Award Abstract # 1711837
Collaborative Research: Investigating Student Learning and Sense-Making from Instructional Calculus Videos

NSF Org: DUE
Division Of Undergraduate Education
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS
Initial Amendment Date: May 25, 2017
Latest Amendment Date: May 24, 2022
Award Number: 1711837
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Mike Ferrara
mferrara@nsf.gov
 (703)292-2635
DUE
 Division Of Undergraduate Education
EDU
 Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date: June 1, 2017
End Date: May 31, 2023 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $53,531.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $64,237.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2017 = $53,531.00
FY 2020 = $10,706.00
History of Investigator:
  • Jason Martin (Principal Investigator)
    jasonm@uca.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Central Arkansas
201 DONAGHEY AVE
CONWAY
AR  US  72035-5001
(501)450-5061
Sponsor Congressional District: 02
Primary Place of Performance: University of Central Arkansas
201 Donaghey Ave.
Conway
AR  US  72035-0001
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
02
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): E557HM9TKJ17
Parent UEI: E557HM9TKJ17
NSF Program(s): IUSE
Primary Program Source: 04001718DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04002021DB NSF Education & Human Resource
Program Reference Code(s): 8209, 8244, 9150, 9178
Program Element Code(s): 199800
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.076

ABSTRACT

Calculus is a cornerstone and integral part of college-level science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, yet less than half of all college students who intend to pursue a major in STEM fields succeed in doing so. Educational researchers have found that calculus presents a significant hurdle for these students. To help counter this, over the past few decades, instructors have become increasingly willing to experiment with innovative teaching formats, such as providing students with instructional videos outside of class to promote a more active and engaging learning environment. Despite this increasing popularity, relatively little is known about how students watch and learn from these instructional videos. To help instructors design videos to better promote student learning of mathematics, this project will collect data about how students use, engage with, and learn from calculus videos. Furthermore, this project will investigate the impact that various ways of structuring the video-watching experience has on student learning. In doing so, this project will generate new knowledge about the effectiveness of various implementation methods for instructional videos in supporting students' productive ways of understanding foundational calculus concepts and real-world applications.

This project will contribute to the understanding of how students make sense of and learn calculus from supplementary instructional videos. Project team members will adapt ideas from the fields of information systems and organizational studies to investigate: (1) the ways students interact with video lectures, including how they pause, skip, and re-watch portions of the videos; (2) the aspects of the videos students attend to - and report attending to - as they watch; (3) the ways students make sense of and learn from these videos, and how this relates the other aspects described above; and (4) how various ways of structuring the video-watching experience, such as providing an outline or pre-watching questions, can influence each of these aspects. Data will be obtained from multiple sources, including student responses to mathematical content questions before and after watching videos, timestamps of students' interactions with videos (i.e., playing, pausing, and time-shifting videos), student responses to interview questions as they watch videos, and eye-tracking data collected as students watch videos. The mixed-methods analysis will yield knowledge about the ways students interact with and learn from instructional videos. This investigation into various methods of structuring the video-watching experience will contribute to the field's understanding of how to create and use videos as effective curricular resources and learning tools. In addition, the project will produce research-based guidelines for creating and effectively using instructional calculus videos. By achieving these goals, the research project has the potential to improve the quality of STEM education and, ultimately, contribute to the development of a globally competitive STEM workforce.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Corey, D. and Weinberg, A. and Tallman, M. "Observing intellectual need in online instructional tasks" Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education , 2022 Citation Details
Waters, K. and Martsching, W. and Martin, J. "What are in looking at? Shape thinking and eye-tracking." Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education , 2019 Citation Details
Weinberg, A. and Martin, J. and Tallman, M. "The effects of instructors and student activity in learning from instructional calculus videos" Proceedings of the 43rd annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education , 2021 Citation Details
Weinberg, A. and Thomas, M. and Martin, J. and Tallman, M. "Failing to rewind: Students? learning from instructional videos" Proceedings of the 40th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education , 2018 Citation Details
Weinberg, A. and Tornai, J. and Thomas, M. and Martin, J and Tallman, M. and Newman, K. "Identifying students attentive fidelity for calculus instructional videos." Proceedings of the 41st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education , 2019 Citation Details
Weinberg, Aaron and Corey, Douglas L. and Tallman, Michael and Jones, Steven R. and Martin, Jason "Observing Intellectual Need and its Relationship with Undergraduate Students Learning of Calculus" International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40753-022-00192-x Citation Details

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The growing interest in progressive instructional formats such as "flipped" classrooms as well as the increased use of online modalities to deliver instruction has made instructional videos a prominent component of post-secondary mathematics curricula. However, relatively little is known about how to design video resources to support students' conceptual learning of mathematics, how to support students? productive interactions with videos, and how students learn from watching instructional videos.

To address these significant needs, the NSF-funded project, "Investigating Student Learning and Sense-Making from Instructional Calculus Videos"?also known as The Calculus Videos Project?has created a library of 63 instructional videos covering 35 topics to foster students' conceptual understanding of key ideas in introductory variable calculus. In addition to the videos themselves, the project team has developed a library of tasks that are designed to provoke students? curiosity for each topic, pre- and post-video questions, homework questions, PowerPoint presentations, and additional resources for calculus instructors. These materials have been created following best practices in multimedia design and are grounded in research-based conceptual analyses of the various topics.

The project team conducted iterative design research using a variety of data sources, including data from 33 participating instructors, approximately 2,700 students using our online resources, and 22 students who participated in clinical interviews using eye-tracking technology. Our project has generated new knowledge about how students engage with, make sense of, and learn from videos addressing foundational calculus concepts. In particular, we have generated new knowledge about what students focus on as they watch the instructional videos, how we can provoke students? curiosity, and how various factors influence how students learn from the videos. This research has resulted in our development of theoretical and pragmatic design principles for multimedia instructional resources to support students' conceptual learning of calculus.

Project results have been disseminated to communities of interest through a project website (https://calcvids.org/), YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/calcvidsproject), and a variety of peer-reviewed publications in conference proceedings and academic journals; the videos on YouTube have garnered over 275,000 views. Our creation of modules for Canvas and Blackboard learning management systems has additionally made it easy for instructors to incorporate our materials into their classes. Finally, our project provided sustained professional development experiences to participating faculty that focused on supporting instructors? understanding of the mathematical and theoretical design principles of our calculus videos and advancing their ability to effectively incorporate them into their teaching.

Taken together, the Calculus Videos Project has created and shared valuable resources for calculus instructors to support their students? learning and has also contributed to our knowledge of how students use, think about, and learn from instructional videos.


Last Modified: 09/25/2023
Modified by: Jason Martin

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