Symposium

Welcome to the 2006 International Society for Plant Pathology Teaching Symposium Archive

On-line from May 15th to June 4th, 2006

 

About the Symposium

This ISPP symposium was an opportunity for plant pathology teachers, no matter where they were in the world, to share their ideas, tips and techniques.

Each week as indicated, the papers listed were made available for viewing and discussion. Also a weekly forum was opened on the topics indicated. At the end of each week, discussion closed and a new set of papers and a new forum went live.

The symposium is now closed but will remain at this address as an archive for the foreseeable future. You are welcome to read the papers and the (now read-only) discussion. Please be aware that URLS listed in the papers or discussion were current at the time of the symposium, but these may, over time, become broken. However, an email to the author or contributor should point you to any updates.


Official Time Zone

Dates and times during the Symposium were in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The time and date stamped next to a contribution in the paper discussions or forums is in GMT.


Relationships Between Students’ Learning Styles and Their Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Different Instructional Formats and Media

Cleora J. D’Arcy and Darin M. Eastburn
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
USA

Introduction

Students in our undergraduate general education course, Plant Pathology 200 (PLPA 200) “Plants, Pathogens, and People”, come from a variety of non-science and science majors. To address students’ diversity in learning styles, we present material using multiple instructional formats and types of media. The goal of this research project is to determine if students of all learning styles are provided adequate opportunities to master the subject material. 

Materials and Methods

For four semesters, students in PLPA 200 completed a learning style inventory and a survey on preferred formats and media for learning.

The Gregorc Style Delineator (www.gregorc.com) uses two scales that measure how students perceive information (concrete → abstract) and how they organize it (sequential → random) to define four learning styles: abstract-random (AR), abstract-sequential (AS), concrete-random (CR), and concrete-sequential (CS).

A survey of the effectiveness of nineteen formats and media used for instruction in PLPA 200 was conducted (see table in Results). The rating scale was from 1 = totally ineffective to 5 = highly effective. For the frequency analyses, ratings of 1+2 = ineffective, 3 = neutral, and 4+5 = effective. A format or medium was classified as effective when ≥ 2/3 of the participants in a learning style group rated it effective (4 or 5).

Focus groups of 3-7 students were conducted by graduate assistants to provide insight into the quantitative results.

Results

Over four semesters the preferred learning styles of 215 students were 65 AR, 70 AS, 82 CR, and 131 CS.

Frequency Analysis (Table 1.)
  1. Fourteen formats/media were effective for at least one learning style group in at least one semester: lecture, handouts, chalkboard notes, overheads, PowerPoint slides, color slides, videotapes, class discussion, I-Clicker, review grids, outside class writing, PPP web site images, on-line quizzes, PowerPoint notes.

  2. Eight formats/media were effective for each of the four learning style groups in at least one semester: lecture, chalkboard notes, overheads, PowerPoint slides, I-Clicker, review grids, on-line quizzes, PowerPoint notes.

  3. Only one instructional tool, the textbook, was rated ineffective (one semester by AR and one by CR).

Table 1. Number of semesters/total semesters tested that a format/medium was preferred by each learning style group.


Format/Media
AR
N=65
AS
N=70
CR
N=82
CS
N=131
lecture
3/4
2/4
3/4
3/4
handouts
1/4
   
1/4
chalkboard
1/4
1/4
2/4
1/4
overheads
1/1
1/1
1/1
1/1
PPt slides
3/3
2/3
3/3
3/3
color slides
1/1
 
1/1
 
videotapes
1/4
 
2/4
 
group discussion        
class discussion  
1/4
   
IClicker*
2/2
2/2
1/2
2/2
review grids
2/2
2/2
2/2
2/2
in class writing        
outside writing
3/4
2/4
 
1/4
textbook        
PPP** text        
PPP images  
1/4
1/4
1/4
PPP exercises        
on-line quizzes
4/4
3/4
4/4
3/4
PPt notes
2/4
3/4
3/4
3/4

* personal response device
** Plants, Pathogens, and People web site: www.ppp.uiuc.edu

Selected Focus Group Findings
  1. Student comments focused on formats/media perceived as useful for most learning styles. 
  2. Use of PowerPoint slides and availability of on-line notes made lectures seem more organized and helped students focus attention on lecture presentations. The abundance of images appealed to visual learners.
  3. Use of review grids helped students to organize information better and to “bring it all together”.
  4. Weekly online quizzes encouraged students to study regularly and to stay current with the course material.
  5. I-Clickers were a “fun” way to encourage class participation and to allow students to check their understanding in an anonymous, non-threatening fashion, and helped instructors evaluate student comprehension during lecture.
Conclusion

Use of a variety of instructional formats and media can provide students with different learning styles the opportunity to master a subject. Some formats and media are effective learning tools for students in more than one learning style group. Instructors can change their use of various instructional tools in order to maximize learning by their students.


Date: 15th May, 2006
email: cdarcy@uiuc.edu

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