Teaching Marine Species Identification
Using Web Based Learning Modules
John P. Coney
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Educational Technology
Volcano, Hawai’i
USA
Abstract: Correctly identifying and spelling the genus and species of over 250 marine species found in Hawai’i’s coral reefs is necessary for undergraduates interested in marine science education and research. Historically, students have attended a series of workshops or independently studied on their own with minimal guidance. This often leaves out students not in the UH system, from out of state, or those who have time conflicts. Students often find themselves intimidated by the copious amount of course material to study. Research shows that web based learning modules “chunked” into smaller manageable sections, allows students to learn at their own pace to be a more practical approach. The purpose of this instructional design project was to develop a website to support students learning to identify Hawai’i’s reef species. Instructional and testing modules were developed as well for University students required to pass an identification exam with a score greater the 80% for acceptance into the Quantitative Underwater Ecological Surveying Techniques (QUEST) field school.
Introduction
Students across the globe are now better connected on the Internet with access to faster Internet in more places then only a few years ago. Online learning is now available into the many remote corners of the world including remote locations in the pacific (Iding & Skouge, 2005). The need for marine science students coming to Hawai’i t able to correctly identify a large number Hawaiian marine species is important for research, education and field work training.
The last twenty-one years at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo (UHH), I have been preparing students for the Quantitative Underwater Ecological Surveying Techniques (QUEST) field school that takes place in the last two weeks of May. This field school trains students in underwater coral reef surveying techniques. QUEST also serves as a springboard for other marine related opportunities for students with private, state and federal agencies. Time at QUEST is spent training on survey methodologies, leaving no time to teach species identification (ID). Ability to correctly ID species is important for data collection. In February Marine Option Program (MOP) students interested in applying to QUEST are required to pass an ID test with a minimum of 80% and higher score to be considered for selection into the QUEST program.
The need for this instructional design module is based on several considerations. ID workshops have been offered twice a year after classes in the evening. Often students have late lab classes, work or other considerations and are not able to make the workshops. Consistency in how the teaching of the ID lectures across the MOP Campuses makes for varying levels of ID skills while at QUEST. Students in the past from outside Hawaii enter QUEST with no ID skills, often making for a poor learning experience for students at QUEST. Finally, this module can be used by others interested in learning to ID Hawai’i marine species or adopted to other interests, such as plant or insect identification.
Online learning modules developed used HTML and flash programing to teach over 250 marine species. These are broken into a number of smaller modules of information, each containing ten to twenty species per module for students to learn at their own pace per (Pomales-Garcia, 2006). Smaller modules also make updating information, images or scientific name changes a simpler process.
This instructional design project was successful in developing an effective online marine species identification, instructional and testing modules for university students. Students are better prepared to pass an ID exam for acceptance into the QUEST field school. Learning species ID’s is a difficult process and can be described as being more difficult then learning a new language (Randler, 2008).
Supporting Literature
The design of an online instructional module can have many theories and approaches to completing the task at hand. I found using the ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) method provided a strong iterative process to complete the task at hand and is supported by current literature (Peterson, 2003). Current literature supports online training modules as a way of teaching online or web based marine species identification (Pfeiffer, 2011) as well as species identification and survey methodology via web based modules (Newman, 2010). These two methods reviewed supported various group sizes equally well. Both, being able to offer online training of marine species identification and being able to offer this for a wide range of group sizes is important to this instructional design project. Pomales-Garcia 2006 paper emphasizes the importance of appropriate module length, this being the foundation for this projects design.
Module size, creating a community of learners as well as getting “buy-in” from students are all considered important. The creation of this project will include a number of short sub modules to support the busy schedules of students is supported by (Pomales-Garcia, 2006). In addition, difficult sub modules could be repeated as a student finds it necessary.
The concept of “build an online module and they will learn”, many considerations need to be kept in mind during the entire ADDIE process. This is well stated by (Pomales-Garcia, 2006) with,
Current literature supports online training modules as a way of teaching online or web based marine species identification (Pfeiffer, 2011) as well as species identification and survey methodology via web based modules (Newman 2010). Both of these methods reviewed supported various group sizes equally well. Both being able to offer online training of marine species identification and being able to offer this for a range of group sizes is important to this instructional design project.
Additionally, module size, creating a community of learners as well as getting buy in by students were all important. The creation of this project included a number of short sub modules to support the busy schedules of students as supported by (Pomales-Garcia, 2006) paper. Finally difficult sub modules could be repeated as a student finds it necessary.
Methods
Participants consisted of nine students selected from a pool of twenty students during the January QUEST informational meeting located at UHH. Students meet after the initial QUEST information meeting and signed volunteer participant forms. A pre-test was given to the students. After the pre-test, a demonstration and discussion of the online species ID module was carried out on a digital projector. Care was made to disseminate the same points the in house workshops offered, such as importance of spelling, identifying and how the final test was to be conducted. Additionally the original QUEST website found at of notes, PowerPoint slides were made available to the students.
Demographics of the student was predominantly undergraduates, except for one, a PhD Ecology candidate. Two males and seven females participated in the study. Students were from UHH, and one student from Kauai community college. Not all participants plan to attend QUEST this year. Weekly emails were sent to the students reminding them about the timeline and if students had questions, answers to questions were sent to the entire group.
Development of this instructional design site was created in four development areas; 1) web page, 2) blog for user feedback, 3) flash based ID modules and 4) an online (Laulima based) testing module. Following the ADDIE premise, analysis and design phase took place in early fall. Development and testing of the site spanned a five month period ending December 2011. Testing and feedback was done from November through January 2012. The site was implemented in January - February 2012. The evaluation phase was completed in late February and will be discussed later in this paper.
Website development found at used Adobe Dreamweaver CS5. Figure 1 shows one of the nine web pages created to include a main page, introduction page, fish page, inverts page, limu (seaweed) page, quiz page, resources page, an about the site page, and instructors corner of resources. The student blog site was created via Blogger a product of Google.
Figure 1. Screen shot of website.
Adobe Flash CS5 was used in development of the twenty flash modules found on the website as shown in Figure 2. Each module ranged from three to twenty-four species, grouped by families. Creating a standard template was completed first, taking the most amount of time and effort. Testing of the flash modules took several revision cycles to make it effective. Testing was done with several colleagues and students. This process took time and created a few unexpected programing challenges. After completion of the “Standard” module, time was taken to edit the over two hundred fifty images, text information and species names.
Evaluating learning by students was done using the Laulima.hawaii.edu to create the testing site. Integrated within the “HIL MOP Species ID” is the website link, making this site a one stop site for marine species training. An existing PowerPoint test of a hundred images was exported into individual jpeg images. Images were edited and then imported into three sections of fish, inverts and limu. These three tests were completed with an image and answer key simplifying the grading process. The three modules were then tested and published. Each section was given a one hour time limit for student testing.
Figure 2. Flash module example.
Implementation of the site took place over a six week period after site development and testing. The initial meeting with students to sign IRB forms, and review the site as a group took place. Weekly emails were sent out to the group to include relevant questions and reminders about where they should be in their studies. This included suggestions on how to study and encouragement was sent to the group as a whole. Feedback via email and individual meeting on how the site worked was solicited as well. Testing by students was monitored and notes recorded. A pre-survey and post survey were conducted as well.
Results
Resulting data demonstrates a positive trend in this instructional design project. Learning was affective and is supported by testing and student evaluations. A pre and post survey supports the effectiveness of this module, and is shown in Figure 3. On average the group ranked the learning process a nine out of ten on the likert scale. Surveyed, the students gave online learning a comfort level of four before and eight after taking this module. This demonstrates that learners both enjoyed the module and the learning process, making for a positive experience. Experience with online learning ranged from having never having taken an online class to currently enrolled in an online class, with most being new to online learning. Self-ranking by participants demonstrated the ability to recognize and correctly spell on average 20 marine species. After completing the six week module, the post survey showed several hundred, or as some students put it as “all” in the list can be correctly identified and spelled using scientific nomenclature. This was supported by the test grades show in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Pre and post survey of species tested by student.
Discussion
Student feedback along the course of this study, included errors found in a few of the flash modules. Updates were made at the start, but no other changes were done during the evaluation period. Students provided insightful suggestions to improve the web site. Suggestions included introducing a random order for the marine species, or create a game of all species in random order, as they felt like learning in sequential order biased how they learned the species (they could anticipate what the next slide would be).
Enjoyment of the online modules was very high as shown in Figure 4. On average, students rated overall online learning as a four out of ten before utilizing site. Posttest shows an average of eight out of ten after utilizing the site. Feedback from students showed an appreciation for being able to study on their own. Student enjoyment showed a nine out of ten in using the site. Comments by the students included; “fun”, “like a game”, “didn’t have to take off from work”, “able to focus” were some of the comments.
Program design was well accepted. Laulima enabled me to email students when they were ready to take the test as well as review scores. Laulima also offered a the ability to setup a trusted proctor to ensure fair testing by the students. This would be a benefit for our pacific island students as well as other off site students. One unanticipated benefit with the testing, is instant grading, and removal of having to decipher students poor handwriting. In terms of development of program design, I would have gone with an HTML5 code and a database driven approach. More flexibility as well as wider platform support not supported by flash would benefit the students. In addition, if database driven, changes to the basic display would be easier and more uniform. Currently each module would need to be edited and update, a daunting task to say the least. Also database driven would offer the ability to show random species as suggested by the students. Finally, offering a number of video transects similar to what the students would actually see while diving, would be a good “self-test” of species ID’s.
Figure 4. Perception of comfort level with online training.
Conclusion
The purpose of this instructional design project was to develop an online marine species identification instructional and testing module for university students who are required to pass an exam with a score greater than 80% for acceptance into the QUEST field school. This was done effectively and well received by students. Corrections and recommendations will be implemented and put in place for next year’s QUEST students!
Following the best practices in online learning provides a frame work for this online species ID training project. Incorporating some of the recommended changes, as well as moving to database driven website would allow more flexibility in how the material is presented. In addition, this same design can be utilized by other material for learning. Finally, this training site can be made available to school groups interested in learning about Hawai’i’s important coral reefs.
References
Iding, M., & Skouge, J. (2005). Educational Technology and the world wide web in the pacific islands. Techtrends: Linking Research & Practice To Improve Learning, 49(1), 14-18. Retrieved from
Newman, G., Crall, A., Laituri, M., Graham, J., Stohlgren, T., Moore, J. C., & ... Holfelder, K.A. (2010). Teaching citizen science skills online: implications for invasive species training programs. Applied Environmental Education and Communication, 9(4), 276-286. Retrieved from
Peterson, C. (2003). Bringing addie to life: instructional design at its best. Journal Of Educational Multimedia And Hypermedia, 12(3), 227-241. Retrieved from
Pfeiffer, V. I., Scheiter, K., Kuhl, T., & Gemballa, S. (2011). Learning how to identify species in a situated learning scenario: using dynamic-static visualizations to prepare students for their visit to the aquarium. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 7(2), 135-147. Retrieved from
Pomales-García, C., & Liu, Y. (2006). Web-based distance learning technology: the impacts of web module length and format. American Journal of Distance Education, 20(3), 163-179. doi:10.1207/s15389286ajde2003_4
Randler, C. (2008). Teaching species identification--a prerequisite for learning biodiversity and understanding ecology. EURASIA Journal Of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 4(3), 223-231. Retrieved from