by Elisabeth Nedergaard, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

JiTT is short for the concept "Just-in-Time Teaching". This concept was developed in the USA in the late 1990s by Gregor Novak and Andrew Garvin, of Indiana University-Purdue University, Evelyn Patterson, of the United States Air Force Academy and Wolfgang Christian, of Davidson College. It is a learning and teaching strategy based on a continuous interaction between web-based student activities and classroom teaching.

Illustration from http://webphysics.iupui.edu/jitt/what.html
The JiTT web component (warm-ups, puzzles and other resources for homework) constantly interacts with face-to-face classroom sessions and is thus not to be confused with a distant learning programme, though there are some affinities in the web component part.

The whole idea behind the JiTT-concept is that the students will be more actively involved in the classroom activities if they are met at their individual level and have been actively involved in the teaching/learning process by sending input for the lesson prior to the lesson. The students' contribution is to be received by the teacher very shortly before the actual lesson, for instance the evening before, but still Just-in-Time for the teacher to browse through the answers received in order to spot the particular problems the students may have had when writing the assignments and adjust the lesson plan accordingly.

The JiTT web component secures that the students are better prepared for the lessons and have all done their homework. All investigations show that the homework has a major impact on the quality of the learning of the individual student, and the JiTT assignments certainly encourage the students to be more careful with homework.
The submissions of the students prior to each lesson give the teacher a better opportunity to meet the students at the actual level of learning since this is easily detected by the answers they send. The JiTT-assignments also make it easier for the teacher to see if a particular problem involves only one student, a specific group of students or the major part of the class. So even though the JiTT-concept implies that the teacher only finishes the preparation for the classroom activities after receiving the JiTT-assignments from the students, the preparation is also facilitated by the patterns revealed by the assignments.

The JiTT web component processes are listed below.

Warm-ups

Warm-ups are short assignments to be answered before the classroom session. The questions (not too many!) focus on central issues in the material to be studied for the classroom session. The students send their assignments to the teacher via e-mail shortly before class. The answers given by the students form the point of departure for the discussion in class. The teacher can for instance copy some of the answers into transparencies or show them to the class via a projector connected with a computer. Warm-ups mainly concern new themes and issues to be learned.

Puzzles

Puzzles serve as closure on a subject that has been treated in class. The assignments are answered by the students and sent to the teacher in the same way as warm-ups, but should reveal a deeper understanding of the subject matter. The answers serve as a platform for the final discussion in a wrap-up session on a particular topic.

Enrichment pages

The enrichment pages are meant to facilitate the students' homework and serve as a motivating factor. The pages may consist in short introductory essays with links to web-pages on the relevant subjects.

For other JiTT resources, see:
"JiTT resources"
http://webphysics.iupui.edu/jitt/resources.html 
"A JiTT Sampler: Examples From Various Disciplines"
http://webphysics.iupui.edu/jitt/jitturls.html 
In Denmark the JiTT-method has been tested and further developed to fit the national curriculum by Toender Gymnasium, see:
http://www.toender-gym.dk/Kjelds/JiTT/Jitt.htm  (in Danish)
A template for "warm-ups" is available here:
http://www.toender-gym.dk/jitt/dansk/Grupperapport.htm 
A template for "warm-ups" is available here:
http://www.toender-gym.dk/jitt/dansk/Grupperapport.htm 
Examples of warm-ups for different subjects in Latin and Classical Civilisation can be found here:
http://www.toender-gym.dk/jitt/classica/   (in Danish)

Getting started

Ensure that all of your students have Internet access from where they do their homework. Plan a series of classroom sessions on a subject. For each lesson choose the focus points that are going to form the basis for the warm-up-questions. Produce a template for the warm-ups, for instance by adapting the Danish template example referred to above. Present the idea to your students. Try the warm-ups for a series of lessons and then evaluate the value of the warm-ups with your students.

Further exploration

If the warm-ups turn out to be a success, let them continue and be accompanied by enrichment pages with relevant links and information, preferably in the form of webpages created by yourself. Use puzzles to wrap up topics already treated in class and as basis for the final discussion of the subject as such.

Further reading:
Gregor Novak, Andrew Garvin, Evelyn Patterson & Wolfgang Christian: JiTT, Prentice-Hall 1999, ISBN 0-13-085034-9
G. Novak: "What is JiTT?"
http://webphysics.iupui.edu/jitt/what.html
Forsoeg med JiTT i astronomi og fysik på fire gymnasier i skoleaaret 2002/2003
http://niels.elbroend.hansen.person.emu.dk/JiTT/ (in Danish)