Dr ALICE - tutorial software that makes a difference
| Professor Michael Detmold Mrs Bernadette Richards Ms Jenny Richards Faculty of Law Dr Henry Detmold |
Background | Aims | How ALICE works | Evaluation | Contact
Background
There is a tendency for students in tutorial groups to remain passive learners who wait for the 'right' answer, or 'right way' to think about a problem; they expect these to be provided by the teacher. Also, certain students can dominate a live tutorial session, either with legitimate discussion or with waffle, allowing the more reticent to avoid engaging in group discussion. Even when teachers put significant effort into tutorial management, there is a non-educational cost in both time and effort. This effort includes preventing domination by certain students, wandering by waffling students, coaxing shy students (often at the expense of perfectly sound contributions by those who are not shy) and generally keeping the tutorial on topic and schedule.
Other limitations of the conventional tutorial environment include the difficulty for teachers to monitor individual students' understanding (particularly when students will go to great length to avoid exposure), and difficulty of access for some students, particularly those with young families or who are professionally employed.
In March 1999 ALICE (Adelaide Law School Intranet for Collaborative Learning) was introduced into the Law curriculum. ALICE is an online tutorial program that provides students with a series of questions to answer on particular topics. Students type in their answers, reflect on them and edit as much as they like. They then submit their answers for review by other students, and if they wish, can engage in online discussion with other students. Students can continue to edit their answers until they feel satisfied with them, and then reveal the teacher's answers. Students can then compare their well considered answers with the teacher's and reflect further on differences.
The program was developed as a means of providing students with alternative access to study, promoting participation by students who are reluctant to participate in the live tutorial environment, and reinforcing existing teaching (which is through lectures, seminars and tutorials). Students undertaking ALICE tutorials are actively engaged in independent learning. This means they can explore an answer in depth, at their own pace, and then reflect on their answers in light of those written by other students. This ensures that they take their own ideas as far as they can go before seeing the 'right’ answer. It is hoped that by doing this they will consider ideas and learn subject content more deeply and widely through reflection, discussion and argument than they would have through passive learning.
Within the Law School, some subjects have contact time allocated to ALICE, and others recommend use of ALICE as an adjunct to their existing curriculum. ALICE tutorials differ for each topic, and range from problem scenarios, drafting clauses and case analysis. ALICE lends itself to both practising the basics of problem solving and fine-tuning points of law.
- to encourage full, positive engagement of most of the class for most of their learning time;
- to provide students with the opportunity to carefully construct and refine answers without premature intervention by the teacher or other students;
- to provide teachers with the opportunity to monitor student understanding by viewing answers used in online discussion;
- to provide all students with equality of access to high quality curriculum-based interaction.
Aims
Communication is the most critical element of a successful ALICE program. Staff are given introductory tutorials at the beginning of each year where they are guided through ALICE. This is done in a seminar format where both the benefits and flexibility of the system are highlighted.. Students receive an ALICE introductory tutorial for O-week and are kept informed about ALICE on a regular basis through the ALICE website http://rumpole.cs.adelaide.edu.au/law-school/ALICE.html (inactive 14/10/05) and through weekly emails.
The ALICE website contains:
- an ALICE News Bulletin with information on tutorials (updated weekly);
- trouble shooting tips;
- FAQs; and
- the ALICE User Guide, which is also available in hard copy.
Students log into their personalised 'to do list' which contains tutorial-based work that is outstanding. Students use ALICE in two sessions for each tutorial topic:
Session 1
Students select a tutorial and begin by providing their name and a brief introduction. They then answer a series of questions. During Session 1 they are encouraged to discuss issues via the Discussion Forum but are unable to view any other answers. Students can continue to edit their answers until they are ready to submit. Only once they have submitted their answers by clicking on the 'session end' button can they progress to session 2.
Session 2
The student is queued for this session until either a nominated number of students becomes available (this is usually 3) or 24 hours elapses, whichever occurs first Once students are allocated to their 'tutorial group' they are introduced to the other members of the group and given access to each other's answers. They can then compare answers and engage in online discussion with each other. Following this they can each edit their own answers as much as they wish, and then reveal the teacher's response. At this point, the tutorial user can compare her/his answers with the teacher's and can continue to explore answers on the discussion board.
Teachers can monitor answers and discussions, and communicate at any time with students on the discussion board. The actual quality of the student response is never assessed. The fact of substantive participation is sufficient - answers are monitored and checked to ensure that students are not simply entering answers in order to go through the motions and access the teacher response.
Flexibility and adaptability
ALICE can be expanded to meet the individual requirements of courses. For example, in one course, students voted online for an ALICE tutorial question that would be discussed further in a live seminar. In another course, extra sessions were added to facilitate learning of specific skills.
ALICE support staff
A dedicated ALICE tutor is employed by the Law School to write and conduct tutorials, or to advise academic staff who wish to write their own tutorials. An Electronic Resources specialist develops the programme and designs and maintains the website and News Bulletins. Ongoing technical support is provided by the Computer Science Dept.
Participation
In 2000, ALICE was used in Criminal Law, Contract Law, Corporate Law/Associations, Property Law, Legal Skills 11 and Open Systems and Client/Server Computing (from Computer Science). Participation rates ranged from 33% to 87%, with most around 50%. The lowest participation rate occurred where ALICE was not integrated with the teaching of the course and simply sat alongside of the course content. Highest participation occurs when the staff running the course actively encourage ALICE participation and are involved in the setting of the questions. The highest participation rate occurred in courses that allocated 5% of the overall grade to ALICE participation.
There have been approximately 1.9 million "hits" and over 65000 student responses on the ALICE web site since 1999.
In a recent survey when students were asked why they participated in ALICE 60% responded because it was compulsory and over 50% in order to practice answering questions. 40% of respondents said it was for revision and 30% to assist in the learning of the material (students were permitted to give more than one answer). Students therefore participate in the ALICE tutorials for a variety of reasons.
Evaluation
There was between 5% and 13% difference between the credit/distinction and pass/fail ratio for ALICE students in comparison to the subject results overall. In other words, for a particular course the trend for differences between grades in ALICE students is a higher percentage receiving credits and distinction, and a lower percentage receiving passes or fails when compared to the results obtained by the entire cohort for that course.
It has to be acknowledged here that not all students have warmed to the ALICE programme. There are some who resent the change and fail to see value in it. However, not all students warm to the seminar approach either, they simply want to be passive participants in the learning process and wish to be 'educated' not to participate themselves.
Student comments regarding ALICE spread from 'blow it up' right through to positive and supportive. Students acknowledge that it gives them added access to the material and a chance to review what is covered in class. They emphasise that it does not provide any new material - it is a reinforcing process.
Students emphasised the need to synchronise ALICE with course conduct and commented favourably on the continued availability of ALICE throughout the semester and the increased flexibility in learning it provided
All subjects that used ALICE in 2000 have continued to use it in 2001, and Torts and Constitutional Law have just started using it this year.
Although there was much confusion and initial wariness when it was first introduced,
ALICE is now becoming a normal part of the Law School curriculum. The number of subjects using ALICE has increased and coordination has helped enormously to monitor, overcome and often avoid day to day problems.
There appears to be clear evidence, as reflected in their final grades, that using ALICE allows students to develop greater understanding of the subject content.
ph: +61 8 270 6302
email: bernadette.richards@adelaide.edu.au
last updated7/8/01
