Engaging Students in Prehistoric Problem-solving: The Development of Investigating Olduvai-Archaeology of human origins CD-ROM

Jeanne Sept
Associate Professor
Anthropology Department
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 855-5395
sept@indiana.edu
http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/

Abstract

In the summer of 1992 I developed a small software application designed to engage my archaeology students in active learning and problem solving. I tested and continued to develop this instructional technology in my classes during the following years, and it has proven to be not only popular with students, but also a very effective learning tool that has significantly changed my approach to instructing classes, both large and small. With the assistance of the Teaching and Learning Technology Lab at IU Bloomington, we used student feedback to systematically develop the software. It is now a CD-ROM, published in 1997 by Indiana University Press, called "Investigating Olduvai: Archaeology of human origins CD-ROM," (http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/books/0-253-33219-2.shtml) and has been successfully adopted for use in archaeology classes at a number of other universities. This paper traces the instructional choices I made during the development of the CD-ROM and the impact they have had on student learning.

The Pedagogical Problem

If it is difficult for students to imagine life in ancient times, it is often harder for them to understand how archaeologists use mundane fragments of evidence to reconstruct those remote images. This twin pedagogical challenge is particularly acute when introducing students to the world’s oldest archaeological evidence. First, the record of human origins is remote from the experience of most students, both in time ("two million years ago" is a difficult concept to grasp), and in space (American students have relatively little exposure to the African continent). Second, while students often come to their introductory archaeology class believing that archaeologists are treasure hunters, they will need to learn that archaeology is less a process of discovery than it is a science of interpretation. In fact, archaeologists spend relatively little time digging up magnificent artifacts. Instead, most efforts are devoted to interpreting ambiguous scraps of evidence, preserved as mute testimony to the daily lives of our ancient ancestors. Given that the world’s oldest artifacts are simply broken rocks, students would be forgiven for viewing the job of an archaeologist as both arcane and irrelevant to their own lives.

How do college professors rise to this pedagogical challenge? In the traditional archaeology classroom, university students are told a story of the human past — a narrative that weaves together the names and dates of different sites and prehistoric cultures. The best teachers illustrate this narrative well, with slides, videos, museum exhibits or artifact replicas. But this type of lecture course generally remains instructor-centered, encouraging passive learning. Many professors, like myself, try to use a "case study" approach, describing a few examples of important archaeological sites to give students an idea of how archaeologists work: some textbooks, such as Price and Feinman (1997), have been designed to support this type of instructional strategy. However, few students in traditional introductory prehistory courses get a realistic experience in analyzing and integrating archaeological data or get to experience the collaborative teamwork and interpretive debate which are so central to archaeological enquiry.

Why not? In part this is because of the unwieldy volume and multivariate dimensions of real archaeological data. It is much easier to present a synthetic description of a site than it is to give students access to excavated evidence in a way that lets them explore it and learn the process of interpretation for themselves. The average liberal arts undergraduate leaves his or her elective archaeology course with a head full of memorized facts and principles without understanding the relevance of this knowledge to their own lives, and having learned very few skills that they can transfer to other learning contexts. How can archaeology students be actively engaged in an introductory classroom? How can they learn to do and think archaeology, instead of just passively watching their instructors demonstrate expertise? They need to become involved.

Choices: Active-learning Stragegies in Archaeology Classes

In many archaeology classes students are given practical exercises to let them experience the process of archaeological discovery and interpretation. Unfortunately, the scope and complexity of these exercises are often limited by the constraints of paper media. Students therefore get from them only limited experience in interpreting the rich, often messy, challenges of the real archaeological record. Such "problem sets" are generally simple assignments that ask students to interpret a small set of archaeological data, such as a collection of artifacts to put into a stylistic time-series. Typically these are created by individual instructors, but a few published sources exist for exercises of this type. The Archaeology Workbook series published by Nicholas David and his co-authors (Daniels & David 1982; David et al., 1989) is one of the best printed examples. But workbooks are heavily text-based and generally limited in interpretive scope. They don't realistically portray the complex, visually stimulating, multidisciplinary databases with which archaeologists normally work. Because each case study comes from a different region of the world and time period, they don’t form a coherent set of examples for introductory students. Such assignments often reinforce the notion that there are "right answers" for students to dig for, rather than tantalizing problems that are difficult to solve with ambiguous, long-buried clues.

Because archaeology teaching is heavily dependent on images and large datasets, computer-based instruction makes sense. First introduced in 1989, Adventures in Fugawiland (Price & Gebauer, 1997) was an early example of a simple computer simulation in archaeology that ran on 286 DOS machines. For all its promise, however, this program suffered from many of the same pedagogical limitations as paper exercises. It had limited interactivity, such as some simple graphing capabilities, but very little visual interest, and it used an artificial, simplified dataset. I saw a need for an alternative approach to using computers for archaeological instruction, an approach that would take advantage of the multimedia capacity of personal computers to improve the realism of the "case study" type of problem-set exercises for students that I liked to use.

The Development of Investigating Olduvai

Recognizing the potential for computer-based instruction in archaeology, during the summer of 1992 I began to develop a program for students in my prehistoric archaeology courses using the Macintosh program HyperCard 2.0. At the time, the program could display images and text on the same screen. It also allowed users to navigate between screens and follow hypertext links. The project began as a modest exercise, with the simple goal of giving students access to a real set of archaeological data to help engage them in a process of archaeological enquiry. Two programming consultants in Indiana University’s Instructional Computing Technology office designed a HyperCard "shell" into which I could enter data, and in two months we had created a simple prototype program that ran over the campus network. I tested it in a small class at the end of the first summer. Its instant popularity and pedagogical effectiveness were so encouraging that I continued to develop it and use it as an exercise in a variety of different courses. After five years of intermittent development in collaboration with Indiana University’s Teaching and Learning Technology Lab, the program has now been published by Indiana University Press as Investigating Olduvai. Archaeology of human origins CD-ROM, reprogrammed in Macromedia Director to run on both Macintosh and Intel platforms.

Investigating Olduvai uses multiple media to lure students into problem-solving. By exploring a real archaeological dataset, students learn about the fascinating ambiguities of prehistoric evidence and get involved in archaeological interpretation for themselves. There are no multiple choice or quiz questions in this program. Instead, students learn new terms and concepts as they need them to investigate and write answers to a selection of research questions that the instructor chooses for them. Students learn which data are relevant to each question. They are guided to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate these data as evidence with which they can build their own interpretations.

The FLK-Zinj site at Olduvai Gorge was chosen as the focus for the program because it is one of the best preserved and intensively studied early archaeological site in Africa. As a result, it is highlighted in almost every introductory archaeology textbook. Because interpretations of the site are highly controversial, it also serves as an effective case study in more advanced survey courses and classes in archaeological method and theory. In short, rather than presenting consensus opinions about the site, the Investigating Olduvai program challenges students to learn about principles of archaeological interpretation in the process of exploring and interpreting the real data for themselves.

Changing Teaching Strategies

In retrospect, several key decisions we made about program design during the very first summer were the most critical to the successful implementation of the program in my classes. They have continued to influence the way I try to teach, with or without using the program. One basic issue was to design a structure that would help students learn to interpret real archaeological data for themselves. To do this, we organized the program into three core conceptual areas: DATA / QUESTIONS & TOOLS / ANALYSIS.

DATABASE: We created a database in one section that contained details of many types of archaeological data from one important site, FLK-Zinj from Olduvai Gorge. This section of the program contains a brief history of research at Olduvai, information and videos about the modern and ancient setting of Olduvai, and a multi-disciplinary dataset from the FLK site where Mary Leakey began work in 1959, including an interactive map of excavated fossils, bones, and stone tools.
INVESTIGATION TOOLS: In another section we presented a set of authentic questions about the data, some of which were simple, factual questions (designed to guide students into the data), but many of which were complex, integrative questions that truly challenge even professional archaeologists. Students save their personal work on the program in a fieldbook (on a floppy disk or on a hard drive) that contains several tools:
- a notepad and bookmarks, to help keep track of investigations.
- worksheet/graphing exercises, to help students discover patterns in the data and learn to analyze them.
- a master list of topical questions and answer sheets, to help focus students on particular issues. (Different questions may be selected from the master list as assignments for classes on different topics and with different levels. The complexity and difficulty of the questions increases within each topic set.)
ANALYSIS: To help students bridge the gap between questions and raw data, we created a third "analysis" section focused on the method and theory of interpretation. This section of the program introduces students to some of the major theoretical issues important to learning about the archaeology of human origins and to the methods which archaeologists use to analyze their data. Students learn, for example, that experiments and studies done in the present are a key to interpreting evidence from the past. Students use the archaeological principles presented in this section to develop their own interpretations of the real data from the FLK site stored in the database.

In many respects, our triangular program structure anticipated later proposals for the design of a "virtual textbook" by Martin Siegel, a specialist in human-computer interface design (Siegel and Sousa, 1994), although our program has a different scope and set of teaching-learning objectives from those which would characterize a textbook on the same subject.

Overall, we followed a number of principles which have since become basic tenets of computer-assisted instruction (Kahn, 1997). Each of these aspects of the program design reflects a change in the way I now teach, compared to my previous lecture style.

We created an environment where students could have relatively easy access to data and research problems that were both real and complex. That meant that my role as an instructor could change. I no longer felt responsible for feeding students information during lectures. Because they could access all the information in the program, I was able to spend more time in class modeling interpretations of other datasets and involving students in discussions of alternative interpretations.
We took advantage of the HyperCard format to present information in a modular, rather than a linear, way. During the development process this meant that I had to carefully think about how to organize and write the material for the program. Subsequently, designing course content in a non-linear way has helped me to think more explicitly about which types of information students needed to know, and what skills they needed to master, in order to work to solve problems of varying complexity.
We left the architecture of the program fairly "open" so that students could choose their own learning path through the materials. However, this meant that I had to structure my presentations and assignments much more carefully and hierarchically than I had done in a traditional lecture class. I also became more aware of student learning styles, as some students who had merely tolerated a lecture style class really became transformed learners when given the responsibility of research and synthesis.
The program went through many cycles of student testing and evaluation, and we tried to incorporate as many of their suggestions as possible into the final program. For example, in response to student suggestions we added more navigation tools, such as an index and a bookmark. We also changed the format of some images and graphs to make them easier to study. Several of the students who have used the program most recently, probably inspired by their experiences on the Internet, have suggested adding a "text search" function to help them jump to different types of data quickly, without browsing. In fact, students’ main complaint has always been that they want to be able to print out all the screens in the program. As an instructor, I have dogmatically resisted implementing this, because I want students to read the material on screen and take notes, rather than just printing the pages out, but I may relent and change this feature in the next version of the program we produce.
By focusing on the pedagogical goals of problem-solving, analysis and interpretive debate, I emphasized writing assignments rather than exams. I wanted students to be able to learn key facts and concepts through use, rather than through memorization. I wanted students to learn to think critically and to evaluate the arguments of others, mastering details of the material in the process of real scientific debate. I also tried to develop more explicit expectations for answers to different types of questions than I had before developing the program.

Student Perspectives

I developed Investigating Olduvai to help students with a wide range of backgrounds and levels of education learn about the authentic excitement of archaeological research. I have used this program as an element in a variety of different classes, from introductory survey courses to upper division classes on "African Prehistory" and "Ancient Diet." Because the data in the program is real, students at different levels can work with it meaningfully if the instructor selects questions for them to answer that are appropriate to their level of background.

At the introductory level, high school seniors and college freshmen have found the program to be an accessible and lively presentation of key archaeological concepts and major features of Olduvai in general and the FLK site in particular. It has helped them learn to think like archaeologists and appretiate the ambiguity of prehistoric evidence without suffering the typical freshman’s frustration that many interesting questions have no single "right answer." Rather than being intimidated by the amount of data available, they are impressed by its variety, enjoy the interactive parts of the program, and are often inspired to read more about Olduvai away from the computer, or plunge into the details of solving the puzzles of Olduvai without realizing that they are doing "advanced" work.

At a more advanced level, I have asked upper division and graduate students first to develop their own analyses and interpretations of different types of data from FLK and then to use their own analyses as a basis for reading and critiquing published interpretations of the same dataset (listed in the bibliography). These students spend more time with the program and complain that this assignment is "hard work," but they ultimately feel that their efforts are worthwhile because the assignments are realistic and thought-provoking. In follow-up surveys, students have almost unanimously wished that more of their course assignments could be "like Olduvai."

We solicited student reactions to using the program in every class, and the comments and evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive, from freshmen through graduate students. For example:

97% of the students surveyed (about half freshmen and half juniors and seniors) agreed with the statement "I was able to make sense of the information in the Olduvai program" (Strongly agree = 26%; Agree = 81%)
96% of the students surveyed agreed with the statement "The Olduvai program allowed me to apply the concepts I've learned in this class." (Strongly agree = 38%; agree = 58%)
93% of the students surveyed agreed with the statement "The Olduvai program made anthropology concepts more relevant for me." (Strongly agree = 27%; agree = 66%)
90% of the students surveyed disagreed with the statement "Using the Olduvai program to answer study questions requires less high-level thinking than other assignments." (Strongly disagree = 23%; disagree = 67%)

Conclusions

In retrospect, I have learned a number of important points during this development process that have reinforced elements of my teaching philosophy and helped me become a better teacher. I believe that asking students to engage in a process that requires them to examine and analyze real data, discuss their results with other students, and carefully write up and justify their interpretations can be a very successful instructional strategy, in archaeology or any other field. I have been able to adjust my teaching style gradually, integrating new elements of "active learning" into a class each new semester. Even a little dose or problem-solving case study exercises in my classes has made a big difference in the quality of essays that my students have learned to write.

My experiences developing and using this CD-ROM have convinced me that computers can be very useful instructional tools that can make it much easier to achieve these pedagogical objectives, even in introductory college classes. In fact, this principle of incrementalism can apply to the development of instructional technology itself; even using the small prototype Olduvai program, developed during two summer months, had a big impact on the way my students approached course materials and engaged in the class reading and writing assignments. I have also learned that teamwork is not only an important part of archaeological interpretation, but that it can also be a vital asset in designing new approaches to teaching and that it is crucial to the development of effective instructional technology. While I teach my class as a solitary professor, the expertise of numerous instructional consultants and programmers has helped develop the sound pedagogical foundation of the CD-ROM and helped me make understanding of the field much more accessible to students.

References

Khan, B. H. (Ed.). (1997). Web-based instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

Daniels, S. & David, N. (1982). The archaeology workbook. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

David N., Driver, J. & Daniels, S. (1989). The next archaeology workbook. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Price, D. & Gebauer, G. (1997). Adventures in Fugawiland. A computer simulation in archaeology (2nd ed). Mayfield Publishing Co.

Price, D. & Feinman, G.M. (1997). Images of the past (2nd ed) Mountain View, CA:. Mayfield Publishing Co.

Sept, J.M. (1997). Investigating Olduvai. archaeology of human origins CD-ROM. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Siegel, M. A. & Sousa, G. (1994). Inventing the virtual textbook: Changing the nature of schooling. Educational Technology, 34 (7); 49-54.

Acknowledgements

Investigating Olduvai could never have become a reality without the concerted efforts of Indiana University staff dedicated to the development of instructional technology. I would like to thank the first three consultants who helped the project begin, Tom Brush, Bill Prigge and Joan Middendorf, and all the staff from IU Bloomington's Teaching and Learning Technology Lab who contributed their time and creative energy to the project over the ensuing five years, particularly David Goodrum (Director of TLTL), Gail Rathbun (Project Manager), Ron Saito, Frank Morris, Ruth Eberle, and Mei Wu. The first summer of my time was also supported by an instructional technology development grant from the Office of the IU Dean of Faculties. Virtual thanks to all.