Hung receives David W. Raymond grant

by Mark McGowan

Wei-Chen Hung, a professor in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment, is the winner of the 2004 David W. Raymond Grant for Use of Technology in Teaching.

Hung will use the $2,500 grant to create the “Action Organizer,” an interactive computer program to help students expertly manage problem-based learning activities. The program also will encourage structured collaboration between classmates while allowing instructors to monitor, evaluate and bolster their progress.

It will reach far beyond current computer-based communication – e-mails and online chatter between classroom partners that merely wonder whether particular assignments are completed – and could set the stage for a larger project with external funding.

“The purpose of problem-based learning is to facilitate students’ metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills,” Hung said. “But students usually don’t know how to solve the problems. They usually just think about them. There’s no tool. This will help them manage the problem and guide them to solving the problem step by step, based on an expert model.”

Students must identify the learning issues each problem presents, along with their thoughts and hypotheses, and plug those factors into the program. Instructors review the entered information and offer feedback along the way, a path that will become structured thanks to the program’s adherence to scientific process.

“Everyone will have to enter a lot of information to promote their critical thinking skills. When an expert thinks about a problem, he or she draws from multiple perspectives to look at the problem assigned to them. This system follows that expert thinking process,” Hung said.

“I’ve been doing problem-based learning for some time, and I see a problem inherent in e-mail and online discussion. They are unorganized,” he added. “Most times, students just use them for confirmation: ‘Have you done this yet? Have you done that yet?’ They don’t really discuss the problem.”

The program is almost done, he said. Informal testing already has begun, and some of his students will conduct the pilot testing next semester. For now, Hung is developing the program only for college students and for local networks.

However, he said, K-12 and Internet-based models could come in later stages: Hung is submitting a grant to the National Science Foundation in hopes of further financial support.

“This grant is a very good start for me. I’m thrilled,” he said. “It gives me the opportunity to put my theory into practice.”

The grant was endowed in 1998 by Raymond, a former NIU trustee who donated $25,000 to the NIU Foundation to fund faculty innovations in computer-aided teaching. The initial gift was invested, with annual interest earnings matched by the Provost’s office, to fund the yearly award to a faculty member whose proposal best matches Raymond’s gift criteria.

12-13-04