I. Introduction
A. Gopher
B. Curriculum plan/Abstract
1. Background about AP exams
2. Purpose/goal of this project
3. Methodology
C. Preliminary survey of students working on the project
1. Beginning knowledge base about computers
2. Beginning knowledge base about the internet/gopher
3. Use of this knowledge to group the students
II. The project
A. Preparation
1. Time spent researching the schools
2. Findings
B. Input (what was sent)
1. Strategy
2. Examples of the students messages
3. Evaluation determining if it was what we expected
C. Problem areas with input level
1. Teacher response/attitude in general
2. Speed of information finding
3. Percentage of students who need help
D. Student responses
1. Attitudes in the lab
2. Attitudes/effects/reflections from journals
E. Output (what was received)
1. Examples of responses
2. Evaluation determining if it was what we expected
F. Problem areas with output level
1. Response rate
2. Percentage of responses
3. Good/helpful contacts or wrong people to talk to
III. Follow up/evaluation
A. Next steps
1. What we will do with the information
2. Who we will make it available to
B. Implications of the project
1. Did the students benefit from it
2. Did the teachers benefit from it
3. Was the purpose/goal met
4. Do the students understand the power of the internet
C. Conclusion
With an increasing demand for computer literacy within society, the education system will need to supply learners with meaningful experiences with technology. With legislative plans such as the national information infrastructure, the educational system will be capable of providing every student with access to the internet, or the information super-highway. In an effort to use the internet for curriculum development and reform, educators will need to create useful projects and activities that will promote the power and resourcefulness of the internet. With networking tools such as gopher and electronic mail, students can use the information super-highway to access databases and contact people from all around the globe. As a result, the classroom opens up from the local scope of the school to the global scope of the entire world. This increased opportunity for communication and knowledge will promote a new direction of computer literacy for the 21st century.
While taking an Advanced Placement (AP) course, many students are not aware of the potential consequences for taking the AP exam. For instance, some universities offer up to 8 semester hours for obtaining a "passing" score on a test, while others will not offer any credit for taking a test. As a result, it may be beneficial for some students to take the advanced placement exam, while a waste of money for others. After analyzing the various factors involved in the decision making process (cost of the exam, getting a "passing" score, obtainable college credit, career pursuits, etc.), students should be capable of deciding whether the AP exam will be a worthwhile experience to prepare for.
The internet provides students with a forum to explore the implications of taking the AP calculus exam. More specifically, with the directory driven tool gopher, students can search through university databases to find valuable information such as electronic mail addresses to key contacts. With an electronic mail address of an administrator or professor, students can find answers to important questions relating to the calculus advanced placement exam. Thus, the primary purpose of this project is for students to use internet tools (such as gopher and electronic mail) to determine the usefulness of taking the AP calculus exam.
Students will use several steps in their internet exploration through gopher. First, students are to choose a university or college which they plan to (or are going to) attend. Then, interest groups of three (same university or college, and diverse backgrounds with computers and the internet) will search through gopher in an effort to find sources and electronic mail addresses of faculty advisors and/or mathematics professors from that university/college. Each group of students will be given a class period to work in the computer lab to access information. While in the lab, students should contact the university via e-mail (sending the instructor a carbon copy). When a response is sent to the student, the result will be forwarded to the instructor in electronic format by late March-early April. Once all of the responses are sent in, the results will be compiled and placed on a gopher and/or a world wide web server for future reference.
Students should consider the following questions when making their inquiry to a specific college or university representative. Can you obtain college credit for taking the AP calculus exam? If so, what score do you need? How much credit can you receive? How much calculus will you need to take in college? Will credit from the AP calculus exam reduce the amount of college mathematics you will need to take? How much money will you (your parents) save in the long run by taking the AP calculus exam? Based on these factors/answers, students will be expected to explain whether or not taking the Advanced Placement calculus exam will benefit their future.
Before beginning the project, students were asked to answer several questions in their journals. The four pieces of information needed for designing groups was (1) the colleges they plan (or would like) to attend, (2) their major/career pursuit, (3) their computer background, and (4) their internet (gopher) background. Based on these factors, students were placed into groups homogeneously according to the first two criteria and heterogenously according to the second two criteria. Consequently, while working in the groups, the students had a common goal and could ask each other questions if they needed help. If a group member could not answer a question, then the teacher provided assistance.
The Project
One of the most important aspects of any project is the preparation that goes into it before any work is actually done. With this project, the preparation was even more important than usual. Once we collected the information about which schools the students were interested in attending, it was vital that we investigate these schools prior to letting the students try to find their contacts by themselves. If the teacher did not know where to get the needed information on each school, then more than likely the students would not be able to find the information either. Thus, the entire project would be pointless if the students could not find contacts at the schools they were interested in pursuing; furthermore, they would have to settle for a contact at a school they did not care about just for the sake of doing the assignment. This is why the preparation time was so important to the success of the project.
As a result of using the diverse students at University High School, the range of colleges varied greatly. Students were interested in schools as large as those in the big ten and as small and private as those like Grinnell. This provided us with a rather large list of schools to investigate. What we discovered was that the larger the school the easier it was to find a contact the students could use. In general, the average amount of time spent on these institutions was about ten minutes. However, the schools like Grinnell, Brown, Rochester, and the ivy league universities demanded a considerable amount of time and effort. These schools averaged around thirty minutes each, with the longest requiring a full hour of work. We were only unsuccessful with two schools as we found no possible contact. Overall, this preparation was good because it expanded our own knowledge and practice with gopher, and it led to the discovery of new methods that were not thought of when designing the project. The overall amount of time that went into the total preparation of the project helped the students get the information they really wanted in a short time frame (one classroom period).
There were a variety of ways in which the students tried to locate their contacts. The first way was to use the gopher directory "phone books at other institutions" and try different terms. For example, they might try the term mathematics in the "name," "department," or "topic" field, depending on the layout of the phone book. Another method, implemented more with the smaller schools, was to actually browse through the gophers of those institutions. This strategy required the students to use a trial-and-error technique as they looked for their contacts. This method took a great deal of time, but usually resulted in at least one contact the student could use. This technique was advantageous because it provided the students with a better understanding of accessing the vast amounts of information that gophers have to offer. Once the students had successfully located a contact at the college or university they wished to attend, the next step required them to send their contact an
e-mail message. In an effort to keep track of these messages and to give us an opportunity to evaluate their performance, we had the students send us carbon copies of their outgoing messages. The following is an example of the messages that were sent. All of these messages can be found in Appendix 1.
__________________________________________________________________
From: dasher@superdec.uni.uiuc.edu (c-butt)
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 10:47:02 -0600
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.3 5/22/91)
To: monzon-lucas@cs.yale.edu
Subject: Calculus AP
Cc: glazer@superdec.uni.uiuc.edu
Hello, my name is David Asher and I am a Junior at University
High School at the University of Illinois. I'm taking Calculus this
year (as well as the AP) and am going to apply to Yale next year. So,
it has been requested to me to make a contact at one of the schools
I will be applying to in order to learn about the school's policy
pertaining to the AP.
1) How much credit does a student receive at Yale for a "5"
on the AP? How about a "4" or a "3"?
2) Will credit from the AP reduce the amount of math a student
has to take at Yale?
3) How much money does taking the AP save a student in the
long run at Yale?
Thank you very much for your time :)
Sincerely, David Asher.
__________________________________________________________________
The criterion that we used to evaluate the students' work is as follows:
Work in Lab--
(2) Team/Partner Work
(2) Ability to use Gopher
(1) Willingness to experiment
-----
(5) Total
Message Sent--
(2) Correct contact
(3) Good questions
(2) Introduction of the project
(2) Clear and understandable
(1) Successfully sent
-----
(10) Total
Extra--
(1) Any response
(2) Good/Helpful response
Total points possible = 15 + extra credit for responses.
Overall, the messages were adequate, but we feel that if we were to do this project again, we might require the students to include more information. Our original purpose was to stay away from giving the students a form letter to send out so that each message would be more personal. However, most of the messages sent focused only on the few questions that we initially provided to the students. There were relatively few students that thoroughly explained the project they were doing and how they came across their contact's e-mail address. These criteria should have probably been explicitly stated so that the contacts would have had an easier time understanding what was asked of them, as well as increased the probability of their responding. Overall, for this being the first attempt at this project, the results were positive and the students seemed to understand what they were doing.
Although it would appear that the project was completely successful at the input level, there are some things to consider before drawing this conclusion. In general, I felt that the majority of the students did not approach the project with enthusiasm, but rather saw it as a time to play on a computer. The backgrounds of the students played an important role here, because those that did not have experience with the internet, specifically gopher, were more willing to watch my examples, ask questions, and learn how to use it. Those that had experience, or at least thought they knew what they were doing, were more likely to start playing around without paying attention to what they were really being asked to do. Some of these students were quite successful, but others just found themselves getting stuck. It was also a bit difficult to monitor all the students because the computer lab was always full; since all of the students were scattered throughout the lab, I found myself demonstrating the same thing more than once to many different students. With a little more organization in a more controlled setting, I feel that the presentation of the project would have run more smoothly; but, in general, there were not too many problems.
Other considerable attributes were the speed at which the students found the information and the percentage of students who needed help. Using gopher requires a considerable amount of patience, especially for this project, because the students had to find specific information. This requirement called for the students to do a lot of trial and error investigating, specifically going through many different gopher menus, or trying many different names in the phone books/directories. As previously mentioned, the larger universities did not pose much of a problem, as the students were able to locate their contacts fairly quickly. But, those looking at smaller, private schools had to do a lot more work. Often, these students were willing to give up easier and wanted to change schools. This is where the preparation had an impact, because I was able to direct them on the right path, so they did not have to give up.
Another problem with information finding on gopher was the varying speeds it took to retrieve directories and perform searches. This timeliness seemed to be a problem with some of the students, but many understood that they could not control a computer thousands of miles away. Overall, there were only a couple of students that were able to complete the assignment without any of our help. For the most part, regardless of their computer/internet backgrounds, many of the students needed some assistance. Many of the students who claimed to have some experience with gopher had to adopt new methods to finding information, analogous to our preparation for the project. At first, it seemed as if the students wanted to be told exactly what to do and where to look, but they eventually got use to gopher and had fun with experimenting and discovering new things.
The last problem with the input level is that we did not initially receive a copy of the letters sent from many students. This may be because those students did not have time to send one during class if they had to spend the entire period just looking for a contact. Regardless, it is difficult to analyze exactly how productive the input level was without examining the students individual time on task. Also, some on the students spent more time trying to find contacts at all of the schools they were interested in so they could write one message and send it to all of the contacts they found. Although this was a positive aspect of the project, it delayed its completion within one class period.
We have recorded 36 messages sent by students to various colleges and universities. 22 of the students received responses, but only fifteen of them could be considered useful. The message was considered useful if the returned message responded to the students question(s) with some information related to the AP calculus examination. Conversely, a non-useful response did not answer the student's question(s). For example, a professor redirected a student to another source of information, such as providing the phone number to the university's admissions office. Some may argue that a phone number is helpful, yet if one of the intentions of the project is to save money on a long distance call, an e-mail address would have been more useful. However, the best information probably would have been a direct answer to the student's initial question(s).
Following the internet aspect of the project, we had the students write journal entries reflecting their work in the lab and their taking the AP calculus exam. In their journals, these students explained their interest of the project, its usefulness, and their interest in gopher and the internet; most importantly, they reflected on the information they obtained to determine whether they plan to take the AP calculus exam. In general, the students wrote that they would need different scores on the exam depending on where they wanted to go to school.
Even though this difference in university standards served as a variable within their decision making process, most students still agreed to take the AP calculus exam. Thus, it is difficult to decide how the responses from the project activity affected their decision making process. If anything, most of the future University of Illinois students realized that they should take the exam due to the relatively attainable standard of a 3 to receive credit for introductory calculus. Conversely, a future University of Chicago student felt hesitant about deciding to take the AP exam when he found out that he needed a 5 on the AP exam for mathematics credit.
Statistically, about forty percent of the students received helpful responses. Considering that these respondents did not know the students personally, this statistic indicates a promising vision for the usefulness of electronic mail and the internet. Though, some may argue that this activity is not useful because sixty percent of the students had to resort to the phone or a catalog to find an answer to their inquiries. Nevertheless, forty percent is better than nothing, which indicates that the internet may not be a perfect tool, but definitely a useful tool for information gathering and communication purposes.
The following message is a representative example of our sample of university responses. Appendix 2 at the end of the paper contains the directory of all of the students' responses.
__________________________________________________________________
From zuckerman-gregg@MATH.YALE.EDU Tue Mar 29 19:21:37 1994
Received: by PASCAL.MATH.YALE.EDU; Tue, 29 Mar 1994 20:21:58 -0500
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 20:21:58 -0500
From: Gregg Zuckerman <zuckerman-gregg@MATH.YALE.EDU>
To: dsohn@superdec.uni.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Calculus AP
Dear Douglas,
If you do well enough on the AP test, you could be awarded one or two
acceleration credits in math. These would only count towards graduation
if you took more advanced courses in math and if you decided to graduate
in under eight semesters. The exact details of this deal can be found
in the Yale Programs of Study (the "blue book.") Typically, you would
need at least a 3 to get one term of acceleration credit, and a 4 to get
two.
We currently have three semesters of calculus at Yale. If you get a
3 or better on the AP, we recommend that you start with second
semester calculus, and if you get a 4 or better, we recommend third
semester. These recommendations go along with what I told you about
acceleration credits.
Good luck with your high school course.
Regards, Gregg Zuckerman
__________________________________________________________________
This specific response appears to be helpful because it answered all of the student's questions. However, some of the responses have been inconclusive. If a student did not receive a response, then he/she sent out a friendly reminder analogous to making a second phone call. Some of the students had to resend their messages to other individuals at their specific college/university in order to obtain an answer to their query.
In the sample of obtained responses, the response rate was approximately one week. The response rate was the time it took for an individual at a college or university to respond to the student's inquiry. When responses arrived within one week's time, students generally found the activity to be worthwhile. However, those who did not receive responses in a short time frame (one week), they did not find this method of interaction very useful. Even though this communication process was free, it took some students a considerable amount of time to obtain a result (as long as three weeks). Thus, in this case, some students decided that it would have been more worthwhile to pay for a phone call or catalog in order to obtain the information more quickly. In our evaluation, we will examine the time and cost relationship when determining the overall quality of the project.
If the college and universities did not respond to the students' messages within a short period of time (one week), they sent follow-up messages to those individuals in an effort to get their question(s) answered. Furthermore, students used the finger command to check and make sure that their correspondent had read his/her mail since the time the original message was sent. If the corespondent had not read his/her mail over the two week period, we asked that the students send their messages to another individual at the university.
The quality of the responses obtained in this communication process were fairly good, close to seventy percent. However, if a student did not receive a response, then he/she did not find this project to be worthwhile. It may be true that a person that did not respond to his/her electronic mail may also not respond to a phone call. Thus, it may not be the communication process, but instead the people involved.
We have determined the quality of the responses by rating them on a four point scale: (4) very helpful, (3) helpful, (2) slightly helpful, and (1) not at all helpful. On average, the overall quality of the students' responses was near 3 (helpful). In general, this scale has helped us determine the people that should and should not be contacted for future reference. University representatives that did not provide students with useful information will be discarded.
With the response rate and the quality of the responses, we have determined that the project was worthwhile and that we would recommend its future use. However, we suggest that teachers contact college/university representatives ahead of time (before the project) in an effort to obtain a higher and more useful response rate.
Follow up/Evaluation
We have compiled all of the responses into one database for the University High School superdec server. This database contains the schools contacted, the necessary scores to obtain credit, and the amount of credit can be obtained. If the project continues in the future, students will be able to add data to the file in an effort to provide a comprehensive listing of colleges and universities.
Any user on the internet will be able to telnet or access this file because it will be located within a gopher menu. As a result, this project can help students all around the country determine whether the AP calculus exam can help their future. All they would need to do is get onto gopher and access the University High School server. As the list becomes more comprehensive, students will not need to spend money on long distance telephone calls to colleges and universities in order to have a simple question answered for free.
This project has a great deal of value, some of which is obvious and some that is not as apparent upon first inspection. First, for instance, the students will have successfully obtained information about the AP calculus exam that will hopefully benefit their collegial pursuits. Many of the students were ambitious enough to contact several schools in order to help decide which school they wanted to attend. As teachers, we found this experience to be rewarding, because we learned a lot about instructing students who have different technological backgrounds. Also, this project
helped expand our knowledge about the gopher system and learn new tricks and techniques to using it.
The most important thing about this project is that all the students have now been introduced to the power of gopher and the internet. This project is only a small portion of what the internet can be used for, and hopefully, students will explore more of its resources. Many of the students asked questions about other gopher applications, and were astonished by its limitless boundaries. If even a few of the students continue to reap the benefits that gopher and the internet have to offer, then this project can be considered a success. We felt that using this project to introduce the internet was a wonderful way to get new computer users hooked on learning more about technological resources. As a result, this will benefit the internet, since more people will get involved by bringing their creative ideas and questions to advance its overall power.
In conclusion, this experience was valuable for us because we found a way to incorporate the internet within a calculus curriculum. Furthermore, this project provided us with a useful and practical scaffold to assist students in their navigation of the internet and information finding. With the knowledge gained in this project, we feel more comfortable in promoting the use of the internet within curriculum development and educational reform. Most importantly, we feel that we provided a forum which promoted important technological literacy which students will be able to use throughout their collegiate and professional experiences.