers on the research
• Professional development for teachers to learn to
  integrate design of dependable spreadsheets and
  creating dynamic spreadsheets to ask what if
  questions
• Integrating spreadsheet problems in teaching
  mathematics and science
• Case studies of teachers developing TPCK
• Teacher resources for teaching