The Impact of Disciplinary Knowledge and the Curriculum on the Development of Student Identity (original) (raw)
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Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, 2013
This work corresponds to the implementation stage of the curriculum reform using a CDIO-based approach that is currently underway at the School of Engineering, and which was previously described in [1]. Before this curriculum reform process, both first-year computer science and industrial engineering students had only one introductory course to their field of study, meeting just once a week for an hour. After the curriculum reform process, first-year computer science students take an Introduction to Computer Science course during the first semester, and a Programming Laboratory during the second semester. Similarly, the industrial engineering program now includes an Introduction to Industrial Engineering in its first semester and an Engineering Communication course in its second semester. These four first-year courses have been designed using CDIO standards 1, 4 and 8 as guidelines and have been formulated to include active learning in its many forms such as project-based learning, problem-based learning, case studies, small group discussions, oral presentations and reflective memos. The impact of the redesign of these first-year courses was assessed via anonymous student surveys taken the first week of class and at year end. Students also had to submit a short reflective memo on their experiences with each course. Our results show an improvement in student understanding of their professional endeavor and increased student motivation for their engineering programs. Student surveys registered high degrees of satisfaction with active learning techniques. Students also really appreciate working in teams, and receiving immediate feedback both from their instructors and their peers.
Active Learning in Engineering Education: a (re)introduction
European Journal of Engineering Education, 2016
The informal network 'Active Learning in Engineering Education' (ALE) has been promoting Active Learning since 2001. ALE creates opportunity for practitioners and researchers of engineering education to collaboratively learn how to foster learning of engineering students. The activities in ALE are centred on the vision that learners construct their knowledge based on meaningful activities and knowledge. In 2014, the steering committee of the ALE network reinforced the need to discuss the meaning of Active Learning and that was the base for this proposal for a special issue. More than 40 submissions were reviewed by the European Journal of Engineering Education community and this theme issue ended up with eight contributions, which are different both in their research and Active Learning approaches. These different Active Learning approaches are aligned with the different approaches that can be increasingly found in indexed journals.
Lessons Learned: Integrating Active Learning into Undergraduate Engineering Courses
2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings
Antonio. He earned his doctorate in Education in a dual-degree program between the University of Padua and The University of Tennessee. He also holds a doctorate in Languages, Cultures, and Societies from Ca' Foscari University of Venice. His research interests include new literacies, youth cultures, games and learning, music technology, and multimodality. He presented his work at national and international conferences such as GLS (Games + Learning + Society) and G4C (Games for Change). He is the author of the book La Quotidianità dell'Assurdo (The Everyday Absurd, Archetipolibri, Bologna, 2010).
Active learning, project-based teaching, and student collaboration are current trends in engineering education. Incorporating these have also been the goal of the basic studies development project EPOP started at the Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering in 2011. In the project, two obligatory basic courses in circuit analysis and electromagnetic field theory have been taught using interactive engagement during the spring of 2012. This paper presents the implementation of the teaching, including methods and evaluation with several concrete examples. As a result of the novel teaching, motivation and the engagement of students were at a high level during the whole course and learning results were better than those of the students participating the traditional lecture course Index Terms-Group work, interactive engagement, motivation, peer instruction.
Adoption of active learning in a lecture-based engineering class
2002
Three years ago, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT expanded its repertoire of active learning strategies and assessment tools with the introduction of muddiest-point-in-the-lecture cards, electronic response systems, concept tests, peer coaching, course web pages, and web-based course evaluations. This paper focuses on the change process of integrating these active learning strategies into a traditional lecture-based multidisciplinary course, called Unified Engineering. The description of the evolution of active learning in Unified Engineering is intended to underscore the motivation and incentives required for bringing about the change, and the support needed for sustaining and disseminating active learning approaches among the instructors.
The development of engineering identity in an electrical engineering degree programme
Research in Engineering Education: Making Connections, 2019
Developing students’ engineering identity during higher education is a way to encourage perseverance as well as identification with the engineering role after graduation. This study explores the constraints and enablements to the development of engineering identities experienced by a group of final-year electrical engineering students during their studies. Drawing on data generated from focus group and individual interviews, the study utilises Margaret Archer’s social realist concept of triple morphogenesis as an analytical framework. The findings show that engineering identity development was enabled by the aspects of the programme that encouraged personal development and by exposure to a range of different engineering-related careers. Constraints included conventional top-down pedagogy and assessment and a lack of focus on the creation of authentic texts. The recommendation is for engineering programmes to prioritise holistic growth and explicitly focus on engineering identity in their curricula.
2010
The Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) approach to instructional design was adapted with the goal of delivering more effective statics, dynamics and multivariate calculus instruction and integrated course curricula. Inquiry-based learning exercises were designed, incorporating material from statics and dynamics into multivariable calculus, and vice-versa, as well as integrating statics and dynamics into one course. The effectiveness of the revised course designs and activities were assessed using a mixed method approach. Student performance in these courses and in follow-on courses was used to measure improvements in concept retention. Conceptual tests (Statics and Dynamics Concept Inventories) were administered before and after semesters, and average normalized gains were compared with those for students in traditional learning environments.
Session T2A ADOPTION OF ACTIVE LEARNING IN A LECTURE-BASED ENGINEERING CLASS
2014
and Astronautics at MIT expanded its repertoire of active learning strategies and assessment tools with the introduction of muddiest-point-in-the-lecture cards, electronic response systems, concept tests, peer coaching, course web pages, and web-based course evaluations. This paper focuses on the change process of integrating these active learning strate-gies into a traditional lecture-based multidisciplinary course, called Unified Engineering. The description of the evolution of active learning in Unified Engineering is intended to un-derscore the motivation and incentives required for bringing about the change, and the support needed for sustaining and disseminating active learning approaches among the instruc-tors. Index Terms — Active learning, change process, concept tests, muddiest point in the lecture.