Improving students' understanding by using on-going education research to refine active learning activities in a first-year electronics course (original) (raw)

2016

Abstract

Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs) have been used across introductory university physics as a successful active learning (AL) strategy to improve students’ conceptual understanding. We have developed ILDs for more complex topics in our first-year electronics course. In 2006 we began developing ILDs to improve students’ conceptual understanding of Operational Amplifiers (OAs) and negative feedback in amplification circuits. The ILDs were used after traditional lecture instruction to help students consolidate their understanding. We developed a diagnostic test, to be administered to students both before and after the ILDs, as a measure of how effective the ILDs were in improving students’ understanding. We argue that an on-going critical analysis of student performance (using education research principles) is essential for improving education practice. Our analysis of student surveys, pre- and post-tests, ILD activities and final examinations, have yielded valuable feedback on how well we have designed and delivered our OA ILD interventions. During the period 2006-2013, we have found that: (a) many hours of traditional lectures do little to improve students’ conceptual understanding. (b) a few additional hours of ILDs significantly improves students’ conceptual understanding. (c) few students attend lectures consistently (either traditional or ILDs). (d) students find the concepts relating to OAs difficult, but students achieved much better scores on the OA examination question after the introduction of ILDs. (e) students recognise the learning benefits of the ILDs. Our on-going education research has driven improvements in our active learning strategy, including: (1) recognising the importance of the facilitator role in active learning. (2) using a lesson plan that is consistent with an active learning pedagogy. (3) reviewing assessment tools and learning activities so that they improve student learning. (4) redesigning ILD equipment and activities to make them simpler and clearer to understand. (5) reviewing lesson plans to make them focused on simple key concepts. The implications of using on-going education research results to refine the effectiveness of our L&T approach are clear. If we had implemented our initial ILD approach back in 2006 and continued on without the critical review that came from our own education research, we may have assumed that what we were doing was an effective AL approach. Instead, our education research results are an on-going trigger for review of, and self-reflection on, our teaching practices. Our education research gives us a quantitative measure of the success (or otherwise) of the interventions that we try in our teaching.

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