Extreme Weather
This course provides an introduction to the physics ofextreme weather events. We examine solar eruptions, ice ages, climatechange, monsoons, El Niño, hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves,thunderstorms, lightning, hail, tornados, and other extreme atmospheric eventsto illustrate the basic physical laws that produce these events. Participants are expected to apply these principles to a series of homeworkassignments including hands-on weather forecasting and analysis of stormevents.
Prof. Perry Samson in collaboration with Prof. Ben van der Pluijm
With appropriate 'marketing' this course grew from about 40 students to nearly 200 as its content was of interest to a range of studnets who were required to fulfill a science distruibution requirement. Hand-in-hand with the growth in the class was a desire to embed "Peer Instruction" techniques in the course design and to facilitate expanded student inquiry.
This course also serves as a laboratory for exploring the pitfallsand values of using technology in larger classes. All lectures arestreamed using a QuickTime streaming server(http://samson.engin.umich.edu/class/aoss102/live/) and studentswhether in-class or away participate using an interactive Web 2.0application named LectureTools (http://www.lecturetools.org/). LectureTools, which is being integrated with Sakai using "Simple ToolInteroperability", allows students to take notes synchronized withlecture slides, pose questions to the instructors, indicate theircomfort with the material being presented, draw on the instructor'slecture slides and save and respond to a wider range of question typesthan are available with clickers.
By any measure the use of LectureTools has increased student questioning and student engagement in lecture. LectureTools provides new ways to quiz students during lecture and/or invoke "peer instruction" techniques. The number of questions 'asked' per lecture is an order of magnitude higher using this system than historically received verbally.
Students indicate that LectureTools provides sufficient value above and beyond CTools at the University of Michigan that about 85% bring heir own laptop to lecture voluntarily to participate.
Research in the class has shown that while the students are morelikely to be distracted by the presence of laptop they also reporthigher attentiveness, significantly higher engagement and improved learning.
LectureTools was designed by Prof. Samon with guidance from Ms. Deborah Gibson who previously helped design the University of Michigan web site (http://www.umich.edu). The page is clean and navigation is intuitive.
LectureTools contains sufficient guidance for students and instructors. Over the past year the number of students requesting help with the site has been negligible (<5).
LectureTools expands what Sakai offers as an application for use IN the class. Coupled with web broadcast or podcast technology LectureTools is also valuable as a remediation tool for students away from campus or ill. Moreover the combination of broadcast technology plus LectureTools will provide a mechanism for distance or hybrid learning that can facilitate a broadening of learning to a more distributed and diverse range of students.
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