the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 10 Oct 2022
How you teach changes who you reach: understanding the effect of teaching modality on student engagement, content interest, and learning in undergraduate hydrology
Abstract. There is a growing consensus that hydrology education should move towards student-led learning formats and simultaneously incorporate recent hydrologic technologies that reflect workforce expectations. There is a strong theoretical basis that supports an anticipation of improvements in learning outcomes from these shifts in teaching style; however, little empirical evidence has been collected to confirm this success. We measured the classroom impact of shifting between three teaching modalities: 1) instructor-led lectures, 2) student-led hydrologic modeling with the EPA Storm Water Management Model, and 3) student-led design evaluation studios of stormwater best management practices. Educational outcomes were measured with student surveys, direct observation of class activity, and student grades. In aggregate, the student population did not express a significant preference for one modality over another, yet individual students showed dramatic preferences for each modality. The total frequency of interactions between students and the instructor were similar across all three modalities; however, the frequency of student-initiated engagements (both total and unique engagements) significantly increased in both student-led modalities. Variations in student enthusiasm did not correlate with written assessment scores, possibly suggesting that alternating modalities improves interest in hydrologic science and increases perceptions of a positive classroom experience, without changing retention of hydrologic concepts. Our results suggest that multiple teaching modalities should be employed to engage the greatest number of students and generate enthusiasm for hydrology.
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Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-967', Wouter Knoben, 14 Oct 2022
In my opinion this is a thoroughly documented experiment and a well-written paper. The main message that different teaching styles appeal to different students is perhaps not entirely unexpected, but it might still be helpful to those with teaching responsibilities to see that this holds true within a hydrological teaching context.
I do think that a few things can be clarified (see comments in the attached .pdf) and that section 4.2 and 4.3 in the Discussion could use some work. One element that could be added here is a brief discussion of the authors' experience of the benefits and drawbacks of creating materials for these various teaching styles, and touch on the question "is it worth my limited time?" that readers of this paper may be asking themselves.
Kind regards,
Wouter Knoben
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Christine Georgakakos, 03 Jan 2023
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-967', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Nov 2022
This manuscript deals with the important issue of how we best teach hydrology and particularly hydrological modelling. While the presented study certainly might have its value, I am afraid I could not really see this in the presented manuscript. There are no clearly formulated research questions and I found it hard to understand what actually had been done and why. So, after ready the text a few times, I feel more confused. Below are a few of the questions that I struggled with:
The results might be heavily influenced by the temporal sequence of the different ways of teaching. Is the study design with one course with a mixture of teaching approaches really suitable to study the differences of the different teaching approaches?
Were the authors also the teachers? From the text this seems so but I could not see this clearly stated.
The number of participants is low, does this allow drawing conclusions? We all know how variable student populations are and how much the general 'mood' can vary from year to year (often based on a few students who 'set the tone'
What was the return rate of the questionnaires? How many accepted the link to the grades?
The (very good) grades are of course highly influenced by the choice of questions and grading, the numbers alone do not say much
How many questions were there in the questionnaire? Only the five shown in figure 3? I am no expert, but I would assume there are better ways to design questionnaires to get more detailed information.
Overall, there is a need for clarification. However, as far as I understood the manuscript, I am also not convinced that the study has been properly designed.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-967-RC2 - AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Christine Georgakakos, 03 Jan 2023
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RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-967', Anonymous Referee #3, 20 Nov 2022
This is an interesting study that queries whether changing teaching modality impacts student-instructor interactions (really novel, very cool) and student learning. As an instructor, I really liked the emphasis of this study on interactions/questions – I think this is an interesting way to frame an analysis of this type. My only caveat to my comments is that I am not well versed in statistical analyses applied to educational assessments, so I am not able to comment on this part of the paper.
Major comments:
-I’d recommend revising and restructuring the introduction. The introduction has lots of good content, but felt a little disorganized, jumping around between general information and more specific hydrology information. There were also a few ambiguous statements in the introduction that I think could be sharpened (more in minor comments).
-A minor point, but I consider it major, given the focus of the study – the term ‘student led learning’ is introduced in the introduction, but not defined or explained. I think it’s worth adding a few sentences to more clearly define this term and point to key references. This would broaden the introduction of this idea beyond only the ‘flipped classroom’ approach.
-I’d strongly recommend moving Table S3 to the main text – otherwise it isn’t clear from the methods what questions are being used for assessment.
-While very interesting, my main concern is that this is only one year and one class of data. Thus, findings could be specific to those circumstances, and it is hard to say if this outcome would occur in another class and another year. However, I don’t think that means this study should not be published. Instead, I’d encourage a thorough discussion of the limitations of this study in the discussion section.
Minor comments:
Lines 39 – 40: “A recent series of interviews with water resources professionals indicated that graduates lacked critical workforce skills” – Could you add a little more information here? As written, I think this statement could lead to some confusion.
Lines 49-50 aren’t well integrated with the rest of the paragraph, which is about student-led learning – should these ideas come up later? Or could they be better connected to the rest of the paragraph? (Maybe move down to line 71?)
Line 59: What is meant by ‘more relevant material’? Could you be more specific here? Relevant to what and in what context?
Line 83: Another challenge in what respect?
Line 100: 3000-level is institution specific – (my institution uses 300 level, for instance) – could you use another way to contextualize the course level that translates across institutions? Maybe just refer to this as ‘upper level’?
Line 125: ‘on campus’ might be too colloquial – maybe ‘local’?
Line 243: worth looking at interquartile ranges? Did you bring the lower grades up with the shift in teaching modality?
Line 293: should this be ‘reported’?
Line 294 – 296: I like this conclusion
Line 298: have other studies done this? Is this an approach that is used in the educational literature?
Line 310: Yes – I think this is possible. I’ve seen students doing group work divide and conquer on assignments, meaning that they may miss out on learning because they have self-selected to do a portion of the assignment that doesn’t involve “x” activity.
Line 325: References got a little messed up here!
Figure 2: Could you update the legend to have spaces and be written text, not abbreviations?
Figure 3: Is it possible that interest in a career in hydrology merely increased through time, and not as a result of a particular approach to teaching? I don’t think your study design allows you to separate temporal effects (if my assumption that the delivery timeline was lecture -> modeling -> design project), so it may be worth pointing this out (but my assumption may be incorrect).
Figure 4: I love a good figure, but I struggled to see what the authors wanted me to see in this figure. Would there be some way to highlight a key message, or include a number or a few numbers with each graph, or even a summary of the key takeaway message in the caption?
Figure 7: Could be moved to supporting information – I found this the least interesting! It was challenging to see anything in this figure. I also think this figure could be redesigned if you wanted to include it in the paper. For instance, add the question text above each section (so readers aren't flipping back and forth between different parts of the manuscript), and add significance level from the statistical test to each figure.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-967-RC3 - AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Christine Georgakakos, 03 Jan 2023
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-967', Wouter Knoben, 14 Oct 2022
In my opinion this is a thoroughly documented experiment and a well-written paper. The main message that different teaching styles appeal to different students is perhaps not entirely unexpected, but it might still be helpful to those with teaching responsibilities to see that this holds true within a hydrological teaching context.
I do think that a few things can be clarified (see comments in the attached .pdf) and that section 4.2 and 4.3 in the Discussion could use some work. One element that could be added here is a brief discussion of the authors' experience of the benefits and drawbacks of creating materials for these various teaching styles, and touch on the question "is it worth my limited time?" that readers of this paper may be asking themselves.
Kind regards,
Wouter Knoben
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Christine Georgakakos, 03 Jan 2023
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-967', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Nov 2022
This manuscript deals with the important issue of how we best teach hydrology and particularly hydrological modelling. While the presented study certainly might have its value, I am afraid I could not really see this in the presented manuscript. There are no clearly formulated research questions and I found it hard to understand what actually had been done and why. So, after ready the text a few times, I feel more confused. Below are a few of the questions that I struggled with:
The results might be heavily influenced by the temporal sequence of the different ways of teaching. Is the study design with one course with a mixture of teaching approaches really suitable to study the differences of the different teaching approaches?
Were the authors also the teachers? From the text this seems so but I could not see this clearly stated.
The number of participants is low, does this allow drawing conclusions? We all know how variable student populations are and how much the general 'mood' can vary from year to year (often based on a few students who 'set the tone'
What was the return rate of the questionnaires? How many accepted the link to the grades?
The (very good) grades are of course highly influenced by the choice of questions and grading, the numbers alone do not say much
How many questions were there in the questionnaire? Only the five shown in figure 3? I am no expert, but I would assume there are better ways to design questionnaires to get more detailed information.
Overall, there is a need for clarification. However, as far as I understood the manuscript, I am also not convinced that the study has been properly designed.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-967-RC2 - AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Christine Georgakakos, 03 Jan 2023
-
RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-967', Anonymous Referee #3, 20 Nov 2022
This is an interesting study that queries whether changing teaching modality impacts student-instructor interactions (really novel, very cool) and student learning. As an instructor, I really liked the emphasis of this study on interactions/questions – I think this is an interesting way to frame an analysis of this type. My only caveat to my comments is that I am not well versed in statistical analyses applied to educational assessments, so I am not able to comment on this part of the paper.
Major comments:
-I’d recommend revising and restructuring the introduction. The introduction has lots of good content, but felt a little disorganized, jumping around between general information and more specific hydrology information. There were also a few ambiguous statements in the introduction that I think could be sharpened (more in minor comments).
-A minor point, but I consider it major, given the focus of the study – the term ‘student led learning’ is introduced in the introduction, but not defined or explained. I think it’s worth adding a few sentences to more clearly define this term and point to key references. This would broaden the introduction of this idea beyond only the ‘flipped classroom’ approach.
-I’d strongly recommend moving Table S3 to the main text – otherwise it isn’t clear from the methods what questions are being used for assessment.
-While very interesting, my main concern is that this is only one year and one class of data. Thus, findings could be specific to those circumstances, and it is hard to say if this outcome would occur in another class and another year. However, I don’t think that means this study should not be published. Instead, I’d encourage a thorough discussion of the limitations of this study in the discussion section.
Minor comments:
Lines 39 – 40: “A recent series of interviews with water resources professionals indicated that graduates lacked critical workforce skills” – Could you add a little more information here? As written, I think this statement could lead to some confusion.
Lines 49-50 aren’t well integrated with the rest of the paragraph, which is about student-led learning – should these ideas come up later? Or could they be better connected to the rest of the paragraph? (Maybe move down to line 71?)
Line 59: What is meant by ‘more relevant material’? Could you be more specific here? Relevant to what and in what context?
Line 83: Another challenge in what respect?
Line 100: 3000-level is institution specific – (my institution uses 300 level, for instance) – could you use another way to contextualize the course level that translates across institutions? Maybe just refer to this as ‘upper level’?
Line 125: ‘on campus’ might be too colloquial – maybe ‘local’?
Line 243: worth looking at interquartile ranges? Did you bring the lower grades up with the shift in teaching modality?
Line 293: should this be ‘reported’?
Line 294 – 296: I like this conclusion
Line 298: have other studies done this? Is this an approach that is used in the educational literature?
Line 310: Yes – I think this is possible. I’ve seen students doing group work divide and conquer on assignments, meaning that they may miss out on learning because they have self-selected to do a portion of the assignment that doesn’t involve “x” activity.
Line 325: References got a little messed up here!
Figure 2: Could you update the legend to have spaces and be written text, not abbreviations?
Figure 3: Is it possible that interest in a career in hydrology merely increased through time, and not as a result of a particular approach to teaching? I don’t think your study design allows you to separate temporal effects (if my assumption that the delivery timeline was lecture -> modeling -> design project), so it may be worth pointing this out (but my assumption may be incorrect).
Figure 4: I love a good figure, but I struggled to see what the authors wanted me to see in this figure. Would there be some way to highlight a key message, or include a number or a few numbers with each graph, or even a summary of the key takeaway message in the caption?
Figure 7: Could be moved to supporting information – I found this the least interesting! It was challenging to see anything in this figure. I also think this figure could be redesigned if you wanted to include it in the paper. For instance, add the question text above each section (so readers aren't flipping back and forth between different parts of the manuscript), and add significance level from the statistical test to each figure.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-967-RC3 - AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Christine Georgakakos, 03 Jan 2023
Data sets
TAR Survey and Responses: Teaching modality influence on student outcomes Christine Georgakakos & James Knighton https://www.hydroshare.org/resource/1fcbb7cc3d2b4a80946601c626868349/
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