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Pilot the Tutor
Using the Genetic Cognitive Tutor in Your Course
Cognitive Tutor units can be piloted in any Genetics course or related Biology course at any undergraduate or graduate level. Some of the benefits are:
- Custom Lesson Sets
Any set of Tutor units that match the course objectives may be selected for piloting.
- Custom Implementation
Tutor units may be employed as in-class activities (e.g., recitation sections or labs) or as homework activities. Cognitive tutor units generally take about an hour to complete.
- Compatability
Tutor units run on Mac OSX computers or PC Windows-XP computers.
Evaluating the Genetics Cognitive Tutor in Your Course
Evaluating student learning outcomes with and without the cognitive tutor units is an important part of the piloting process. We have been employing two models:
- Unit-Specific Evaluations
Individual tutor units can be evaluated with short quizzes (20 minutes) we provide that precede and follow problem solving. Typically half the students in the course use the tutor and half do the same problems on paper with answer keys (that we provide). If two units are evaluated, each student can be in the tutor group once and problems-on-paper group once. This has been our most common evaluation method, employed at almost all our partner institutions to date.
- Course Exams
Learning outcomes from a set of cognitive tutor units can be evaluated by comparing course exam performance across terms in which the students used Cognitive Tutor units and did not use the units.
We work with course instructors to obtain Institutional Review Board approval (for research with human participants) of the evaluation design at each participating institution.
Sponsors
Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary (FIPSE)
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
