russ@pyr.gatech.EDU (RUSSELL SHACKELFORD) (05/16/89)
The following is in response to several inquiries I have received over the
net, suggesting that I provide some information about "OPTIMUS, The
Teaching Information System".
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OPTIMUS: Goals
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OPTIMUS integrates Structured Hypertext, Database, Spreadsheet, Text
Processing, Reporting, and Graphic capabilities into a program that supports
EXISTING teaching practices and methods. It was designed explicitly to be
a software package for Professional Educators. The broad goal is to help
the Educator get stronger. It's several specific goals include:
1) Save the Educator time in Grading student work.
2) Increase the Educator's ability to give QUALITY feedback to students.
3) Dramatically increase Data Capture with respect to student performance.
4) Process student performance data to give the Educator instant access to
information necessary for adequate Intervention with students "before
it's too late".
5) Process student performance data to give the Educator instant access to
information about his own Teaching Effectiveness; allow the Educator to
monitor changes in Teaching Effectiveness after modifications to teaching
organization, approach, content, etc.
6) Process student performance data to give the Educator information that
allows effective Strength-Sharing among colleagues.
7) Process student performance data to give the Educator information that
allows effective Problem Identification with respect to Curriculum
Integration.
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OPTIMUS: The Basic Idea
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OPTIMUS provides the Educator with a "processing engine". That is to say,
OPTIMUS does not provide any course-specific data itself. Rather, it is a
"shell" which the Educator uses to develop a "Script" for his/her course.
Thus, OPTIMUS is both grade-level and subject-matter independent.
An OPTIMUS "Script" has four main content components developed by the
Educator (or somebody else):
(a) a competency-oriented Course Outline;
(b) course related assignments (exams, homeworks, projects, quizzes);
(c) course related teaching materials (notes, references, etc);
(d) evaluation criteria and feedback comments.
Information (b), (c), and (d), above are linked within OPTIMUS to the
Course Outline. This allows meaningful associations between teaching
materials/organization and student performance.
Each of the Script components is developed interactively. Script
development can occur iteratively in the natural flow of teaching a course,
or it can be performed en masse prior to the teaching of a course. The
textual content of each component can be created with the text editor
within OPTIMUS, or can be imported into OPTIMUS from any ascii textfile.
Linking of this information must be done within OPTIMUS.
While any teacher can use OPTIMUS to develop a Script for a course, it is
anticipated that Scripts will be developed by "master" teachers, motivated
professors, textbook authors, or other on-the-ball-people-who-give-a-damn.
Once a Script has been developed, it may be distributed to others for their
use. Thus, an experienced teacher help a rookie by providing a
well-developed Script.
Regardless of source, a Script can be modified at any time. Thus, an
Educator might receive a Script from a professor or publisher, then modify
it to suit his own teaching style, preferences, etc.
Assuming the existence of a suitable Script for a given course, OPTIMUS is
used as follows:
1. COURSE ORGANIZATION:
Course organization takes the form of an outline. The Course Outline is
the central data structure to which all other Script data is linked.
OPTIMUS includes an Outline Processor (analogous to Ready, Thinktank,
etc.) to facilitate Outline development. Thus, the user can "expand"
the Outline to see it in complete detail or "contract" the Outline to
hide levels of detail and see the general organization. The Course
Outline might start out as just a simple course syllabus and gradually
be defined more specifically, topic by topic.
A developed Script would include a detailed Outline for the course.
Like all other Script information, such an outline can be modified at
any time. An Educator receiving a Script developed by someone else
would likely begin by modifying/rearranging/extending the Outline to
adapt it to his own course organization.
2. ASSIGNMENT GENERATION:
Assignments can be created within OPTIMUS, imported from ascii files
into OPTIMUS, or simply referenced (if they already exist on paper and
the user doesn't want to re-type them). OPTIMUS maintains a database of
Problem and Assignment Banks, so that any assignment or problem need be
input only once. Each problem is linked to one or more items in the
Outline. Once it exists within OPTIMUS, a given problem can be "picked
off" to be incorporated into a new assignment.
A developed Script would include banks of Problems and Assignments for
the course. An Educator would create an assignment by some combination
of (a) browsing the banks to select existing problems, and (b) creating
new problems "on the fly".
Performance data is maintained for each problem, so that the Educator
would know both (1) when a given problem had been assigned to a class,
and (2) the overall performance of students on the given problem.
3. EVALUATION OF STUDENT WORK & PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK TO STUDENTS:
Student work provides a wealth of information about student competence
and understanding (or lack thereof). The challenge is to capture and
utilize this information. Typically, we record one grade for each
student submission, jot a comment or two in the margin of the student's
paper, return the paper to the student ...
... and effectively THROW ALL THE INFORMATION AWAY.
The CSI Project targeted the Evaluation process as the most time-
consuming, unproductive, and wasteful of all Teacher activities. The
Grading Environment within OPTIMUS is the key to both increasing
effective data capture and decreasing grading time. It also allows
vastly improved feedback to students.
The Teacher (or other Grader) uses the Grading Environment in
conjunction with the normal process of grading student work. It
includes facilities to support the evaluation of essays, compositions,
or other student work which requires subjective evaluation, as well as
short answer, multiple choice, or other student work which requires only
"answer scanning" for grading.
If student work is submitted on paper, the Grader simply (a) jots a
three-digit code on the student's paper wherever something worthy of
comment occurs, and (b) uses a mouse to "click" the same code on the
computer screen. These Comment Codes are part of the course Script;
they can be easily created/edited at any time.
OPTIMUS acts automatically to construct and maintain a database of all
such occurrences, thus providing an accurate objective record of all the
phenomena subjectively noticed in student work. This database is
indexed by course topic, by assignment and problem, and by individual
student.
The student receives more than just a comment code on his paper. Each
comment code is "linked" to a textual message defined in the Script.
Educators can create new Comments (codes and textual messages) "on the
fly" whenever something new is noticed in student work which is not
addressed by an existing Comment. This allows Educators can say as much
or as little as they wish in response to student work.
Research in both the English Department and the School of Information
and Computer Science at Georgia Tech resulted in findings which
surprised teachers who anticipated that a "database" of feedback
comments would be too "forced" or "impersonal" to be viable. When these
very teachers used OPTIMUS, they found that approximately 90-100
comments covered everything that they encountered while grading for a
given course.
The effect is that Graders no longer respond with just a word or two in
the margin. Instead, thought can be given to what you "would like to
say" to a student who evidences a given problem. With OPTIMUS,
appropriate messages can be created once, in whatever length and detail
is appropriate. Once created, these detailed feedback comments can be
"written' on student work with just a brief code and the press of a
mouse button.
If student work is on-line (via network or floppy disk), the process is
even faster. The Grader views student work on-screen. Whenever
something noteworthy is recognized, the Grader "clicks" it with mouse.
This drops an invisible "flag" in the student's work AND calls up the
"Comment Window". The Grader then "clicks" the appropriate comment
code. This inserts the comment in the student's work at the location
of the flag AND makes the comment window disappear. Thus, grading is
done via a fast "point and shoot" method: two clicks of a mouse button
insert detailed comments into student work. Students receive better
feedback AND grading is done very rapidly AND a detailed database of
student performance strengths and weaknesses is automatically
maintained.
A well-developed Script for a course includes appropriate evaluation
criteria and feedback comments; these can be edited at any time. This
allows experienced faculty to provide guidance to their Graders. TA's
can benefit from guidance as to "what to look for" in student work, and
Faculty can define the feedback to students which their Graders apply.
(NOTE: The Grading Environment and its associated database present a
panorama of research opportunities. Which feedback comments have best
effect? Does a change in classroom teaching result in fewer occurrences
of a given problem/comment? And so on. This technique has already been
utilized at Georgia Tech to discover a universal error in the teaching
of Pascal. The opportunities for blending teaching and research seem
unlimited. Think about this!)
4. INTERVENTION:
Use of the Grading Environment results in a detailed database of student
performance. The availability of such data allow new efficiencies with
respect to intervention.
Students who have a particular deficiency with respect to a topic can be
directed to remedial material early enough for their to be a good chance
of success. This can be done automatically: feedback Comments can
easily include Study Guidance components. When a student comes to the
office for assistance, there is no need to fumble, trying to assess the
student's problem areas: OPTIMUS can draw a graph of student
competence, topic by topic, either in isolation or in reference to the
class as a whole; both student and teacher can literally "see a picture"
of the student's strengths and weaknesses.
In addition, clusters of students with similar weaknesses can be easily
identified and grouped, thus allowing better use to be made of limited
Teacher and TA time for intervention.
5. OPTIMIZATION TARGETING:
The same database that allows weaknesses of individual students to be
recognized and addressed allows similar advantages for the Educator.
Performance data for the class as a whole is always instantly available.
The Educator can set his own standards of performance, and OPTIMUS'
Critique function will search the database and identify all course
topics where he (a) exceeds and (b) falls below the standards he
specified.
Thus, the Educator has an empirical basis for determining (a) where he
meets his own standards of teaching effectiveness and (b) where he is
challenged. If a problem area is identified, the Educator may make
modifications to his teaching approach or content, then use OPTIMUS to
monitor the results. In this way, OPTIMUS helps the Educator turn
teaching into a self-correcting activity, based on empirical data
gathered from his own teaching activities. This is something that we
believe is VERY important!
6. STRENGTH SHARING:
It is curious that Faculty share the benefits of their teaching
experience so rarely. A large part of the reason is that there is no
"medium of exchange" for teaching materials and teaching experience.
OPTIMUS is designed to change that.
The development of Scripts within OPTIMUS provides new opportunities for
Course Development. A Teacher who routinely teaches a course will, by
using OPTIMUS, naturally develop a detailed Script for the course. The
Script can then be given to other faculty who might only rarely teach
the course, thus offering them the benefit of their colleague's work.
New inexperienced faculty can benefit from the experience of senior
people.
A Teacher who identifies a weakness in their class' performance in a
given topic can consult with colleagues and borrow Script segments from
others who achieve better results.
7. CURRICULUM INTEGRATION:
With OPTIMUS a School or Department can systematically evaluate the
effectiveness of their curriculum empirically. Do students in a
4000-level course evidence weaknesses in topics that were addressed in a
2000-level course? If so, what changes to the 2000-level course might
reduce or eliminate the propagation of problems to later courses? Or,
might there be problem areas in a 4000-level course that were NEVER
addressed in an earlier course? If so, what curriculum changes might
solve this problem? OPTIMUS provides a medium by which such questions
can be formulated and by which the effectiveness of response can
be empirically evaluated. The effect is to move Educational Research to
the local level, allowing any Educator to systematically investigate
such issues. We beleive that this is VERY important!
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OPTIMUS: Summary
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OPTIMUS is designed to be a basic tool for Educators who wish to
systematically examine and refine their own teaching.
It provides a window into the teaching-and-learning process by tracking
the wealth of information, both subjective and objective, that is
available to Educators as they evaluate the work of their students.
It provides a medium by which the consequences of changes in teaching
approach or content can be empirically measured.
It provides a medium by which Educators can exchange the benefits of
their teaching experience.
It provides a standard tool which can be applied to any course,
regardless of subject matter or grade level.
It provides a standard tool by which any Curriculum can be evaluated,
it's "holes" identified, and solutions tested for real-world effect.
To the best of my knowledge, it is the only professional software
tool designed explicitly FOR Educators.
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OPTIMUS: System Requirements and Current Status
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OPTIMUS runs on MS-DOS 3.xx. A hard disk and 640K are necessary. An
AT-clone and color monitor are recommended (suggested hardware
configuration can be had mail order from innumerable sources for about
$1500).
MS-DOS version is in Beta testing at Georgia Tech and should be released in
June or July. Both individual and site licenses will be available. Prices
are not yet set.
Unofficial best guess on pricing (this may prove to be off the mark):
$200-300 in quantity for site licenses; $500-700 single copy price. This
may sound steep compared to the so-called educational software you may be
familiar with. Keep in mind that this is Quite Cheap for a professional
vertical-market package.
Versions for the Mac and for Unix are in development.
It is anticipated that OPTIMUS will never be finished. We are routinely
developing new capabilities in response to requests from Educators. Thus,
we are most interested in your ideas for a USEFUL processing engine to
support you in the education work that you do.
If you are interested in obtaining a copy, write to:
Mindsight Corporation
2314 Pleasant Ridge Rd.
Bremen, GA, 30110
There is much in OPTIMUS that was not described above. I can answer most
functionality questions you might have. However, you should write to the
company, above, for purchasing information and other business matters.
Russell Shackelford (russ@pyr.gatech.edu)