PreLecture Explorations:

A PLE is a web-based exercise that students do before they attend a lecture. It usually consists of 5 to 7 questions that require only 10 to 15 minutes of a student’s time to complete. It is platform independent and can contain text, static images, video, and/or animations. Upon submission of the PLE, students can receive an expert’s response to the same questions for comparison. PLEs can consist of questions about a concept, problems to solve, or observation made on viewing a video demonstration or by manipulating a simulation. PLEs can be used to: pool data to be used to invent concepts in lecture, identify student misconceptions to be addressed in lecture, review concepts needed as prerequisite knowledge for a lecture topic, and practice using concepts covered in a previous lecture. The instructor can access student responses to PLEs and use them to customize their lecture, to address specific students’ misconceptions, to assess students’ prerequisite knowledge, and to develop charts and graphs of student-generated observations that can be used to invent concepts. One of the goals of PLEs is to encourage students to come to the lecture already thinking about the topic to be discussed. Taking large lecture classes can be a passive experience for most students. PLEs are one method for more actively involving them.

Examples from Fall 2003

Example 1 (first PLE of the semester)
Example 2 (calculations only)
Example 3 (heating curve animations)
Example 4 (Bohr Animation)