INSTRUCTIONAL COMPUTING

School of Ed Students Develop Curriculum for HS Math and Science Program at ACF

Brian Murfin

[Ed: Links to web pages and/or e-mail addresses which have become inactive since the publication of this article have been enclosed in curly brackets { }. Replacement links have been provided where possible.]

In the spring of 1996, the first "paperless" class in NYU's School of Education was conducted. The course, Microcomputer Applications in Mathematics and Science Education, was for math and science teachers—mostly graduate students. All course materials were delivered to the students by computer through Web pages, e-mail, and newsgroups (the materials can be viewed at {http://www.nyu.edu/classes/murfin/welcome.html}). All student assignments were also submitted electronically, as text inserted in e-mail, or as mail attachments. A philosophy of learning by doing, along with total technological immersion, influenced the design of the course.

Preparing the Teachers

One of the most important goals of the course was to develop technological awareness and a beginning level of technological literacy to the teachers of science and math. There was very little time devoted to watching someone demonstrate or talk about technology, and very little reading about technology. Instead, hands-on exploration of technology was stressed—individually, with peers, and with the instructor. The instructor's role was to design experiences, to provide starting points, to define prerequisite skills, to troubleshoot, motivate, and provide moral support, and to listen to and learn from the students.

Technological literacy has several components, among which are perseverance, patience, risk-taking, and awareness of commonalities between applications and programs. The students learned by doing, over and over again, and this total immersion in the technology was designed to bring about technological literacy.

The latter can be operationally defined as the ability to sit down at any computer with any program, and, with a minimum of assistance, to function at a basic level. For example, a technologically literate person should be able to use any new wordprocessing program on either a Mac or a Windows machine, and be able to create a document, save it, and print it. Once the students discovered them, the similarities among various applications and resources—locating help, using the Escape and Enter keys, finding tutorials, Readme files, FAQs (files of frequently asked questions, with their answers)—were constantly reinforced. The three Ps of computer learning (patience, persistence, and practice) were repeatedly stressed. The students were also encouraged that, though they might find total immersion in technology painful at first, it should be rewarding once they reached a certain level of expertise and could function independently. Spoon-feeding was avoided, exploration was essential. Collaborative and cooperative learning, peer tutoring, and a low student-to-instructor ratio were also requirement. Computer technology was the sole means of learning about that technology.

Throughout the semester, the NYU students completed many tasks that involved the application of various types of technology in math and science. They created Web pages, which can be found online at {http://www.nyu.edu/education/scied/studentwebs.html}. Many other aspects of the NYU course not included in this article can be found at {http://www.nyu.edu/classes/murfin/whatsnew.html} or {.../paperpres.html}.

Developing a Summer High-School Curriculum

One of the tasks posed was to create a curriculum for the summer program for high-school students sponsored by the School of Education and ACF. Four volunteers from the class—Clay Wollney, Chenai Karimakwenda, Emmanuel Osula, and Laurrie Brinckerhoff—designed a proposal involving math, science, and technology. All four were in-service teachers, some in math, some in science.

There were several goals:

for students to use technology to learn math and science
for students and instructors to learn together
to provide a variety of experiences to accommodate different learning styles and different levels of ability
to provide a supportive environment
to provide training in basic computer skills
to be sure students understand the significance of object-oriented programming
to engender enthusiasm in the students for the use of technology in math and science
to create technologically literate individuals
to create a balanced program where students spend roughly equal amounts of time on and off computers
to expose the students to cutting-edge technology
to have each student create a personal Web page
to have students take part in group projects applying technology in math or science
above all, to make sure that the students and instructors all have an exciting and enjoyable four weeks

Five NYU students who completed the technology course—Jason Appel, Eric Stainrook, and Jennifer Rehn of Math Education; Shindy Jones and Laurrie Brinkerhoff of Science Education—agreed to serve as instructors for the summer program, along with an Americorps student from Stern, Neil Mody. Shirley Hanein, a graduate student in the Department of Teaching and Learning, coordinated the technology aspects of the program.

The NYU students devoted many hours and many meetings to fleshing out the proposed curriculum, and to developing and testing actual lesson plans. The high-school students—and some of their teachers who also joined the summer program—were to spend four weeks, five days a week from nine to five, using technology to learn about math and science.

The Summer Course

First, the high-school students and their teachers were given a basic introduction to technology. After this, wordprocessors, spreadsheets, and databases were introduced through activities that integrated science and mathematics. These activities ranged from analyzing the physics of blowing bubbles in Washington Square Park, to racing toy cars down wooden ramps, to constructing animal databases.

Early on in the program, the students were introduced to the World-Wide Web and told that they would be developing personal and group Web pages related to math and science. The first and last hours of the day were free time, when students could work on their Web pages and check their e-mail. Each day a new technique in Web-page design was introduced until by the end of the program the students were incorporating Java scripts, clickable image maps, frames, and other devices to make their Web pages more interactive. The high-school Web pages are available at http://www.nyu. edu/education/scied/summerwebs.htm .

The students also explored other applications of technology such as videoconferencing using CU-SeeMe, text-based virtual reality, simulation programs such as Stella, Hothouse Planet, SimEarth, and SimLife, specialized math and science software such as Geometer's Sketchpad, MayaMath, Voyage Through the Solar System, Science Dictionaries on CD-ROM, and so forth. The Yorb car, a camera-bearing vehicle controlled remotely through the Internet, was demonstrated to the students by a member of the Center for Interactive Telecommunications. They also explored the use of microcomputer-based labs with the assistance of the Dr. John Halpin of the Chemistry Department. Field trips to the Mediascape exhibit at the SoHo Guggenheim Museum and teacher-student basketball and volleyball games at the Coles Sports and Recreation Center provided breaks in the routine and a change of scene from the computers in the ACF lab at 14 Washington Place.

One tremendous aspect of the summer program was the splendid relationships that developed between the instructors and students. At all times there were six NYU student instructors, six high-school teachers, and twenty-seven high-school students. This allowed all of the students to receive individual attention, and tremendously valuable interaction took place between the secondary school students and their teachers. The experience gave the NYU students a wonderful opportunity to have an extended contact with New York City high-school students in a very supportive environment. By the end of the four weeks, the NYU students had matured into confident, capable teachers with excellent skills in the application of technology in math and science. The high-school teachers were an integral part of the program as they learned along with the students and provided guidance and focus to the several group projects. The high-school students were simply superb; some of their fine work can be seen on their Web pages.

The program began and ended with fun-filled pizza parties, and the most frequent parting comment from the high-school students was that the program was too short and they wished they did not have to leave. The consensus of all participants was that the program was a resounding success. [ C ]

Brian Murfin taught in the School of Education's Department of Teaching and Learning at the time of this article's publication.
{murfin@nyu.edu}

Posted 24 September 1996. Last reviewed 30 November 2005.