Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: During this reporting period, our efforts reached an estimated 272 students. Those students were enrolled in the following courses/locations: University of Pennsylvania, College of Veterinary Medicine (Parasitology): 125; University of Wisconsin, Madison (Regulatory Veterinary Medicine): 78; University of Pennsylvania Large Animal Block: 69. All students were enrolled in courses where they learned about diagnosis, treatment and other appropriate response to situations with food safety ramifications. Changes/Problems: Due to course scheduling and the slowness of the case authoring process between ISU staff and the partner at Kansas State, we were not able to implement cases in that program during this year. We hope that ThinkSpace cases will be implemented there in future years. We are pleased, overall, that we were able to implement the software in as many settings we did, and with all of the other primary cooperating entities. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? We have provided numerous small-group and on-on-one consults with faculty who were developing cases. We have found this to be more effective than large-group training. We have also developed and made available 6 instructional videos regarding the use of ThinkSpace (in a prior reporting period.) During this reporting period, all consults were between project staff and/or faculty and software users at other institutions. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? All the dissemination thus far has occurred via the presentations reported earlier in this report. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Overview: Very frequently, problems involving food safety and sustainable agriculture require the perspectives of multiple disciplines to be solved effectively. Currently, however, graduates of programs in agriculture-related disciplines struggle to integrate information when attempting to address problems that cut across relevant disciplines or sub-areas of one discipline. We sought to address this problem by providing faculty members with a case delivery tool and relevant multidisciplinary cases to use for teaching food safety and sustainable agriculture in their courses. Experts from a variety of fields related to food safety and sustainable agriculture came together to create a number of multi-disciplinary cases that are now freely available to anyone, and usable through Iowa State University's free open source "ThinkSpace" software tool. We also implemented the cases in three veterinary programs and one horticulture program at three universities (Iowa State, the University of Pennsylvania, and The University of Wisconsin-Madison.) A partner at Kansas State University was also involved in planning and developing cases. During the course of the project slightly more than 600 students learned using the cases that were developed. In 3 of the 4 implementations, students who learned using the NIFA-funded cases scored better on case-based exam questions than students who learned similar information in a more conventional way, or who did not have access to the additional training. In the fourth implementation, the learning was equivalent using the software to other ways of teaching the same content. During the reporting period, the following was accomplished under the project goals: Objective 1: Improve agriculture students' ability to solve complex, multi-disciplinary problems by having students work on cases that integrate ideas and information from multiple areas. We have now successfully piloted cases in four course implementations for which we were able to collect outcomes data. All of the courses for which data are available were in Colleges of Veterinary Medicine. We also piloted cases in one of the horticulture programs (Iowa State University), but outcomes assessment data are not available for that implementation. The four implementations for which we have data are: 1. A Parasitology course at the University of Pennsylvania, 2 . A Regulatory Medicine Course at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 3. A Large Animal Medicine block (course) at the University of Pennsylvania, and 4. A Parasitology course at ISU's college of Veterinary Medicine. In three out of four of those cases, the introduction of the NIFA-funded cases was associated with a measurable increase in learning outcomes. Learning outcomes are as follows: 1. The Parasitology course at the University of Pennsylvania utilized a pre-posttest design, which showed that, using the ThinkSpace cases, combined with other resources, such as lecture, student scores improved from 27% correct on the pretest to 86% correct on the posttest. This change was significant (p<.0005). 2. At the University of Madison, scores for students who used the ThinkSpace (NIFA-funded) materials to learn about food safety in 2014 were significantly higher than scores for students who took the same course, but used a paper-based method to learn the same material in 2012 (t = 3.592) (p < .0005). (This finding differed from the result in 2013. However, since the 2013 roll-out of the cases was characterized by some software bugs, including slowness and other issues, we consider this more recent comparison, which was more bug-free, to be more representative of a typical implementation.) 3. In the Large Animal Block at the University of Pennsylvania, students who had access to the NIFA-funded cases did 44% better on a test measuring their ability to apply food-safety concepts to real scenarios than students who did not have access to the NIFA-funded cases. This difference was statistically significant (p < .0005), and the effect size for this comparison (Cohen’s d) was 1.9, which is very large by conventional standards for educational research. 4. In the ISUCVM Parasitology course, student scores on questions related to food safety following use of the NIFA-funded material were compared to scores of the baseline group of students from the prior year. The scores were not significantly different (p = .450). Survey Data: Overall, of 8 faculty respondents, 2 indicated that they would recommend ThinkSpace to Colleagues at other institutions, 3 indicated that they would not, and 3 indicated that they were not sure. Student reactions were similar. Of 125 student respondents, 25 indicated that they would recommend ThinkSpace to their friends, 55 indicated that they would not, and 45 did not indicate an inclination either way. Dissatisfaction was generally due to technical problems and general slowness, and/or perceived need to improve the interface. Nonetheless, both faculty and students generally found the software to have merit for learning, and believed the cases were valuable. Six out of eight faculty/staff were satisfied with the quality of ThinkSpace cases, and 60% of students indicated that using ThinkSpace made learning easier, when compared with other ways of learning similar content. Similarly, 39% felt that ThinkSpace made it more likely that they would remember what they had learned, while only 10% felt it would make it less likely that they would remember what they had learned; 36% felt that ThinkSpace use would not affect the likelihood that they would remember what they had learned. In summary, the actual measured learning outcomes were encouraging, and suggest that implementation of the cases improved learning outcomes. This is a particularly encouraging result given that the cases were implemented in the context of existing courses, and did not require wholesale changes to the existing courses. However, there is an opportunity to improve the user experience for both students and faculty. We believe that this need with be met in the upcoming Version 2 of ThinkSpace, which is being used successfully in other content areas. Objective 2. Implement a proven computer based approach to teaching students how to solve multi-disciplinary problems using Iowa State University's open-source ThinkSpace tool at three veterinary programs and two horticulture programs at four U.S. universities. We have now successfully implemented cases in all of the target programs except for the Horticulture program at Kansas State University. We continue to hope that we will be able to implement in that program in the future. Objective 3. Build and support a community of educators at the five target academic programs. Provide effective technical support, learning cases and/or case development support, and faculty development. The existing community is still small, but growing. While the educators whom we supported during this development and early implementation of the project encountered technical difficulties, most were satisfied with the support that they received from project faculty and staff. For instance, 4 out of 5 respondents were Very Satisfied with interactions with ThinkSpace support staff. Nonetheless, technical challenges led to some dissatisfaction with the ease of setting up cases, accessing ThinkSpace, and navigating ThinkSpace, providing room for improvement. Objective 4. Produce at least 20 multi-disciplinary cases that will work using the open-source, online delivery tool ThinkSpace, and that will be freely available to all who wish to use them. At this point, we have produced more than 20 such cases. The names and nature of the cases have been reported in prior reports, and are not new for this reporting period. This year progress was also made on improving the Think Space interface, which will be reflected in ThinkSpace version 2.0.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Danielson, JA, Kruzich, L and Weiner, C. 2014. Pathfinder and ThinkSpace: 13 years of software development to teach discipline-specific problem solving and clinical judgment. Presentation given at the annual EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, 3-5 February
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Danielson, JA 2014. Panelist in Panel II: Curriculum Development in Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences. Panel at the NACTA (North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture) pre-conference DOCE Session. Bozeman, MT, 25 June
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Danielson JA (presenting with H. Bender and E. Bergquist). 2014. A few relevant theoretical ideas as well as research results from using the Diagnostic Pathfinder. Presentation given for the Faculty of Mercy College of Health Sciences, Des Moines, IA. 27 August.
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Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/13
Outputs
Target Audience: During this reporting period, our efforts reached a total of 360 students, including 324 veterinary students, 32 undergraduate students, and 4 graduate students. Those students were enrolled in the following courses/locations: University of Pennsylvania, College of Veterinary Medicine (Parasitology) : 117; Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine (Parasitology): 123; Iowa State University (Horticulture): 36; University of Wisconsin, Madison (Regulatory Veterinary Medicine): 84. (Please note that in estimating FTE, in the prior window, we estimated the total FTE for those receivign salary on this project at one of the participating institutions. We did not include FTE of those working on matching funds, or of those external to the Universities hired on contract.) Changes/Problems: We did not make major changes in the overall approach. We shifted resources somewhat in two categories to help ensure the successful completion of the project, however. 1. At ISU, the budget contained funds for a local individual to provided technical support to the project through CELT. CELT provided much of this support without charging the project, and the individual who was providing support subsequently left the University. Given the stability challenges with ThinkSpace, we elected to use the remaining funds in this category to continue to provide technical and programming support. Because there was no longer a well-trained individual at ISU, we obtained the services of a company that has developed and supported ThinkSpace in the past. 2. At the University of Pennsylvania, we shifted some travel funds to salary for students in order to have an additional summer of case design/development by veterinary students. This made it possible to complete a number of the cases that were in various stages of completion. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? We have provided numerous small-group and on-on-one consults with faculty who were developing cases. We have found this to be more effective than large-group training. We have also developed and made available 6 instructional videos regarding the use of ThinkSpace. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We plan an additional year of implementation in each of the participating programs, with additional data collection. We are also close to releasing a new version of ThinkSpace which will provide greater stability, and which we hope to have in place by the coming fall semester.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1: Improve agriculture students' ability to solve complex, multi-disciplinary problems by having students work on cases that integrate ideas and information from multiple areas. We have now successfully piloted cases in three programs for which we were able to collect outcomes data. Additional outcomes data should be available at the end of the one-year no cost extension period. The three implementations for which we have data are: 1. A Parasitology course at ISU’s college of Veterinary Medicine, 2. A Parasitology course at the University of Pennsylvania, and 3. A Regulatory Medicine Course at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In the ISUCVM course, student scores on questions related to food safety following use of the web-based cases was compared to scores of the baseline group from the prior year. The scores were not significantly different (p = .450). A similar evaluation design was used in the regulatory medicine course with a similar result (no significant difference between the treatment and baseline groups (p = .399)). The Parasitology course at the University of Pennsylvania utilized a pre-posttest design, which showed that, using the ThinkSpace cases, combined with other resources, such as lecture, student scores improved from 27% correct on the pretest to 86% correct on the posttest. This change was significant (p<.0005). Students were asked regarding this experience with ThinkSpace. 48% felt that ThinkSpace made it more likely that they would remember what they had learned, 7% felt it would make it less likely that they would remember what they had learned, and 41% felt that ThinkSpace use would not affect the likelihood that they would remember what they had learned. It is worth noting that the implementation this year was somewhat buggy, affecting the both instructional efficacy and perceived efficacy of the cases. In summary, findings to date are not as positive as we hope they are ultimately. However, even given the buggy circumstances of implementation, the cases clearly assisted learned in a pre-post environment, and were as effective as a similar paper-based process. Objective 2. Implement a proven computer based approach to teaching students how to solve multi-disciplinary problems using Iowa State University's open-source ThinkSpace tool at three veterinary programs and two horticulture programs at four U.S. universities. We have now successfully implemented cases in all of the target programs except for the Horticulture program at Kansas State University. We expect to implement a case there in the coming year. Objective 3. Build and support a community of educators at the five target academic programs. Provide effective technical support, learning cases and/or case development support, and faculty development. The existing community is still small, but growing. In the past year, we added one course, and have another course scheduled to be added in the Spring of 2013. Objective 4. Produce at least 20 multi-disciplinary cases that will work using the open-source, online delivery tool ThinkSpace, and that will be freely available to all who wish to use them. At this point, we have produced more than 20 such cases, though 16 are most directly related to food safety. We intend to produce several more cases in the coming year. The cases are freely available, though the process for obtaining them must still currently involve contacting a member of the team and requesting them. We hope to have a more automated process in place by the conclusion of the project.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: I. A considerable amount of additional effort has been expended in case design and development during Year 2. The following cases have either been implemented with students, or are scheduled for implementation in Fall Semester of 2012: 1. Spinach Case Study (horticulture), 2. Calves with Scours (Introductory level Cryptosporidium Case), and 3. Hog Roast (Introductory Level Trichinosis case). The following additional cases are either developed or have been largely developed: 4. Salmonella infection in calves, 5. Aflotoxin in dog food, 6. Monensin Toxicosis in Horses, 7. Cryptosporidium Case (Intermediate), 8. Trichinosis Case (Intermediate), 9. Lead Toxicosis in beef cattle, 10. Listeriosis in sheep, 11. Histomonas in turkeys, 12. Tuberculosis in elk and cattle, 13. An 8-part case (5 ThinkSpace cases) regarding a Salmonella Newport outbreak from consumption of strawberries. These additional cases are being designed: 14. Community Garden on a Brownfield, 15. Dioxin in chickens in Europe, 16. Raw milk from a small farm, 17. Salmonella in ice cream, and 18. Anthrax toxicosis after ingestion of beef. II. The following describe assessment activities at each institution. 1. At the University of Pennsylvania, baseline data have been collected in Spring 2011 and 2012 from the 3rd year students in the large animal block rotation. A series of questions with 5 case scenarios have been selected and given to the students at the end of their rotation. 2. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Veterinary Medicine in the spring semester of 2012, students in the Regulatory Veterinary Medicine course completed the 8-part case using paper handouts, group work, and class discussions. A midterm examination included 4 questions based on the case, and scores were collected. This will serve as a benchmark for implementation in 2013. 3. In the two participating Horticulture programs, a Spinach Case Study was tested in a Sustainable Horticulture course at Iowa State University and an Organic Farming Systems course at Kansas State University, fall semester 2011 with an enrollment of approximately 40 students. Student responses to the case study questions were evaluated using a rubric designed for that purpose. 4. At Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, baseline data regarding students' understanding of Trichinella and Cryptosporidium were collected during Fall of 2011, though cases were not able to be implemented via ThinkSpace due to Software bugs. Cases were implemented in Fall of 2012, and comparison data will be collected (5 items on the final exam.) III. Software Development/Improvement has been ongoing during year two. Numerous minor but important bugs have been addressed. Additionally, two very important accomplishments include 1. Completion of the differential diagnosis functionality , and 2. Completion of drag-and-drop functionality. IV. Large scale training events were not held in year 2. However, numerous small-scale training sessions were held at a distance with case authors at U of Penn (numerous sessions) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1 session). PARTICIPANTS: Jared Danielson - Project Director, oversaw all project activities, and directed case design/development activities at Iowa State University. He also continued in his role of grant oversight with partnering institutions including IRB, training, approving expenditures, and so forth. Holly Bender assisted in oversight of the veterinary related activities at ISU, and helped coordinate with Pennsylvania partners. Ann Marie VanDerZanden and Candice Shoemaker oversaw all activities related to the horticulture programs at ISU and Kansas State. Craig Ogilvie assisted in leading the planning for faculty development and support, and coordinated this project with related projects involving other partners. Karen Young directed all activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Charles Czuprynski participated in the design of cases and course direction for the course implementing the food safety cases. Roberta Di Terlizzi oversaw all activities at the University of Pennsylvania. Grant Dewell, Renee Dewell, Jelena Ostojic and Julie Ann Jarvinen oversaw case design for several cases in the veterinary program at Iowa State University. Melissa Sanchez and David Galligan oversaw case design for several cases in the veterinary program at the University of Pennsylvania. Pete Boysen oversaw all ThinkSpace software development activities. Steve Giles assisted in case design and conducted case development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Emma Gorenberg, Phil Litwack, Laura O'Sullivan, Allison Newth, Nikki Wright, Melissa Ogg, William Kay, Chris Lapsley, Art Obenrader, and Cathy Dejesus were hired at the University of Pennsylvania to assist with bug identification, case design, and instructional materials creation. James Fiderlick was hired by the University of Pennsylvania to assist Boysen with programming. Eva Tao continued to assist Jared Danielson with overall project management. Allan Schmidt, Tigon Woline, Rex Heer and Lesya Hassall provided support to faculty using ThinkSpace, assisted with training development, and assisted with the ThinkSpace Wiki. Woline also provided assistance with case design in horticulture. Partner Organizations: The partner organizations are the University of Wisconsin - Madison, The University of Pennsylvania, and Kansas State University. Collaborators and contacts: Since the project began, Julie Ann Jarvinen, Paul Plummer, Cheryl Eia, and Steven Ensley continued to assist with case authoring in their areas of expertise. Drs. Doug Jones and Matthew Brewer also contributed to the design of several Parasitology-related cases. Training or professional development: All student employees listed on the project (Emma Gorenberg, Phil Litwack, Laura O'Sullivan, Allison Newth, Nikki Wright, Melissa Ogg, William Kay, Chris Lapsley, Art Obenrader, Cathy Dejesus and Eva Tao) have received training opportunities through their participation in the project. We have provided individual and small group training to case authors as needed. TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Because software development delayed implementation at all veterinary sites, we do not yet have impacts to report.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: I. Year one was primarily intended to be dedicated to case design and development. Fifteen food safety related cases have been developed and/or are under development, including 2 horticulture cases and 13 veterinary cases. Those cases include: 1. Spinach Case Study, 2. Community Garden on a Brownfield, 3. Dioxin in chickens in Europe, 4. Raw milk from a small farm, 5. Aflatoxin in dog food, 6. Salmonella in ice cream, 7. Anthrax toxicosis after ingestion of beef, 8. Outbreak of Crytosporidium, 9. Lead Toxicosis in beef cattle, 10. Outbreak of Trichinella, 11. Salmonella Infection in a dairy cow/herd, and four additional cases with some duplication of prior topics, but different scenarios/contexts. <br><br>II. The project plan called for collection of baseline data in Year 1. Baseline data has been collected at all but one participating institution, with more baseline data collection scheduled for Fall of 2011. The following describe assessment activities at each institution. <br><br> 1. At the University of Pennsylvania, baseline data have been collected in the Spring 2011 from the 3rd year students in the large animal block rotation. A series of questions with 5 cases scenario have been selected and given to the students at the end of their rotation. <br><br> 2. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison's College of Veterinary Medicine in the spring semester of 2011, several food-safety presentations were delivered to year 3 veterinary medical students in the Regulatory Veterinary Medicine course. The topics included use of antibiotics in food animals and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) guidelines. Assessment items (5 items) designed to address these topics and collect baseline data were administered to the students. <br><br> 3. In the two participating Horticulture programs, the following assessment activities have occurred. A Spinach Case Study is being tested in a Sustainable Horticulture course at Iowa State University and an Organic Farming Systems course at Kansas State University, fall semester 2011. Data from ISU show that students who completed the spinach case via ThinkSpace scored an average of 20 out of 25 (n=15). Student responses to the case study questions were evaluated using the rubric designed for that purpose. <br><br> 4. At Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, 10 items related to the Cryptosporidium and Trichinella Cases have been designed and scheduled for implementation in the Parasitology course in Fall of 2011 <br><br> III. Software Development/Improvement has been ongoing during year one of the project including 1. On-going identification/fixes of ThinkSpace bugs, and 2. Drag-and-drop functionality (required for some veterinary cases) with bugs addressed scheduled for Dec 2011. <br><br> IV. Training materials and activities are underway, including 1. four short introductory training videos that show how to use ThinkSpace, and 2. two multidisciplinary training conferences held at ISU to show prospective faculty how to use ThinkSpace. -- These are being used to plan for additional future training to a broader audience. PARTICIPANTS: Jared Danielson - Project Director, oversaw all project activities, and directed case design/development activities at Iowa State University. He also coordinated grant oversight with partnering institutions including IRB, funding, and so forth. <br><br> Holly Bender assisted in oversight of the veterinary related activities at ISU, and helped coordinate with Pennsylvania partners. <br><br> Ann Marie VanDerZanden and Candice Shoemaker oversaw all activities related to the horticulture programs at ISU and Kansas State. <br><br> Craig Ogilvie assisted in leading the planning for faculty development and support. <br><br> Karen Young directed all activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Charles Czuprynski participated in the design of cases and course direction for the course implementing the food safety cases. <br><br> Roberta Di Terlizzi oversaw all activities at the University of Pennsylvania. <br><br> Grant Dewell, Renee Dewell, Jelena Ostojic and Julie Ann Jarvinen oversaw case design for several cases in the veterinary program at Iowa State University. <br><br> Melissa Sanchez and David Galligan oversaw case design for several cases in the veterinary program at the University of Pennsylvania. <br><br> Pete Boysen oversaw all ThinkSpace software development activities. <br><br> Steve Giles was hired as an associate research assistant at The University of Wisconsin/Madison to assist in case design and development. <br><br> Candice Lorandeau, Jamie Skebeck, Samantha Kuhles, and Karen Antczak were hired at the University of Pennsylvania to assist with bug identification, case design, and instructional video development. <br><br> Jonathan Lustgarten at the University of Pennsylvania, and Poorvi Joebert at ISU were hired to assist Boysen with programming. <br><br> Eva Tao was hired at ISU to assist Jared Danielson with overall project management. <br><br> Allan Schmidt, Tigon Woline, Rex Heer and Lesya Hassall provided support to faculty using ThinkSpace, assisted with training development, and assisted with the ThinkSpace Wiki. Woline also provided assistance with case design in horticulture. Partner Organizations: <br><br> The partner organizations are the University of Wisconsin - Madison, The University of Pennsylvania, and Kansas State University. <br><br> Collaborators and contacts: Since the project began, Julie Ann Jarvinen, Paul Plummer, Cheryl Eia, and Steven Ensley have all become involved in assisting with case authoring in their areas of expertise. Training or professional development: <br><br> All student employees listed on the project (Joebert, Tao, Lustgarten, Lorandeau, Skebeck, Kuhles and Antczack) have received training opportunities through their participation in the project. We have not provided formal training other than the faculty workshops listed in the first section. TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: We have been somewhat delayed, and will need to continue case development into year two. However, in the end I do not believe this will require any major changes. Also note, in the first section I wrote that we had hosted two conferences at ISU. That should have read "workshops."
Impacts
Because we just completed year one of the project, we do not yet have outcomes/impacts to report.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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