Using Prezi to design interactive, multi-scale , iterative concept maps in an Earth Materials course Tamara L. Carle

1. Using Prezi to design interactive, multi-scale, iterative concept maps in an Earth Materials course Tamara L. Carley Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN Motivation Geology, like many scientific disciplines, requires learners to explore and understand processes operating on, and features expressed at, dramatically different scales. Success comes with the ability to simultaneously navigate and integrate microscopic (e.g., atomic structure of minerals), macroscopic (e.g., rock hand samples), and megascopic (e.g., magma chambers) views of the natural world. This zoomed‐in/zoomed‐out look at the world can be challenging, often overwhelming, for novices. Effectively providing strategies for organizing, internalizing and synthesizing multi‐scale material can also be challenging for experts. A need to tackle these challenges in the classroom motivated the development of a zooming concept map project using the presentation tool Prezi (prezi.com), a free online resource. Example of Student Work • Evaluating the TAR Project • To evaluate the value of this assignment as an effective tool for teaching and learning, we: • Conducted a voluntary post-semester survey (9 students responded) • Compared Prezi scores with survey responses • Compared students’ Prezi scores with exam scores and final course grade [largely inconclusive results, not shown here] • Results • A few questions and responses selected from the post-semester survey. The number of responses for each answer are shown in [brackets]. • Which of the following applies most to you: • I mostly gathered ideas/information/figures for the Prezi daily/weekly [0] • I mostly gathered ideas/information/figures in one or two sittings [9] • I found Prezi to be accessible and easy to learn and use • Strongly agree [0] • Agree [7] • Disagree [2] • Strongly disagree [0] • Which of the following applies most to you? • I used zoom to convey scale in a physical (micro-macro scale) sense [2] • I used zoom to convey scale in a topic organization sense [4] • Both A and B [3] • Neither A nor B [0] • One of the stated goals of this project was to “…synthesize multi-scale concepts and gain an appreciation of the cohesive ‘big picture’ that makes Earth Materials so interesting.” Do you feel like this goal was met? • No [4] • “I tended to lose track of the forest for the trees” • “I met this goal using my own method of studying” • “It didn’t feel as comprehensive and deep as [the question] makes it sound” • Yes [5] • “Prezi helps me to understand the concepts better. More important, it helps me to get a ‘big picture’ of what Earth Materials is about” • “It made me think about how one topic related to the next…made me look at the whole semester’s contents all at once” • “The zoom technology was beneficial for organizing concepts and micro vs macro scales” • One of the stated goals of this project was to “creatively…understand the structure and composition of the materials that constitute the Earth…and explore how these microscopic features define properties of minerals at the micro and macro scales.” Do you feel like this goal was met? • No [3] • “I learned this goal in class, not in making the Prezi” • Yes [6] • “The zooming levels helped to organize laws and characteristics of minerals.” • Students who responded “yes” to question number fourhad an average combined Prezi score of 9.08, compared to 8.73 for students who responded “no.” • Students who responded “yes” to question number fivehad an average combined Prezi score of 9.32, compared to 8.14 for students who responded “no.” • Teaching as Research Question • This TAR project is designed with a “what is?” approach to teaching and learning.: • What are students learning in Earth Materials? • How is multi-scale information integrated? • What topics and relationships do students identify as important to the “big picture”? • What topics and relationships are weak or missing? • We wanted to develop a semsester-long project that would answer these questions, and believed that the free-form, open-canvas, platform of Prezi would allow students to: • clearly identify topics from lab and lecture that they perceive as important; • creatively synthesize information as they identify relationships between topics presented throughout the semester; • organize and illustrate information in meaningful, multi-scale, ways using text, tables, diagrams, graphs, photos, and videos Project Overview Students were asked to use Prezi (the zooming presentation tool; www.prezi.com) to create a comprehensive, cohesive and organized representation of knowledge gained throughout the course of the semester in the style of an interactive concept map with zooming capabilities. Special emphasis was placed on recognizing and representing the relationships between the micro‐, macro‐and megascopic aspects of Earth Materials. The Prezis were pieced together incrementally (students encouraged to add key information at the end of each lab and lecture session) and iteratively (students encouraged to frequently revisit and add/modify information and relationships). The incremental and iterative approach reinforced that learning is not linear, as students were called upon to frequently recall, reassess, and reevaluate a semester’s worth of material. To ensure continuous progress throughout the semester, students were asked to submit their Prezis three times (corresponding with three regularly scheduled exams), at which time a score and feedback were provided. Screen shots of a fraction of one student’s Prezi (used with permission), starting with (a portion of) a big-picture view of Earth Materials, zooming into crystal structure, and then farther down to specific information about atomic packing schemes that control mineral structure. Each dashed arrow represents a mouse click on a portion of the Prezi canvas to “zoom-in” to the next layer of detail. Note that there are additional comments and figures that act as notes for the student to use for study (or Prezi viewers to use for additional explanation). Educational Setting This project was conducted in the Fall of 2011 in the Earth Materials (i.e., mineralogy) course in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) at Vanderbilt University. The class consisted of 14 students. Of these 14 students: 9 were female and 5 were male; 9 were juniors, 4 were seniors, 1 was a first-year master’s student; the 13 undergraduate students were all EES majors and the 1 graduate student had a background in hydrology. The class met three times each week: twice for lecture (1.5 hours) and once for lab (3 hours). Assessing Student Work Prezis were submitted at three points in the semester, corresponding to three midterm exams. Assessment criteria were different for each submission: First:largely assessed on participation and effort (50%) as students became familiar with Prezi. The remaining 50% was divided between content (major topics identified; 20%), organization (relationships clear to viewer, 15%), and emphasis of scale (use of zoom, scale distinctions 15%). Second: a continuation of the first, building on existing material. Effort and participation (20%), which included addressing feedback from the first submission, and organization (10%) were given less weight, with greater emphasis placed on content (40%), use of zoom to convey meaning (15%), and effective use of visual aids (diagrams, tables, figures; 15%). Third: a continuation of the first two, building on existing material. Less emphasis was placed on effort and participation (10%) and more on visual aspects, with the use of zoom to convey meaning accounting for 20% of the score and visual aids another 20%. Content and organization were weighted the same as in the second Prezi. Special Thanks to Dr. Guil Gualda and his 2011 Earth Materials students for participating in this TAR project; Dr. Calvin Miller for conducting the survey in his 2012 Petrology class; Dr. Derek Bruff and Dr. Milton Cox at the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching for their encouragement and mentorship; my fellow Vanderbilt TAR fellows Margarita Prieto, Mike Myers, and Elizabeth Adolph for their invaluable input. Reflection This project, which need not be geologically-specific, will be implemented again as we found it valuable for teaching and learning the mastery of multi-scale concepts. Improvements and modifications will be made, however, to improve the impact of the project. Specifically, we will ensure that students are adding to the project continuously (daily/weekly), and we will hold a formal Prezi tutorial when the project is introduced. We will also remind students of the big-picture goals of the project more frequently, as students who remembered and recognized the big-picture goals of the project and did not “lose track of the forest for the trees” tended to be more successful. Acknowledgement: CIRTL is funded through the Division of Undergraduate Education of the National Science Foundation (CIRTL; http://cirtl.net/; Award 0717768, 2008-2011).