Facilitating Teaching And Research On Open Ended Problem Solving Through The Development Of A Dynamic Computer Tool

Model Eliciting Activities (MEAs) are realistic open-ended problems set in engineering contexts; student teams draw on their diverse experiences both in and out of the classroom to develop a mathematical model explicated in a memo to the client. These activities have been implemented in a required first-year engineering course with enrollments of as many as 1700 students in a given semester. The earliest MEA implementations had student teams write a single solution to a problem in the form of a memo to the client and receive feedback from their TA. For research purposes, a simple static online submission form, a static feedback form, and a single database table were quickly developed. Over time, research revealed that students need multiple feedback, revision, and reflection points to address misconceptions and achieve high quality solutions. As a result, the toolset has been expanded, patched, and re-patched multiple developers to increase both the functionality and the security of the system. Because the class is so large and the implementation sequence involved is not trivial, the technology has become a necessary to successfully manage the implementation of MEAs in the course. The resulting system has become a kluge of bloated inflexible code that now requires a part time graduate student to manage the deployment of 2-4 MEAs per semester. New functions are desired but are either not compatible or are too cumbersome to implement under the existing architecture. Based on this, a new system is currently being developed to allow for greater flexibility, easier expandability, and expanded functionality. The largest feature-set being developed for the new system are the administrative tools to ease the deployment process. Other features being planned are the ability to have students upload files and images as part of their solution. This paper will describe the history of the MEA Learning System (MEALS) and the lessons learned about developing custom teaching and research software, and will explore how the development of custom software tools can be used to facilitate the dual roles of teaching and educational research

A case study of engineering instructor adaptability through evidence of course complexity changes

Use of a wide array of teaching practices and strategies has been shown to improve students’ conceptual understanding, appeal to a diverse set of students, and preparation for engineering work. Adaptability theory provides a lens for understanding changes instructors make and can be useful for conceptualizing faculty development going forward. How an instructor’s adaptability plays out in the face of new demands lies in the complexity of the courses they teach. Course complexity refers to both the extent of the array of teaching practices/strategies used in a course and the challenge to implement those practices/strategies. The purpose of this paper is to begin to examine what information is embedded in syllabi that may be used to quantify complexity via a Course Complexity Typology. This work is a case study of a single instructor-course pairing and their course syllabi from multiple semesters

First-Year Effects Of An Engineering Professional Development Program On Elementary Teachers

The ultimate objective of teacher professional development (TPD) is to deliver a positive impact on students’ engagement and performance in class through teacher practice via improving their content and pedagogical content knowledge and changing their attitudes toward the subject being taught. However, compared to other content areas, such as mathematics and science, relatively few engineering TPD programs have been developed, and there has been a lack of research on the effective practice of TPD for K-12 engineering education. As a part of a five-year longitudinal project, this study reports the first-year effect of TPD offered by the Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning (INSPIRE) at Purdue University on elementary teachers integrating engineering. Thirty-two teachers of second through fourth grade from seven schools attended a one-week intensive Summer Academy and integrated engineering lessons throughout the year. Based on a pre- and post-test research design, multiple measures were utilized to examine changes in teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of engineering and their variations in knowledge and perceptions by school and teacher characteristics. Overall, teachers were satisfied with the engineering TPD program, significantly increased their engineering design process knowledge, and became more familiar with engineering. While teachers’ knowledge about engineering did not vary by school and teacher characteristics, some aspects of teachers’ perceptions regarding engineering integration and their practice differed by school and teacher characteristics.

Selecting Effective Examples to Train Students for Peer Review of Open‐Ended Problem Solutions

Background Students conducting peer review on authentic artifacts require training. In the training studied here, individual students reviewed (score and provide feedback on) a randomly selected prototypical solution to a problem. Afterwards, they are shown a side-by-side comparison of their review and an expert’s review, along with prompts to reflect on the differences and similarities. Individuals were then assigned a peer team’s solution to review. Purpose This paper explores how the characteristics of five different prototypical solutions used in training (and their associated expert evaluations) impacted students’ abilities to score peer teams’ solutions. Design/Method An expert rater scored the prototypical solutions and 147 student teams’ solutions that were peer reviewed using an eight item rubric. Differences between the scores assigned by the expert and a student to a prototypical solution and an actual team solution were used to compute a measure of the student’s improvement as a peer reviewer from training to actual peer review. ANOVA testing with Tukey’s post-hoc analysis was done to identify statistical differences in improvement based on the prototypical solutions students saw during the training phase. Results Statistically significant differences were found in the amount of error a student made during peer review between high and low quality prototypical solutions seen by students during training. Specifically, a lower quality training solution (and associated expert evaluation) resulted in more accurate scoring during peer review. Conclusions While students typically ask to see exemplars of “good solutions”, this research suggests that there is likely greater value, for the purpose of preparing students to score peers’ solutions, in students seeing a low-quality solution and its corresponding expert review

Characteristics of Feedback that Influence Student Confidence and Performance during Mathematical Modeling

This study focuses on characteristics of written feedback that influence students’ performance and confidence in addressing the mathematical complexity embedded in a Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA). MEAs are authentic mathematical modeling problems that facilitate students’ iterative development of solutions in a realistic context. We analyzed 132 first-year engineering students’ confidence levels and mathematical model scores on aMEA(pre and post feedback), along with teaching assistant feedback given to the students. The findings show several examples of affective and cognitive feedback that students reported that they used to revise their models. Students’ performance and confidence in developing mathematical models can be increased when they are in an environment where they iteratively develop models based on effective feedback

Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching Assistants\u27 Perceptions of Their Responsibilities - Factors that Help or Hinder

Effective teaching assistants (TAs) are crucial for effective student learning. This is especially true in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, where TAs are enabling large programs to transition to more student-centered learning environments. To ensure that TAs are able to support these types of learning environments, their perspectives of training, their abilities, and other work related aspects must be understood. In this paper a survey that was created based on interviews conducted with eight TAs is discussed. The survey has four primary categories of content that are critical for understanding TAs\u27 perspectives: (1) background, (2) motivation, (3) training, and (4) grading and feedback. This research team is first utilizing this survey at Purdue University to test for validity and reliability of the instrument, as well as identifying ways to improve the experiences and effectiveness of the First-Year Engineering Program\u27s TAs\u27 support system, training, hiring process, and any other relevant components of the infrastructure. The more generalizable goal of this research is to further develop this survey to be used by any STEM program as a diagnostic tool for identifying opportunities to enhance the TA support systems and therefore improve student learning

Video-related pedagogical strategies in massive open online courses: A systematic literature review

For engineers who work with rapidly changing technology in multi-disciplinary teams, massive open online courses (MOOCs) offer the unique ability to deliver free, convenient professional development by providing up-to-date information spanning a wide range of disciplines. However, the MOOC boom has not been without its criticisms; many question the effectiveness of MOOCs. In response, many research studies are being conducted across the world to explore the effectiveness of various pedagogical approaches in MOOCs for different stakeholders. As videos constitute one of the most prominent features of MOOCs, it is important to analyse the empirical evidence of best practices for MOOC videos. Through a systematic literature review, we identify a series of important considerations and actions for three groups: instructional teams, video production teams, and platform developers. Considerations include instructor actions, content design and navigation, video style and length, production quality, video annotation tools, viewing options, and embedded assessments

Students’ Perceptions of and Responses to Teaching Assistant and Peer Feedback

Authentic open-ended problems are increasingly appearing in university classrooms at all levels. Formative feedback that leads to learning and improved student work products is a challenge, particularly in large enrollment courses. This is a case study of one first-year engineering student team’s experience with teaching assistant and peer feedback during a series of open-ended mathematical modeling problems called Model-Eliciting Activities. The goal of this study was to gain deep insight into the interactions between students, feedback providers, and written feedback by examining one team’s perceptions of the feedback they received and the changes they made to their solutions based on their feedback. The practical purpose of this work is to begin to make recommendations to improve students’ interactions with written feedback. The data sources consisted of individual student interviews, videos of the team’s meetings to revise their solutions, the team’s iteratively-developed solutions, the team’s documented changes to the their solutions, and the written feedback they received from their teaching assistant and peers. The students explained that helpful peer feedback requires a time commitment, focuses on the mathematical model, and goes beyond praise to prompt change. The students also stated that generic TA feedback was not helpful. The greatest difference between the students’ perceptions of TA and peer feedback was that the TA had influence over the team’s grade and therefore the TA feedback was deemed more important. Feedback strategies to increase peer participation and improve teaching assistant training are described. Suggestions for continued research on feedback are provided

Impact Of Feedback And Revision On Student Team Solutions To Model Eliciting Activities

Helping first-year engineering students to embrace the iterative and open-ended nature of engineering problem solving is a challenge when their prior learning experiences have focused heavily on achieving a correct answer in a single attempt. In this paper, the authors will present a case study of student work from the Fall 2007 implementation of Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) to demonstrate the impact of the iterative process of feedback and revision on the quality of student products. They will also discuss some of the future research questions resulting from the iterative process used with MEAs

Teacher as Designer: A Framework for Teacher Analysis of Mathematical Model-Eliciting Activities

The study investigated tool development by three middle school mathematics teachers. The tools they designed were intended to support the use of model-eliciting activities (a form of instruction related to problem-based learning) and particularly the students’ presentations of their solutions for the whole class. The study examined the design and purposes for the presentation tools and resulted in a framework for categorizing teachers’ purposes for tools.The framework addressed the unit of analysis for the tools (individual students or groups of students) and the nature of teachers’ purposes for the tools. Design research was used as a theoretical perspective for conducting the investigation