Dr. Janet Cherrington-Cucore

MSU, Mankato, URSI Department

Learn-By-Doing Final Report 2001-2002

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report provides results for the Breaking the Town-Gown Barrier Using Technology to Appreciate a College Town’s Cultural and Historical Development Learn-By-Doing project with descriptive data and a final budget analyses.

Breaking the Town-Gown Barrier Using Technology to Appreciate a College Town’s Cultural and Historical Development

Many college campuses are inherently self-contained communities. This phenomenon inadvertently stifles the desire for students to learn more about the cultural, historical and social aspects of the college or university’s host city. This Learn-By-Doing project tested a highly interactive teaching-learning model that combined computer-based technology content for a lower division general education course. The purpose was to give students a more compelling reason to study cities through a field-based walking tour that took learning outside the classroom into the community and synthesized it with personal essays and multi-media presentations.

Learn-By-Doing Model

A two-hour walking tour of downtown Mankato, MN, and an instructor-generated tour booklet allowed students to see important urban changes such as decentralization and the accompanying decline of the central business district, as well as how one city responded to this dilemma with programs of adaptive reuse. Outside the classroom, students reacted to the physical and environmental settings of Mankato, MN, as pedestrians (rather than motorists). They also observed the social environment as they walked through a variety of neighborhoods, parks, and business and government districts.

Course readings encouraged students to pay attention to their mental interpretation of the city so they would develop an individualized appreciation of the imagery and physical surroundings of the city. Students took digital photos of sites they found interesting and used the pictures to illustrate their personal essays. The essay assignment asked students to highlight their impressions of the city historically, culturally, and socially before and after the walking tour of Mankato. In addition, students chose a site (or concept) of particular interest to research and write about it in their essays. Finally, working in small groups, students reviewed their peers’ essays as a way to improve their own writing skills.

The technology component of the Learn-By-Doing project involved scheduling computer labs during class times to teach such skills as photo scanning, presentation software, inserting WAV sound files, and importing digital and web-based photography into PowerPoint. So that each student could have their own computer terminal, the class of 62 was split into two groups. Two lab assistants alternated in assisting the instructor in these “hands-on” labs to insure that students would have individual attention, as needed. Each group had a total of three one-and-a-half hours of lab instruction. Students also completed assignments in each lab meeting to assess skills learned in that particular session. A written survey at the end of the labs assessed student levels of satisfaction with instructional methods and knowledge gained.

An instructor-generated hard copy and online “how to” technology manual provided reinforcement for student lab sessions. Students’ digital photographs were catalogued numerically during the walking tour and later students could access their photos and save them to a floppy disk. Later the class photos were burned to a CD and uploaded to the instructor’s web site for future student use.

To assist the students with their team working skills, the instructor conducted weekly in-class group exercises. Before beginning the group multi-media projects, one class was devoted to discussing the principles of group dynamics. Labs were scheduled during the semester so students could first work on their essays and later on their group multi-media projects. Prior to the last two lab sessions, students were given time to work collaboratively and synthesize their ideas into a group presentation.

By the end of the semester each student had developed a personal essay on their impression of the walking tour and researched a particular site or concept relating to cities. Student groups created their multi-media interpretation of the walking tour experience using PowerPoint software, digital photos, and WAV sound files. Group PowerPoint presentations were given before an audience of class peers who also filled out evaluations ranking “best” projects. The instructor used a standardized grading rubric to evaluate oral presentation skills. Post-semester activities included uploading and linking student essays to the existing “virtual” walking tour of Mankato. Group PowerPoint projects were also uploaded and indexed by topic and student participants.

Findings

Upon completion of this Learn-By-Doing project, students realized they had learned to pay attention to their mental interpretation of cities while simultaneously developing a first-hand, individualized appreciation of Mankato’s specific imagery and physical surroundings through the walking tour. An unexpected outcome of the project was that after walking the environs of Mankato, new freshman, transfers, and international students reported feeling less isolated.

Student essays reflected synthesis of important city planning concepts; recognition of unique geographic, historic and cultural features in Mankato; and a keener spatial orientation of the university’s host community. A comparison of student essay grades, before and after the student peer reviews, revealed significant improvement in communicating effectively in written form. Academically 100 percent of the students improved their original grades.

Group multi-media presentations illustrated increased student familiarity with and sensitivity to social, cultural, and historical venues of the university’s host city. The multi-media presentations also demonstrated that students had become engaged in a type of learning that allowed them to construct their own experience of the host city—an experience that extended beyond the campus borders and beyond theoretical learning. Student projects also illustrated that students had become engaged in a multi-sensory approach to learning. Oral presentations reflected a high level of group interaction, creative use of technology, and good quality public speaking. In terms of student satisfaction: 66 percent reported learning “a lot more or more than usual” compared to a standard lecture class. Finally, 89 percent registered that the Learn-By-Doing project had affected their class attendance positively.

Concept maps completed at the beginning and end of the course reflected increased use of specific words relating course concepts with the city of Mankato and specific animations or drawings of particular city sites. This was further supported by the student survey results, indicating that 71 percent spent 2 to 3 hours and 21 percent 4 to 5 hours out-of-class time on readings, learning technology skills, meeting in small groups, and doing project research. Insofar as working harder in the course, as compared to other courses, 95 percent indicated “strongly agreed to agreed.” A page counter on the virtual walking tour home page (added the year before the project began) registered twice the number of visits. Written student polling during the semester on satisfaction and progress with the project reflected being “very satisfied” with the course. On technology lab learning outcomes, 61 felt the Learn-By-Doing project had been “very helpful to helpful.” More than 92 percent of the students indicated the instructor had frequently asked students what they learned or derived from the course . Another 96 percent reported feeling they understood the goal of the Learn-By-Doing project.

A survey of colleagues at Minnesota State University, Mankato, South Central Technical College, and at other MnSCU institutions (Iteach session participants) was sent in April 2002 to solicit response to the student multi-media presentation projects and provide feedback on the usefulness across disciplines on the instructor’s “how to” technology manual: The instructor is awaiting participant replies.

Conclusion and Recommendations

There is a need both locally and nationally to break down what is known as the Town-Gown syndrome between cities and the colleges or universities located within them. As partners, rather than rivals, a city can benefit from having a college or university located in or nearby it. There are real and measurable benefits to training students to perceive their urban surroundings in different ways. By asking students to walk their environs and create a visual portraits of their urban environment for public dissemination, students demonstrated a better understanding of the relationships traditionally known as “town and gown” and the benefits to communities when partnerships between a city and its full time ,as well as temporary citizens, fuse. In and of itself, this provides a rational for implementing a walking tour into a college or university’s curriculum. The net effect in this instance was a beneficial partnership for the students, the university, and the city of Mankato, MN.

TOWN-GOWN BUDGET REPORT

Description	Budget	Paid YTD	Unexpended Balance
Instructor Stipend (0100)	$1,200.00	Pymt.request attached	$1,200.00
Student Lab Helpers (0910)	1,000.00	$ 974.82	$ 25.18
Equipment/Supplies*(3000)	$2,400.00	$2,441.40	$ <41.40>
Indirect (Admin Overhd) (7501)	$ 368.00	$ 368.00	$ 368.00
Totals	$4,9768.00	$3,784.22	$2,312.96

*The following is a list of equipment purchased:

Sony D8 Camcorder, 2.5”LCD, model 560

D-Link PCI Firewire Card

Sima 37mm UV Lens Protector

2Pk Digital 8/HI8 Camcorder Taps Total $ 574.56

(1) Add’l Sony info Lithium M Camcorder Total $ 59.99

(1) Buslink External CD Burner Total $ 139.59

(1) USB 4-port hub & 10 foot cable Total $ 34.55

(1) Lexmark multi-function scanner & 2 cartridges Total $ 233.98

(2) Sony PC Adapters Total $ 159.98

(2) Sony Digital Camers & (2) 64K memory sticks Total $ 959.96

(2) Digital Camera Lithium batteries/adapter packs Total $ 199.98

(1) Portable Bull Horm and AA battery packs Total $ 73.55

(1) Pack Name tags Total $ 5.26

Total Equipment/Supplies $ 2,33l.40

Town-Gown Evaluation Summary

List of Objectives	Activities Employed	Outcomes
Engage students in learning where they construct their own knowledge of real world	Walking tour and relating textbook concepts to real-world scenarios in essays,	Student interpretations of walking tour in multi-media projects uploaded to World Wide Web.
Engage students in reading & field-based small group exercises.	Weekly field projects relating readings to urban experiences with group analysis and discussion.	Written individual student assignments and completed group summary sheets.
Engage students in multi-sensory learning	Course readings and exams, in-class participation, taking digital photos, doing technology labs.	Personal essays & collaborative work molding them into group multi-media projects.
Engage students in technology that moves textbook learning to “hands-on” assignments.	Technology workshops and lab assignments/	Completed essays with imported digital photos, caption boxes inserted, and applying word-wrap.
Communicate more effectively in written form.	Students peer view essays in class.	Recorded essay grade changes from before peer reviews to after peer reviews: increased A’s 5 to 1 & B’s 2.5 to 1, reduced C’s from 14 to 3, D’s from 9 to 1, F’s from 5 to 0.
Communicate in oral reports what was learned	Oral presentations on walking tour in-class.	Team coordinated group presentations in which all students participated as public speakers.
Develop technology skills in scanning photos, merging them into reports and into PowerPoint presentations.	Completed lab assignments on photo scanning and merging into Word and PowerPoint documents	Student surveys showed technology labs helpful to very helpful to 62% of class.
An appreciation for cultural and historical development of university’s host city.	Essays and PowerPoints with cultural/historical themes and topics	Student surveys showed 52%had greater appreciation.
Think critically/creatively of opportunities & problems of cities in gen’l and of Mankato.	Written field projects critically evaluating urban design concepts and government policies for urban renewal.	Essays and PowerPoints on city urban redesign programs with suggestions that Mankato should consider.
Develop a social & civic responsibility for university’s host community.	Field project to attend and write about a Mankato city council meeting.	Students essays recognizing their role in the community socially and civically.
Compare and contrast a local city with national & global cities.	Field project assignments that compared/contrasted Mankato with other cities.	In-class discussions demonstrating student comparison of global and national cities with Mankato.
Become spatially oriented to the university’s host city.	Field project mapping paths, nodes, districts and landmarks of Mankato	Verbal and student essay reports on finding it “easier” to navigate Mankato.
List of Objectives	Activities Employed	Outcomes
Becoming consumers of more products, services, entertainment, museums, etc. in university’s host city.	No actual measurement	Projection is that students will become more familiar with shops, entertainment, cultural, and historical venues of Mankato.

REFERENCES

Angelo, Thomas and Patricia Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998, pp. 197-202.

Cherrington-Cucore, Janet, “Breaking the Town-Gown Barrier With Multimedia Technology”, Advances in Educational Technologies: Multimedia, WWW, and Distance Education, 2001, Mahbubur Rahman Syed and Val Tareski eds., proceedings of International Conference on Intelligent Multimedia and Distance Education conference, Dover, NH: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 180-186.

Lynch, Kevin, The Image of the City, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology planning professor, Kevin Lynch’s book asks these basic questions. How do people perceive the built environment? What are the underlying elements common to human perception of the city? Lynch’s premise is that armed with a better understanding of how people perceive the city image, urban designers can actually design better cities.

Websites:

http://www.intech.mnsu.edu/cherrington/Tour/TourPages/MankatoTourCover.htm

http://www.intech.mnsu.edu/cherrington/NewTech/HowTo.doc

http://www.intech.mnsu.edu/cherrington/papers.list.htm

http://www.intech.mnsu.edu/cherrington/MultiMediaProject/List.htm

http://www.ci.mankato.mn.us/welcome.php3, click on “Take a Walking Tour of Mankato” link.

APPENDIX

INSTRUCTOR SAMPLE LAB SURVEYS A.1-3

Lab 1

Lab 2

Lab 3

DESCRIPTIVE LAB SURVEY DATA B1-4

Spreadsheet analysis Lab 1

Spreadsheet analysis Lab 2

Spreadsheet analysis Lab 3

Spreadsheet analysis of essay grades before/after peer reviews

EVAULATIONS C1-3

Student/Instructor Essay Peer Review Evaluation/Grade Rubric

Student Multi-Media Peer Review Evaluation

Instructor Multi-Media Oral Presentation Grade Rubric

PROFESSIONAL EVALUATION SERVICES (outside LBD student survey) D1

Learn-By-Doing

Lab #1/essay questionnaire F01

f:L-B-D/lab1survey

Please take time to fill out and return the following evaluation of lab #1.

Technology:

1. Did you attend lab session #1? Yes/No
(circle one)

2. Circle the technology to which you have been exposed to date through lab #1.

a. PC computer/Mac computer b. flatbed scanner

c. MS Office word processing software

d. Importing digital photos e. Importing graphics

f. Inserting caption boxes under photos or graphics

3. Write the corresponding letters above that have been the most useful to you in the development of your written walking tour essay.

the least useful.

4. Did you ask any questions about the technology being taught during this lab? Yes/No
(circle one)

5. Using the corresponding letters above which technology did you question?(do a write-in if none applies)

Learn-By-Doing vs. Standard Class Format:

6. How much have you learned in this Learn-By-Doing project compared to a standard lecture classes previously taken?

7. Has participating in this Learn-By-Doing project impacted positively or negatively on your class attendance in this class? positively/negatively
(circle one)

Writing/cognition:

8. How helpful was participating in “peer reviews” of the essays in improving your writing skills?
very helpful helpful somewhat helpful not helpful
(circle one)

9. What effect has the Learn-By-Doing project had up to and including lab #1, the peer reviews, and writing your essay had on your knowledge of the cultural, historical, and spatial aspect of the university’s host city?

10. Other suggestions or comments about this lab.

Learn-By-Doing

Lab #2/Groups questionnaire F01

f:L-B-D/lab2survey

Please take time to fill out and return the following evaluation of lab #1.

Technology:

11. Did you attend lab session #2? Yes/No
(circle one)

12. Circle the technology to which you have been exposed to date through lab #2.

a. PC computer/Mac computer b. flatbed scanner

c. MS Office PowerPoint (PPt) software in general

d. Importing photos/graphics into PPt. e. Using PPt.slide transitions & timings

f. Designing layouts for PPt slides g. Using PPt presentation design templates

h. Applying animation effects to slides i. Page setups & printing presentation.

j. Setting up the PPt show type. k. Saving the PPt presentation

13. Write the corresponding letters above that have been the most useful to you in the development of your written walking tour essay.

the least useful.

14. Did you ask any questions about the technology being taught during this lab? (circle one) Yes/No

15. Using the corresponding letters above which technology did you question?(do a write-in if none applies)

16. The “How To” manual was:
helpful in preparing for lab helpful during lab will be helpful in future not helpful a
(circle one)

Learn-By-Doing vs. Standard Class Format:

17. How much have you learned in this Learn-By-Doing project compared to a standard lecture classes previously taken?

18. Has participating in this Learn-By-Doing project impacted positively or negatively on your class attendance in this class? positively/negatively
(circle one)

Groups/Multimedia:

19. How helpful were the lectures given on group dynamics in helping you to understand how groups operate?
very helpful helpful somewhat helpful not helpful
(circle one)

20. What effect has the Learn-By-Doing project had up to and including lab #2 had on providing you with the technological tools that allow you to develop your creativity to demonstrate how you envision the university’s host city of Mankato?

21. Other suggestions or comments.

Learn-By-Doing

Lab #3/Groups questionnaire F01

f:L-B-D/lab3survey

Please take time to fill out and return the following evaluation of lab #1.

Technology:

22. Did you attend lab session #3? Yes/No
(circle one)

23. Circle the technology to which you have been exposed to date through lab #2.

a. PC computer/Mac computer b. WAV files

c. MS Office PowerPoint (PPt) software advanced

d. Importing music from a PPt. sound file e. Importing must from the Internet

f. Setting up a folder to save the music h. Saving the PPt & music file together

i. Saving your folder to the desktop & then dropping & dragging it to a zip disk.

24. Write the corresponding letters above that have been the most useful to you in the development of your written walking tour essay.

the least useful.

25. Did you ask any questions about the technology being taught during this lab? (circle one) Yes/No

26. Using the corresponding letters above which technology did you question?(do a write-in if none applies)

27. The “How To” manual was:
helpful in preparing for lab helpful during lab will be helpful in future not helpful a
(circle one)

Learn-By-Doing vs. Standard Class Format:

28. How much have you learned to date in this Learn-By-Doing project compared to a standard lecture class previously taken?

29. Has participating in this Learn-By-Doing project impacted positively or negatively on your class attendance in this class? positively/negatively
(circle one)

Groups/Multimedia:

30. How helpful do you think learning to work in a group will be to you?
very helpful helpful somewhat helpful not helpful
(circle one)

31. What effect has the Learn-By-Doing project had up to and including lab #3 had on providing you with the technological tools that allow your group to develop a project on how you envision the university’s host city of Mankato?
very helpful helpful somewhat helpful not helpful
(circle one)

32. What is the level of satisfaction you have gained from doing the technology lab sessions?
very satisfied satisfied somewhat satisfied not satisfied
(circle one)

33. Other suggestions or comments.