…and how to get students to collaborate using annotations!

Since fall semester 2015/16 hypothes.is annotation offers the possibility of public, private and goup-private (introduced later) web annotations to the users of eSkript, our platform for Interactive Lecture material.

This is a follow up to last year’s blog post “eSkript & hypothes.is – Web annotation for our students“. There you can read some info on web annotation and the story on how I started to get interested in these usage numbers.

Web annotation is moving fast, not only at hypothes.is, who has added groups to their functionality and a wonderful dashboard, only to mention two of the many new features, but also, in February 2017, web annotation has become a W3C standard, a web standard! Wow!

So what about that new usage data at ETH Zürich?
(Sept 2015 – March 2016 – March 2017)

Compared to the first year, every data point has increased. Since 2015, annotations have been made on 279 separate days on 308 eSkript URLs. (Bewegungs- und Sportbiomechanik has 35 URLs.) 145 users were active and 17 groups have been created. (Roughly 1’000 students have been exposed to lecture material on eSkript so far.) 4505 annotations have been made!

Of these 4505 annotations:

Group annotations have gained momentum and now reach seven percent of all annotations from almost none. There are fewer public annotations (used to be 10%).

Of these 4505 annotations:

Of these 807 text annotations:

The good news here are the 13% of ‘replies’. This is where collaboration begins.

Over time it looks like this:

Replies (in yellow) were mostly given in August, July and in January, just before the exams, by assistants, I guess.

Before coming back to this, let’s now look at the count of annotations per lecture and exercise material:

Spring semester 2017 has barely begun, and unfortunately the lectures Solid State Physics and Chemistry of Materials I & II are not held this academic year. Philosophische Betrachtungen zur Physik II with 84 annotations (on just one URL) has also just started mid February 2017 and is doing very well, especially because only 43 students are registered in this course.

Of the 84 annotations, 11 are highlights and 73 are text annotations. Of these 73 text annotations:

Do you want to know the secret of how to get almost 40% of collaborative annotations? Use a scenario! Have a look at the eSkript scenarios, especially the one on ‘Working with Texts‘ (new PolyBook link).

PD Dr. Norman Sieroka, who pushed the use of hypothes.is and worked on the scenario for the lecture Philosophische Betrachtungen zur Physik II, gave us feedback after their planned use on one of Plato’s text:

Unsere Studierenden haben im Semesterfeedback sehr positiv auf die Verwendung von Eskript [und hypothes.is] reagiert/geantwortet — sowohl als “Disziplinierung” für sich selbst beim Lesen als auch (und vor allem) als Hilfsmittel, um eine Diskussion von Texten vorzubereiten und Themen zu spezifizieren. Und auch wir [die Dozierenden und Assistierenden] sind von der Qualität und Art der Kommentare positiv überrascht.

Translation (Eng): Our students have responded / reacted very positively to the use of eskript [and hypothes.is] in the semesterfeedback – both as a “discipline” for themselves in reading as well as (and above all) as an aid to prepare a discussion of texts and specify topics. And we [the lecturers and assistants] are also positively surprised by the quality and nature of the comments.

Next year, Dr. N. Sieroka and the lecture’s staff want to expand the use of hypothes.is annotation on other texts.

I want to thank everybody involved and especially congratulate the students who made quite an impression and showed how highly skilled they are! Bravo.

Practical Methods in Tissue Engineering (376-1622-00L)

Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physicochemical factors to improve or replace biological tissues (i.e., bone, cartilage, blood vessels, bladder, skin, muscle, etc.).

At the Institute of Biomechancis at D-HEST, each semester 12 students immerse themselves hands-on into tissue engineering. They learn to use state of the art methods for scaffold production and cell analysis. Dr. Karin Wuertz-Kozak, supported by Prof. Dr. Marcy Zenobi-Wong, teach the laboratory course for 4h per week. Students can earn 5 ECTS, but the didactics allow them to learn much more.

The lecturer’s design of the course’s learning outcomes accentuated four goals:

1. Students are enabled to recognize and compare various 2D and 3D culture systems and choose the most appropriate system for future tissue engineering experiments
2. In the tissue engineering lab, students apply professional standards to work safely and in sterile conditions in a tissue engineering lab
3. Students can apply methods of gene and protein expression analysis, viability detection and mechanical testing to determine the cellular responses and properties of tissue engineered constructs.
4. Finally, students learn and practice how to acquire, critically assess, and evaluate results.

To realize these aims, the lecturers guide the students through experiments in the lab, encourage them to use protocols to independently solve the complex analytical challenges, and even take students on field trips to contextualize their knowledge about tissue engineering with ETH’s academic and industry partners.

Key aspects of the course

• Students perform experiments with state of the art techniques (such as electrospinning, 3D bioprinting and qPCR) that inspire creativity
• Students work on interdisciplinary projects and practice cooperative learning with fellow students that have a different educational background
• Students apply critical thinking by evaluating and discussing their results in the learning controls, by comparing their results to findings in the scientific literature, by explaining differences and by identifying errors/limitations
• Students receive preparation for future (= their master thesis) in all learning controls, but specifically by having to write a project proposal that includes: state of the art, research aims, experimental plan, timetable, budget and relevance (learning control of the lab on electrospinning)
• Students gain extensive hands-on experience that with applicability to current research (small group size, experiments related to ongoing research)
• Students are given the possibility to visit selected laboratories and gain better insights into ongoing research activities
• Students obtain innovative, practical and sustainable safety training by visiting the ETH Safety Parcours and by watching custom-made true/false videos on sterile working environments
• Use of multimedia teaching (all documents are provided electronically on Moodle, including custom-made videos, advance organizer, online entry tests)
• The course has received excellent student evaluations and has thus far been overbooked each semester offered

Advance Organizer of the course:

If you want access to the moodle course, please contact Dr. Karin Wuertz-Kozak.

Evaluation

In the course evaluations, students were extremely positive as can be seen in the picture below. (Overall satisfaction: 4.9 out of 5)

Outstanding work!

(Text by Dr. Erik Jentges, Dr. Karin Wuertz-Kozak and Sarah Frederickx.)

Last year I helped with the redesign of the lecture Corporate Sustainability at D-MTEC. Several teaching innovations were implemented and I would like to share a few of our experiences. Prof. Volker Hoffmann and his team of the Chair of Sustainability and Technology implemented a skills-based approach and emphasized the development of critical thinking. The course unit explored current challenges of corporate sustainability in the business world. Climate change, innovations on renewable energy technologies, and new sustainable business strategies are topics that are related to corporate sustainability and controversially debated. Just think of Volkswagen’s emissions scandal and the consequences it had for the company’s management and you have a pretty good idea about the general theme of the course and its relevance.

The lecture’s three learning objectives were:

1. Students understand the key concepts of corporate sustainability and form learned opinions about them;
2. Students develop a critical thinking disposition on corporate sustainability issues;
3. Students gain confidence to speak up for corporate sustainability in a professional setting.

The lecture aimed at enabling students to become champions for sustainable business practices in their professional careers.

A new course structure with flipped classrooms

The course originally had a classic lecture setting of teaching with PPTs from the front stage with PPTs. The redesign was a complete overhaul and implemented a new structure. The course now has two phases. First a lecture phase, in which key concepts are presented and students can work on e-modules to develop their critical thinking skills, and then a track phase in which flipped classrooms are used to develop group work projects (see figure below for the course structure).

Figure 1 – Course structure

During last year’s lecture phase, Prof. Volker Hoffmann gave an introduction to corporate sustainability through a series of lectures. These inputs addressed one theme each and built a foundation for the group work. In addition, each lecture was supported by an e-module that allowed students to apply the concepts, improve their analytical skills, formulate a purposefully structured and reasoned argument, and conduct anonymous peer reviews to analyze arguments of two fellow students. The e-modules trained students to find creative and innovative solutions and communicate their thoughts clearly through writing a logically structured arguments in six sentences. The new 6SA method was specifically designed for the course.

In the track phase, students participated in one of four tracks that specialized on the lecture’s sessions on assessment, strategy, innovation and technology, and finance. Each track had up to 40 students and was coached by two to three Postdoc and PhD researchers. The teams of four to five students focused on one of the four topics water, energy, mobility, and food (WEMF). All assignments for the teams were designed in such a way that they built up towards the final product and warranted a feasible and fair work load across the tracks. The final products of the group work were presented in a puzzle session at the end of the semester. All students from the four tracks that had worked on the same topic came together to present their projects and thereby assemble four different perspectives on each topic. A final conclusion and reflection session with a guest speaker concluded the course.

Image 1 – Impressions from the course

In the fall semester 2015/16, the lecture had about 160 students from more than a dozen disciplines, ranging from management and economics to engineering and environmental sciences. The diversity of the student body (BA, MA, MAS, and exchange students) was seized as a learning opportunity by ensuring that during the track phase each team represented different study backgrounds. The course’s progress was monitored by a weekly online feedback survey with 10% of the students during the lecture phase and a semester-end evaluation after the track phase.

Overview on Teaching Innovations

The lecture Corporate Sustainability supported the ETH Critical Thinking initiative by implementing several teaching innovations in its new design. The approach focused on the development of students’ critical thinking abilities and the hands-on application of theoretical concepts and analytical tools. The lecture integrated a new course structure and successfully implemented online learning modules with peer review during the lecture phase, group work in flipped classroom sessions during the newly devised track phase, and an innovative group puzzle session to ensure learning across tracks.

The lecture introduced new learning processes and new methods that had been specifically designed to realize the course’s learning objectives on developing critical thinking skills.

In the lecture phase, the learning process was based on the combination from lecture inputs with the critical thinking elements in the e-modules. The key innovation was the 6SA method that Dr. Julian Kölbel and I developed (see also my input at the Refresh Teaching lecture series). 6SA stands for 6 sentence argument and allows students to structure their thinking in a writing exercise. The method channels interactions amongst students through a writing and anonymous peer review process and gives them a secure space to test their arguments and their critical thinking skills.

In a 6SA text, each sentence a specific function for the logic and coherence of the overall argument. The elements are adapted from classical dialectics and critical reasoning in philosophy: #1 introduction, #2 position, #3 supportive reasoning, #4 challenge, #5 rebuttal, #6 conclusion. For the writing and the peer review, seven criteria help students to formulate their argument in consistent structure. The exercise trains students to clarify their position in a short and concise form of 120 words (max. 20 words per sentence) and communicate it in a way that can convince a critical reader.

The learning process in the 6SA method builds on five distinct phases:

Figure 2 – The five phases of the 6SA method

The 6SA method allows students to cultivate their skill in formulating an argument with logical consistency and a high degree of critical reflection. As they become experienced in composing their own argument, they mature as critical reviewers for their peers. After being shown general class performance, creative solutions, and best-in-class examples, they then read the reviews to their own texts. In the last step, students encounter their peer’s reading experience. While students expect appreciation for their thoughts, they are also open for criticism and eager to improve. The last step increases the students’ cognitive maturity and critical thinking disposition. As an incentive to work with the e-modules, students could earn a bonus and replace 10% of their final exam score with their grades from the e-modules. The application, learning progress, and effects of the 6SA method were closely monitored throughout the semester, and our first analysis indicated positive results.

In the track phase, innovation in teaching and learning was integrated in the flipped classrooms and the group puzzle.

In the flipped classrooms, learning took place in the intensively coached sessions and within the teams for the group work. Students were allocated to teams that were formed according to their preferences for a track and a topic (thanks to Urs Braendle LSP/D-USYS for the help!). Each team represented diversity with regard to study backgrounds, gender, age, language competences and cultural backgrounds. Increased diversity created opportunities for interdisciplinary, intercultural, and intergenerational learning processes. A ‘meet & greet’ activity was offered in the first track session to facilitate the teamwork. To create a common understanding on how students wanted to work together, they signed a team commitment that clarified that they shared responsibility for their learning success. It also formed a basis for a high degree of involvement, engagement, motivation, and fun.

The tracks culminated in a group puzzle in which the teams presented their work in different formats. In the assessment track, students prepared a debate in which they questioned and defended a firm’s sustainability performance. They refined first their analytic and then their debating skills. In the strategy track, students applied numerous concepts and tools to prepare a pitch presentation to convince a firm’s management to implement more sustainable business practices to solve specific problems. In the innovation and technology track, students analyzed different models for technology choices that are relevant for companies and presented them in a quiz format. In the finance track, sustainable investment decisions were prepared in 5 minute videos that were of immediate use for investment committees, for example of a pension fund. Each team received one-page assignments that guided students towards their final product and motivated them to be creative and learn with and from each other. The teams continuously integrated advice and feedback from the track coaches.

Lasting and positive impacts of the corporate sustainability lecture at ETH were that students, especially from management and engineering backgrounds, received training in articulating a well-refined position, a skill that is broadly applicable in academic and professional life. They experienced efficient group work and were exposed to presenting their output in different formats. In addition, close interactions in the track phase between students and coaches led to high levels of motivation. The lecture benefited the cooperative atmosphere amongst all involved researchers (professor, postdocs, PhD candidates and educational developer) and has a potential to become an important element to define and strengthen the profile of the SusTec group.

In my conclusion, the lecture on Corporate Sustainability can have a sustainable influence on teaching at ETH and beyond. With regard to training critical thinking, the 6SA method is broadly applicable in various lecture and seminar settings in higher education and makes an innovative use of online learning platforms, in particular the moodle workshop module. Each of the tracks in the flipped classroom phase can be a basis for independent course units. The modular architecture of the course allows adapting the lecture for PhD summer schools and executive classes in continuing education. The redesign of the course was supported by Innovedum (link to the project report here).

For quite some time, I have been working on eSkript, our web platform for interactive lecture material. One part of the interaction is possible through web annotation of the lecture material right there on eSkript.

In fall semester 2015/16 we launched the hypothes.is annotation that offers the possibility of private web annotations. The year before (2014/15), only public annotation had been possible and the students had given us very clear feedback that if private annotation were not possible, this was not to be used! One of the lectures that started was Bewegungs- und Sportbiomechanik with its lecture material on eSkript https://eskript.ethz.ch/bsb.

Here you can see one nice public annotation including a YouTube video.

There were almost no annotations throughout the semester. The stream of annotations for Bewegungs- und Sportbiomechanik only included seven annotations.

There weren’t many public annotations on any other eSkripts. I was worried. What could the reasons be? Especially, because the year before we had had more than a few hundreds on each eSkript. Reasons could be that eSkript and hypothes.is were not properly introduced to the students, that students were not motivated by the lecturers, that students simply disliked it. Another reason could be that the material was just perfect. The year before, all annotations of students — these indicated typos, errors, problem areas and unclear language — had all been implemented into the material. Was the material crystal clear? Already?

I do not have an answer to that question but being so worried, I wrote to hypothes.is and asked for usage data. Have our students been using private annotations? And this is what I got:

On URLs matching eskript.ethz.ch there are 200 public annotations and 1788 private annotations!

I was flabbergasted. Here is some of the data I got from hypohtes.is. Thank you guys!

Since September 2015 annotations have been made on 130 separate days on 137 eSkript URLs. (Bewegungs- und Sportbiomechanik has 35 URLs.) 72 users were active and six groups exist. (Roughly 400 students have been exposed to lecture material on eSkript since fall last year.) 1988 annotations have been made!

Of these 1988 annotations:

Of the 200 public annotations, I’m certain I have written almost 50 myself but I haven’t written 1778 private annotations. 🙂

Here is the count of annotations per lecture:

In sum these are 1853 annotations by roughly 60 students. The remaining 135 annotations are on the eSkript guides (User’s Guide, Author’s Guide) and other small reports (Computer Exams, Best Practice: Interactive Lecture Material). Biomechanik 2 with 212 annotations started mid February 2016 and is still running.

Last but not least, a very peculiar thing showed itself. hypothes.is gives you the possibilities of annotating publicly and privately but also of simple highlighting (without writing any comment to the highlighted text). These highlights are always private. Of the total of 1988 annotations only three (0.2%) are highlights. Why?

Maybe hypothes.is’ highlights do not work properly. (I don’t think so!) Maybe, if the students take the time to select text and are given a field to write their thoughts of the moment, they take this opportunity. Maybe, there is just space to write something down, space we didn’t have in our physical books 20 years ago.

To be continued… 🙂

UPDATE (April 18, 2017): There is a very simple explanation: The data that I got was wrong about the highlights. I got the new data, and in that period of time of these 1988 annotations 337 were text annotations and 1651 were highlights. As anyone would expect.

Prof. Dr. Marcy Zenobi-Wong and I are currently developing a virtual laboratory with Labster on Tissue Engineering. Have a peek here! Before we tell you all about it in my next blogpost, this is Michael, co-founder of Labster, at TEDxCERN:

Mentioned article: Improving biotech education through gamified laboratory simulations, Nature Biotechnology 32, 694-697 (2014).

Manchmal steigern minimale Mittel die Interaktivität und damit die Qualität einer grossen Vorlesung mit Hörsaal-zu-Hörsaal-Übertragung. Durch die Catchbox keine Wiederholung der Studierendenbeiträge oder ein mühsames Herumreichen des Mikrophons; stattdessen spontane, lebhafte und iterative Kommunikation.

Ermöglicht hat dies die zeitnahe Unterstützung der ETHZ-Multimedia-Services:

Im HG haben alle Sender-Hörsäle (für Hörsaal-zu-Hörsaal-Übertragung) eine eigene Catchbox: HG F1 Blau, HG F7 Gelb, ML D28 Orange, zwei weitere sind bestellt (Grün, Purple) — Besten Dank !