Transforming Learning in Undergraduate STEM Classrooms by Expanding the Collection of Real-Time Formative Assessment Using Low-Cost Pen-Enabled Mobile Technology

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This project is following up on a promising pilot study of pen-enabled mobile computing devices. It expands and investigates an emerging teaching paradigm for formative assessment known as the Tablet Model, in which every student "goes to the blackboard" by using digital ink and free, web-based software to individually respond to open-format questions posed by the instructor. The instructor receives instantaneously a variety of materials digitally (text, diagrams, equations, graphs) and uses these in the same class meeting to focus and clarify student thinking, modify misconceptions, reinforce correct understandings, increase student metacognition, and generally use class time more effectively. This approach is workable even in classrooms with large enrollments. Widespread adoption of the Tablet Model logically requires 1) less expensive avenues of implementation; 2) broader, research-based evidence of its effectiveness in diverse classroom environments; and 3) guidance on best practices. This project is providing substantially more information to meet these needs. This project measures learning gains achieved when using open-format questions with a variety of low-cost pen-enabled mobile computing devices for real-time formative assessment. These gains are compared with gains achieved from using more traditional teaching paradigms. It is also measuring the variable impact on these learning gains of situational factors: STEM discipline, course content, institution type, and student gender and ethnicity. An effort is being made to identify best practices in order to assist adopters. Both laboratory and lecture-based courses are being adapted to this approach -- at both the introductory and advanced undergraduate levels of instruction -- in the disciplines of physics, chemical engineering, and biology. This work is being carried out in an engineering university and a community college.