75-minute workshop on the basics of JiTT. A follow-up workshop covers more details of the technique and its implementation.

1. JUST IN TIME TEACHING
FOR FACULTY, BY FACULTY
Name
School
Department
OCTOBER 1ST, 2014
JEFF LOATS
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

2. WARM-UP: TEACHING HERITAGE
Thinking about the college instructors you've had
experiences with (including yourself), where do you
think their methods and attitudes come from? Why
do you think they teach the way that they do?
“I believe for the most part, teachers teach they
way they were taught. Especially, those who
arrive in academia with little to no learning
theory or methods courses.”
“Methods come from how they think students
learn best.”

3. WARM-UP: TEACHING HERITAGE
“In general, I think most instructors use methods
they experienced in a classroom setting or from
something they've learned at a recent seminar.”
“The instructors I know come from the
professional rather than the academic world and
tend to teach, I believe, in a more hands-on
fashion.”

4. THE EVIDENCE STANDARD
Teachers can feel bombarded…
I strive to be a scholarly teacher …
• Apply the rigor we bring to the discipline of
physics to the discipline of teaching.
• Choose teaching methods that are strongly
informed by the best empirical evidence
available.
Contrast teaching your subject with treating a
medical condition like diabetes

5. In your teaching do you have a method for holding
students accountable for preparing for class?
14% →Stern threats and/or playful pleading.
86% →Paper method (quiz, journal, others?)
0% →Digital method (clickers, others?)
0% →Just in Time Teaching.
0% →Some other method.
5
18%
48%
11%
5%
17%
(푁 ≈ 180)

6. OVERVIEW
1. Motivation for change
2. Basics of Just-in-Time Teaching
3. Mock example
4. Evidence for effectiveness
5. Summaries

7. PHYSICS EDUCATION REVOLUTION
Eric Mazur, Physicist at Harvard:

8. “ALL SIMILARLY (IN)EFFECTIVE…”

9. University of
Washington
CU Boulder
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign

10. TECHNIQUE & TECHNOLOGY
Technique:
Just-in-Time Teaching
Technology:
Online question & response tools
Learne
r
Teacher

11. JUST-IN-TIME TEACHING
Learne
Online pre-class assignments
r
called WarmUps
First half - Students
• Conceptual questions, answered in sentences
• Graded on thoughtful effort
Second half - Instructor
• Responses are read “just in time”
• Instructor modifies that day’s plan accordingly.
• Aggregate and individual (anonymous) responses
are displayed in class.
Teacher

12. Consider a typical day in your class. What fraction
of students did their preparatory work before
coming to class?
A) 0% - 20%
B) 20% - 40%
C) 40% - 60%
D) 60% - 80%
E) 80% - 100%
12
28%
33%
21%
14%
5%
(푁 ≈ 206)

13. JITT STRUCTURE & RESPONSE
RATES
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Response Rate by Day
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
% Responsed
Class #
College Physics I, Fall 2013, N = 78
Worth 10% of final grade
Due 10 PM the night before class
Assignments available for prior 2-3 days
College Physics I

14. 14
Students have developed a robot dog
and a robot cat, both of which can
run at 8 mph and walk at 4 mph.
A the end of the term, there is a race!
The robot cat must run for half of its
racing time, then walk.
The robot dog must run for half the
race distance, then walk.
A) The cat wins B) The dog wins C) They tie

15. WARM-UP: ROBODOG VS.
ROBOCAT
Predict which one will win the race, and explain
why you think so.
~67% → Robocat!
~33% → Robodog!
~0% → They tie!
~0% → Can’t tell!
~33% → Good math
~16% → Bad math
~33% → Good reasoning
~16% → Bad reasoning
~33% → Invalid arguments

16. WARM-UP: ROBODOG VS.
ROBOCAT
“The cat has artificial intelligence and won't
participate in the race.”
“Besides which the cat obviously has shorter legs
and will have to take twice as many steps to
reach its goal.”
Previous:
“Cats rule - dogs drool!”
“Robot dog. Because dogs naturally walk more
thaan cats. ”

17. WARM-UP: ROBODOG VS.
ROBOCAT
“I believe the cat will win. The winner will be
the one who covers the most distance at a run.
The dog is locked into only running half the
distance. The cat, on the other hand, can run for
a longer distance . The cat runs until it has to
slow to a walk for the second period of the race.
In the time it spent running, it has covered a
bigger distance.”

18. WARMUP QUESTIONS
• Every-day language
• Occasional simple comprehension question
• Mostly higher level questions (a la Bloom)
• Perhaps any question is better than none
Connections to evidence:
– Pre-class work reduces working memory load
during class.
– Multimodal practice (not learning styles):
JiTT brings reading, writing and discussion as
modes of practice.

19. METACOGNITION
Two questions in every WarmUp:
First: “What aspect of the material did you find
the most difficult or interesting.”
Last: “How much time did you spend on the pre-class
work for tomorrow?”
Connections to evidence:
– Forced practice at metacognition:
Students regularly evaluate their own
interaction with the material.

20. JUST-IN-TIME TEACHING
A different student role:
• Actively prepare for class
(not just reading/watching)
Learne
r
• Actively engage in class
• Compare your progress & plan accordingly
A different instructor role:
• Actively prepare for class with you
(not just going over last year’s notes )
• Modify class accordingly
• Create interactive engagement opportunities
Teacher

21. MAZUR AFTER 1 YEAR

22. ELSEWHERE?

23. JITT VS. FINAL GRADE
CORRELATIONS
100
80
60
40
20
0
WarmUps vs. Cumulative Score
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Cumulative Score (without warm-ups)
WarmUp Score
College Physics I, Fall 2013
Correlation r = 0.71

24. STUDIED EFFECTIVENESS
Used at hundreds of institutions
Dozens of studies/articles, in many disciplines:
Bio, Art Hist., Econ., Math, Psych., Chem., etc.
– Increase in content knowledge
– Improved student preparation for class
– Improved use of out-of-class time
– Increased attendance & engagement in class
– Improvement in affective measures

25. Mean on 1-5 scale
STUDENT SURVEY RESULTS
How did WarmUps affect your...
Preparation Engagement Learning
Preparation for class 4.06
Engagement during
class 3.93
Learning the material 3.79
N = 781
9% 10%
81%
10%
18%
73%
10%
22%
68%
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Harmful Neutral Helpful

26. STUDENT SURVEY QUOTES
Physics:
“Initially, it was hard for me to get used to the
warm-ups. It seemed like along with the
homework assignments there was a lot of things
to do. Eventually I got used to it and ultimately
the warmups really helped me to learn the
material and stay caught up with the class.”
“If it weren't for warm ups, the amount of time I
spent reading the book would have dropped by
75%”

27. WHAT MIGHT STOP YOU?
In terms of the technique:
Time, coverage, not doing your part, pushback…
In terms of the technology:
Learning curve, tech. failures, perfectionism…
In any reform of your teaching:
Reinventing, no support, too much at once…

28. MY SUMMARY
JiTT may be among the easiest research-based
instructional strategies that you can consistently
integrate into your teaching.
From an evidence-based perspective, JiTT
addresses often-neglected areas.
Be prepared to find that students know less than
we might hope. (Perhaps freeing?)

29. YOUR SUMMARY
What part of JiTT concept/process is the fuzziest
for you after this talk?
Next time (October 15th, same time & place):
Writing good questions, using responses, getting
student buy-in, managing your time!
Email: Jeff.Loats@gmail.com
Twitter: @JeffLoats
Slides: www.slideshare.net/JeffLoats

30. ON-DEMAND SLIDES
JITT REFERENCES & RESOURCES
Simkins, Scott and Maier, Mark (Eds.) (2010) Just in Time Teaching: Across the Disciplines,
Across the Academy, Stylus Publishing.
Gregor M. Novak, Andrew Gavrini, Wolfgang Christian, Evelyn Patterson (1999) Just-in-Time
Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River NJ.
K. A. Marrs, and G. Novak. (2004). Just-in-Time Teaching in Biology: Creating an Active Learner
Classroom Using the Internet. Cell Biology Education, v. 3, p. 49-61.
Jay R. Howard (2004). Just-in-Time Teaching in Sociology or How I Convinced My Students to
Actually Read the Assignment. Teaching Sociology, Vol. 32 (No. 4 ). pp. 385-390. Published by:
American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3649666
S. Linneman, T. Plake (2006). Searching for the Difference: A Controlled Test of Just-in-Time
Teaching for Large-Enrollment Introductory Geology Courses. Journal of Geoscience Education,
Vol. 54 (No. 1)
Stable URL:http://www.nagt.org/nagt/jge/abstracts/jan06.html#v54p18

31. PROGRESSIVE EXAMS
CORRELATIONS
College Physics I:
Correlations between Total WarmUp Score
0.18
and Sequence of Exams
0.33
0.43
0.54
0.80
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
Mini Exam
(week 4)
Exam 1
(week 7)
Exam 2
(week 11)
Final Exam
(week 16)
None Weak Moderate Strong
Important disclosure: This was not a hypothesis we were
testing, it appeared as we analyzed the data. Could be