SPECIAL SESSION: Educational Methods and Tools to Encourage Conceptual Learning (original) (raw)
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The development of procedural knowledge in students, i.e., the ability to effectively solve domain prohlcms, is the goal of many instructional initiatives in engineering education. The present study examined leaming in a rich learning environment in which students read text, listened to narrations, interacted with simulations, and solved problems using instructional software for thermodynamics. Twenty-three engineering and science majors who had not taken a thermodynamics course provided verbal protocol data as they used this software. The data were analyzed for cognitive processes. There were three major findings: (1) students expressed significantly more cognitive activity on computer screens requiring interaction compared to text-based screens; (2) there were striking individual differences in the extent to which students employed the materials; and (3) verbalizations revealed that students applied predominantly lower-level cognitive processes when engaging these materials, and they failed to connect the conceptual and procedural knowledge in ways that would lead to deeper understanding. The results provide a baseline for additional studies of more advanced students in order to gain insight into how students develop skill in engineering.
2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings
is a professor of chemical engineering at Oregon State University. He currently has research activity in areas related to thin film materials processing and engineering education. He is interested in integrating technology into effective educational practices and in promoting the use of higher level cognitive skills in engineering problem solving. Koretsky is a six-time Intel Faculty Fellow and has won awards for his work in engineering education at the university and national levels.
Learning Conceptual Knowledge in the Engineering Sciences: Overview and Future Research Directions
Journal of Engineering Education, 2008
Learning conceptual knowledge in engineering science is a critical element in the development of competence and expertise in engineering. To date, however, research on conceptual learning in engineering science has been limited. Therefore, this article draws heavily on fundamental research by cognitive psychologists and applied research by science educators to provide a background on fundamental issues in the field and methods for assessing conceptual knowledge. Some of the most common conceptual difficulties from three domains: mechanics, thermal science and direct current electricity, are discussed to provide concrete examples of what students find difficult to learn. The article concludes with a discussion of possible sources of these difficulties, implications for instruction, and suggestions for future research.
Don’t blame the student, it’s in their mind: helping engineering students to grasp complex concepts
2016
The Thevenin Equivalent Circuit (TEC) concept has been identified as one of the first threshold concepts encountered by students in first year electrical engineering (Harlow, Scott, Peter, and Cowie, 2011). In order to assist students to learn about TEC, it is necessary to reduce the relational complexity of the concepts being taught (Halford, Wilson, and Phillips, 1998). The relational complexity framework reveals that under the traditional teaching method for TEC, nine different concepts are being combined, thus overtaxing the working memory of students. Methods for reducing relational complexity all incorporate chunking of several related cognitive units into more complex wholes, and sequential rather than parallel processing of information (Halford, Wilson, et al., 1998; Miller, 1956). These methods are essential elements of scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, and Ross, 1976). PURPOSE It was hypothesized that introducing a scaffolding method for teaching TEC would improve students' ability to learn over and above a traditional teaching method. APPROACH First, the necessary background circuit theory was taught using simple component concepts (i.e. of relational complexity level 2 or 3). Then students were given practice along with class discussions about why things were done that way. For example, students were first given practice at finding the open circuit voltage of a network, before this concept was integrated with the other TEC concepts. Three trials were conducted, each with a control group that was taught TEC in the conventional way and a test group that was taught via the scaffolding method. After each lesson, students were given a TEC analysis problem that was scored on correctness. In the third trial, students in both conditions were asked to rate the difficulty that they would have in applying the TEC concept to a new problem. RESULTS The results showed that on each trial students scored slightly better when the scaffolding method was used, but these differences were not statistically significant, probably due to the large variance between the trials. In the third trial, scaffolding method students gave lower ratings than traditionally taught students on how difficult TEC would be to apply in practice. This result suggested that students' learning experiences were better in the scaffolding method than in the traditional method. CONCLUSIONS The scaffolding method presented here introduces students to new concepts in manageable and consolidated chunks, building up to complex concepts when students are ready. Students' ratings suggested that better learning experiences occurred under the scaffolding approach. Future studies will adopt improved measures for determining the learning gains provided by the scaffolding approach.
Concept learning in technology education
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Learning concepts is an important domain within technology education. Not much research has been spent on it, unfortunately. Also it is not clear, how concepts can be learnt. In this paper some ideas about that will be presented. In particular the role of design as a pedagogical strategy will be highlighted. Keywords: concept learning, artifacts, structure, function
Promoting the Conceptual Understanding of Engineering Students through Visualisation
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An important goal of engineering education is the acquisition of problem-solving skills. The profound mastery of relevant concepts and phenomena provides an essential foundation for the attainment of knowledge and understanding in engineering subjects, as well as a prerequisite for good problemsolving skills. New knowledge and conceptual understanding are both built on existing knowledge. Learners build connections between their existing knowledge and new experiences. Therefore, it is important that lecturers be able to acquire knowledge of their students’ conceptions. Approaches to teaching that may promote conceptual understanding are suggested in this article. The use of a PDEODE worksheet (Predict – Discuss – Explain – Observe – Discuss – Explain) is introduced. This can be applied when dealing with phenomena, demonstrations, hands-on experiments and other problems, amongst others. This intensifies and clarifies the learning process. Using visualisation aids in elucidating abstr...
Learning Objects: an approach in engineering education in a cognitive perspective
ineerweb.osanet.cz
This paper presents the methodology underlying the teaching of Descriptive Geometry according to a cognitivist approach. This teaching methodology is based on the Ausubel's Assimilation theory or meaningful learning, a theory which cornerstone is the student's prior knowledge. Meaningful learning is a process by which new information relates to relevant aspects of the individual's cognitive structure. The implementation of such methodology required modifications in the organization and presentation of course content, teaching procedures and didactic resources selection. The approach that uses learning objects contributes with the cognitive perspective, therefore it allows offering educational materials differentiated, in minor or greater granularity, using different types of digital resources, taking care of the necessities of the students. The learning objects are developed in the hypermedia learning environment, called HyperCAL GD on-line. The insertion of the information and communication technologies resources together to the new learning theories has brought great contributions for the improvement of the quality in engineering education
Supporting knowledge construction in elementary engineering design
Science Education, 2019
Engineering design learning experiences are increasingly offered as part of elementary school, but research on how to support young learners’ knowledge construction during classroom engineering is still preliminary. Questions remain about how classroom supports can make engineering thinking visible so that students build engineering knowledge along with engineering products. We report results from a case study of an 11‐day teaching experiment in two elementary classrooms. With the classroom teachers, we guided fourth and fifth graders to document their design iterations with a digital notebooking tool, participate in whole‐class design talks, and create and exhibit posters with “stomp rocket” design recommendations. We conducted a microethnographic analysis of students’ interactions with these notebooking, talk, and poster tools. Our findings characterize how students constructed engineering design knowledge through the discourse of sense‐making about rocket phenomena, decision‐maki...
Emerging Trends and Technologies for Enhancing Engineering Education
International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 2010
Improving and enhancing education has been a prime goal for higher learning institutions that seek to provide better learning techniques, technologies, educators, and to generate knowledgeable students to fulfill the needs of industries. A significant area where improvements are required is in the engineering field. In this regard, one approach is to review the delivery and pedagogies used in current education systems. This paper examines the problems faced by staff and students in the field of Mechanical Engineering, which are found in the literature. Finally, the authors explore new technologies that could help enhance and promote the learning process of students experiencing problems.
Investigating engineering students' learning – learning as the ‚learning of a complex concept
In both engineering and physics education, a common objective is that students should learn to use theories and models in order to understand the relation between theories and models, and objects and events, and to develop holistic, conceptual knowledge. During lab-work, students are expected to use, or learn to use, symbolic and physical tools (such as concepts, theories, models, representations, inscriptions, mathematics, instruments and devices) in order both to understand the phenomena being studied, and to develop the skills and abilities to use the tools themselves. We have earlier argued that this learning should be seen as the learning of a complex concept, i.e. a "concept" that makes up a holistic system of "single" interrelated "concepts" (i.e. a whole made up of interrelated parts). On the contrary, however, in education research it is common to investigate "misconceptions" of "single concepts". In this paper we will show ...