When the new UC Merced campus opens its doors in the heart of California in 2004, students transferring from nearby community colleges will already have top-rated UC Berkeley computer science courses under their belt. And they may never have left the San Joaquin Valley.
As part of the Center for Information Technology Research in
the Interest of Society (CITRIS) - a UC Berkeley-led partnership
of four UC schools including Merced - researchers in Berkeley's
College of Engineering and School of Education are changing the
paradigm of distance education to bring highly-rated courses to
community and state schools. The key to UC-WISE (University of
California Web-based Instruction for Science and Engineering)
is that it combines novel tools for online interaction with a
digital "course environment" of course-design rationale, tried-and-true
learning activities, presentations, projects, and assessment techniques.
"Not only do we want to make what we have available, we want it to be easy for instructors to tailor the materials to their own situation," says computer science professor Michael Clancy who, with professor Marcia Linn of the School of Education, leads the project.
Clancy and Linn are collaborating with School of Education research scientist
James Slotta, programmer analyst Greg Pitter, graduate student
Alex Cuthbert, and a team of undergrads to plug an introductory
computer programming course into the new system. The long-term
goal is to use UC-WISE to deliver UC Berkeley's undergraduate
program in Information Technology to the new university. After
what Clancy calls an "alpha test" summer session this year at
UC Berkeley, the initial deployment of UC-WISE will begin by enabling
San Joaquin Valley community colleges to offer UC Berkeley computer
science courses. The courses are intended to satisfy University
of California system credit transfer requirements, an attraction
to prospective UC Merced students.
"With community colleges teaching UC Merced equivalent courses, the students can hit the ground running as sophomores and juniors once the campus opens," Clancy says.
A cousin of the School of Education's original Web-based Inquiry
Science Environment (WISE), UC-WISE consists of three core components:
the Curriculum Builder, the Curriculum Customizer, and the Student
Environment.
The Curriculum Builder contains the core database of the course material including course outlines, activities, and annotated video clips of lectures or special presentations. The instructors use the Customizer to select from these materials and sequence their own path to the course goals.
"In the long term, we're also trying to provide some software
checks so that when an instructor adapts material from our database,
the system will look over his or her shoulder and point out 'you're
assigning this exercise, but you haven�t really laid the groundwork
for it,'" Clancy says.
The final element is the Student Learning Environment, where
private and shared "virtual whiteboards," chats, and discussion
boards enable students to connect with their instructors and each
other at any moment. For example, a professor may consult an online
discussion about a future lecture to hone his or her presentation
to the class'needs or a student may study the archived history
of a class design project.
"One of the goals of CITRIS we would like to address is finding ways to prepare students for the types of collaborative work they will need to succeed in industry," says Alex Cuthbert, a doctoral student in Cognition and Development who is coordinating the initial design and development of UC-WISE.
However, the only way UC-WISE can succeed is if it's used as
a high-tech teacher's aid that dovetails with the efforts of an
attentive and dedicated instructor. No robots need apply. Ultimately,
the researchers explain, the project is inherently a partnership
between the instructors, curriculum designers, and researchers
all of whom work together to integrate the technology into teaching.
"Some of the most highly-rated instructors are high energy,
some are incredibly organized, and some always have instant answers
and drop interesting tidbits of information in along with them,"
Clancy says. "For example, I think that what I add to a course
is not what I stand up and say but the activities I come up with.
We're trying to figure out a way to distill those kinds of talents
to get the best out of everybody."
Overview
of the UC-WISE Project
CITRIS
Michael Clancy's
home page
WISE
