Impact of interdisciplinary learning on the development of engineering students’ skills

ABSTRACT

This paper intends to present an interdisciplinary project carried out in a School of Engineering, and to refer to its effects in the development of students’ skills. This project’s main goal was to present students with an intellectually demanding challenge which implied overcoming the disciplinary barriers thus integrating knowledge to solve the problems they were challenged with. After the project had been concluded, a study was carried out using a qualitative methodology by conducting two focus groups (n?=?16). The main goal of this procedure was to get a better perception of (1) how students understood the project; (2) what kind of skills students considered to have developed throughout the project, and (3) the importance they have attributed to this kind of project. The results demonstrate that students are aware of the relevance of the project not only for their education process but also for the development of their skills. The results of the study also reveal that the students involved in the project have been capable of identifying the specific skills that the project work had intended to address and develop.     

Theo Jansen project in engineering design course and a design example

Objectives of a project-oriented mechanical engineering course, Engineering Design, were achieved through a design project, where students designed, built and demonstrated an extreme version of a basic Theo Jansen device. Through this project, junior students in the University of Louisiana fully developed the capability of applying mathematic and kinematic knowledge in the analysis and design of mechanisms. Students also developed oral and written communication skills, which would be used in design environments, through the presentation of results in both oral and written forms. An assessment of the design project indicated that effective teaching and learning spread through the semester, with the junior students acting as project managers and experiencing design practices. An example of a student-designed Theo Jansen device is presented in this paper to show the study results achieved by the students.     

Integration of Psychology,Economics and Information Technology in an Engineering Curriculum

Engineers often work together with professionals from entirely different areas. Therefore, it is important for the engineers to understand enough of these other areas, where technology is used, to obtain good results. To this aim a term has been developed within the civil engineering curriculum in information technology at Linköpings universitet, where the students work and study together with students from the psychology and economics education programs. The information technology and economics students build companies together and perform a project. The psychology students act as consultants for the different companies. Subjects from six departments are integrated into the project. The students work and study together for different parts of the project, although the learning goals differ between the different programs. The cooperation in the project leads to a transfer of information and knowledge between the students. Experience also suggests that the students obta in a better motivation and an integrated view of technology and the other areas as a result of the integrated project. The learning method also promotes cooperation and understanding between different professional cultures.     

Addressing the Language and Cultural Problems of Overseas Students in the Context of Mathematics Classes

This paper describes a project in which instruction in mathematical language and strategies for adapting to the Australian university environment were integrated into mathematics classes. The classes were part of a program which enables overseas students to meet the entry requirements of Australian business faculties. The project used the action research methodology in which observations of the students' reactions motivated further activities. The outcomes of the project are described using the diary entries made by students, teacher and observer. These show that students developed an awareness of the need to improve their language skills and to make cultural adjustments and made some progress in these directions.     

‘I never imagined I’d have to teach these children’: providing authentic learning experiences for secondary pre‐service teachers in teaching students with special needs

This article describes a collaborative and cross‐curricula initiative undertaken in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The project involved developing an integrated approach to providing professional year pre‐service secondary teacher education students with experiences that would assist them to develop their knowledge and skills to teach students with special needs in their classrooms. These experiences were undertaken in the authentic teaching and learning context of a post‐school literacy program for young adults with intellectual disabilities. In preliminary interviews pre‐service teachers revealed that they lacked experience, knowledge and understanding related to teaching students with special needs, and felt that their teacher education program lacked focus in this field. This project was developed in response to these expressed needs. Through participating in the project, pre‐service teachers’ knowledge and understanding about working with students with diverse learning needs were developed as they undertook real and purposeful tasks in an authentic context.     

RNA Secondary Structure Prediction by Using Discrete Mathematics: An Interdisciplinary Research Experience for Undergraduate Students

The focus of this Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) project was on RNA secondary structure prediction by using a lattice walk approach. The lattice walk approach is a combinatorial and computational biology method used to enumerate possible secondary structures and predict RNA secondary structure from RNA sequences. The method uses discrete mathematical techniques and identifies specified base pairs as parameters. The goal of the REU was to introduce upper-level undergraduate students to the principles and challenges of interdisciplinary research in molecular biology and discrete mathematics. At the beginning of the project, students from the biology and mathematics departments of a mid-sized university received instruction on the role of secondary structure in the function of eukaryotic RNAs and RNA viruses, RNA related to combinatorics, and the National Center for Biotechnology Information resources. The student research projects focused on RNA secondary structure prediction on a regulatory region of the yellow fever virus RNA genome and on an untranslated region of an mRNA of a gene associated with the neurological disorder epilepsy. At the end of the project, the REU students gave poster and oral presentations, and they submitted written final project reports to the program director. The outcome of the REU was that the students gained transferable knowledge and skills in bioinformatics and an awareness of the applications of discrete mathematics to biological research problems.     

MindWorks: Making Scientific Concepts Come Alive

The Southwest Regional Laboratory, through major funding from the National Science Foundation (ESI-9450235), has developed a series of eight instructional modules for use in common secondary school physical science that address three central goals of U.S. science literacy education: (1) to motivate students who have previously shown little interest in science; (2) to accomplish deep change in students' internalized conceptions of the structure and workings of the physical world; and (3) to build greater understanding, in both teachers and students, of the process and culture of scientific activity.Beginning with a discussion of the conceptual scaffolding that undergirds the project's pedagogical approach, the paper presents an overview of MindWorks' goals, the materials that have been developed to achieve these goals, and the progress of the pilot implementation and project evaluation.     

Promoting intercultural competence in diverse US classrooms through ethnographic interviews

To meet the demands of contemporary society, students need to develop the ability to interact effectively with people from different cultures. To advance this goal, a project involving ethnographic interviews was introduced to an intercultural communication course. Participating students’ attitudes toward other cultures were measured on a Likert scale at the beginning and end of the project. The findings show that through the interviews, the students developed greater awareness of their own cultures and of themselves within their culture and deepened their knowledge of other cultures. Yet, the majority of the students did not show greater interest in learning a foreign language at the end of the project. Further, even though the students did learn about other cultures, their responses to becoming more open to other cultures were inconclusive. The article discusses possible reasons for these outcomes and outlines future research directions.     

Experiential learning of management principles via online student-manager discussions

This teaching brief describes an experiential project used in a graduate Principles of Management course for nonbusiness undergraduate students. Groups of four to six first-year MBA students interviewed a seasoned manager online twice over the 8-week course and discussed the applications of course material. Project subtopics included an introduction to management, strategic management, ethics and social responsibility, innovation and change management, international business, organizational structure, authority and job design, human resource management, leadership, and communication, operations management, and business analytics. Students completed a group report and an individual reflection on their experience. Over 92% of graduate students in the class indicated that the project was a positive learning activity.     

Enhancing the undergraduate student experience via fund-raising partnerships: an action research project

This project was developed from practitioner action research and considers the impact of integrating fund-raising activities into the formal curriculum with a target group of undergraduate students. The main aim of this project was to evaluate the impact of developing fund-raising activities as an integral aspect at both module and programme levels, grounded within practitioner action research. A core component of this aim was to develop value-added structures into established modules to support the student experience and student identity. Furthermore, the project sought to broaden, develop and strengthen links with the local wider community, recognising the value such interactions can bring. Finally, the project set out to develop integration opportunities between the students and organisations in order to develop the students’ awareness of workforce options as future professionals. This study is based within one post-1992 higher education institution and consisted of three inter-related but distinct phases. The project involved 60 students during Phase 1, building to some 200 students by Phase 3. The findings suggest that fund-raising activities built into the formal curriculum can be a useful medium for promoting student identity whilst providing a ‘value-added’ component to existing programmes of study.     

The use of wikis in a science inquiry-based project in a primary school

This study explored the use of wikis in a science inquiry-based project conducted with Primary 6 students (aged 11–12). It used an online wiki-based platform called PBworks and addressed the following research questions: (1) What are students’ attitudes toward learning with wikis? (2) What are students’ interactions in online group collaboration with wikis? (3) What have students learned with wikis in a science inquiry-based project in a primary school context? Analyses of the quantitative and qualitative data showed that with respect to the first research question, the students held positive attitudes toward the platform at the end of the study. With respect to the second research question, the students actively engaged in various forms of learning-related interactions using the platform that extended to more meaningful offline interactions. With respect to the third research question, the students developed Internet search skills, collaborative problem solving competencies, and critical inquiry abilities. It is concluded that a well-planned wiki-based learning experience, framed within an inquiry project-based approach facilitated by students’ online collaborative knowledge construction, is conducive to the learning and teaching of science inquiry-based projects in primary school.     

浅析高等院校对特殊专长学生的录取政策

高校的主要任务之一是为社会主义建设事业培养各类人才，其中也包括将一批具有特殊专长的学生培养成才。教育部启动的高校自主招生试点工作，主要目的之一就是要把一批在某学科领域有特殊才能的考生招入高校深造，但是招生试点工作的效果不太理想。为此，我们应借鉴教育发达国家高考招生的经验，以新的着眼点多视角地全面考察高中生的特长和水平，制定详尽的招生操作规范以及培养特长生的配套改革措施，为今后扩大招收特长生打好基础。     

Task-Based Team Learning with ICT, Design and Development of New Learning

There is a shift going on in Dutch higher education from traditional, teacher centred education to student learning activities. The trend is to structure these activities in real-life tasks, projects or case situations in which Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is integrated. This paper discusses results of a two-year project implementing this type of education. The focus of the project was on task-based team learning with Information and Communication Technology. In this project two Dutch universities worked together. One partner was the Hogeschool van Utrecht, a university for applied science and professional development. The other was the University of Utrecht, a general university. A large department and an educational expert centre were involved in each university. Learning environments were developed in two settings: Economics and Management (Hogeschool van Utrecht) and Medicine (University of Utrecht). An example of a task-based team learning environment is described. It is a course on E-business of 280 hours of study for part-time students in Economics and Management. The didactical model of task-based team learning underlying this course is presented. The results confirm that the model is relevant and useful. In an analytic part of the project good practice for design, development and implementation was identified from literature and assembled in two sets of guidelines, one design of task-based team learning with ICT and one for development and implementation. Substantial implementations of new learning imply changes in the organisation of education, the roles of students and teaching staff, and the infrastructure. Because of this, the design and development process become complex activities and have to be split into sub-processes for effectiveness. A process model for design, development and implementation was therefore introduced in the project and is presented here. The developed guidelines were reviewed with respect to (critical) success factors contributing to success or failure of the courses developed. There are always risks in course design and development, and specifically so in task-based team learning, because students have an explicit responsibility for their own activities. What are then the essential factors decisive for success or failure of design, development and the running of such courses? Design and development guidelines were reviewed to identify success factors and the actors involved. Some of these success factors were deemed to be critical, others non-critical. In the last stage of the project these success factors were validated with experienced designers and developers. Some examples are presented.     

Implementation and outcomes of online self and peer assessment on group based honours research projects

Honours research projects in the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering at the University of Adelaide are run with small groups of students working with an academic supervisor in a chosen area for one year. The research project is mainly self-directed study, which makes it very difficult to fairly assess the contribution of individual students to a group-based research project. Until recently, a paper-based method of self and peer assessment (SPA) for the honours research projects was used to assess the projects. This was unsatisfactory for both students and academic staff, who found that the same mark was often awarded by the peers to each student without feedback. In 2010, therefore, an online SPA tool, SPARK, together with a set of newly developed assessment criteria, were used for SPA by the honours students. The new SPA criteria are based on teamwork and research skills, and the new rating scales reflect standard academic grades. Surveys of the students confirmed that they found the criteria and scales much more suitable for the assessment of group work and design projects.     

Orthography and the development of metalinguistic reflection in Portuguese primary school pupils / Ortografía y desarrollo de la reflexión metalingüística en alumnos portugueses en primaria

Abstract

Linguistic awareness is crucial in learning literacy. This project has a two-fold aim: to develop the students’ ability to think about language in order to write with accuracy and to lead teachers to promote students’ discussions about their writing difficulties. The study is part of a two-year action-research project developed in primary schools from the Lisbon area, with experimental and control groups. The starting point of the project was the analysis of the problems students of third and fourth grades showed in their writing. The scope of the project includes dictation tasks within an interactionist approach, favouring grammatical discussions leading to the observation and manipulation of linguistic data.     

开发运用项目任务单的实践与探索——以程控交换设备运行与维护课程为例

在反思项目教学存在问题的基础上,对程控交换设备运行与维护课程中项目任务单的开发运用进行了实践与探索;归纳出项目任务单的5个作用即促进学生思考,促进学生归纳,促进学生反思,促进学生对比,促进评价考核;开发出两种不同的项目任务单——工作过程记录单和学习过程记录单;提出在三方面的运用。认为对于以完成实际工作项目引领教学的课程,项目任务单可以较好地解决项目教学中存在的问题,在有效促进高职教育"职教性"的同时,也促进了"高教性"的发展。     

OBE: Some Answers for the Uninitiated

In this article, leaders of the North Carolina Writing Project explore whether students of teachers who attended Writing Project summer institutes out-performed other teachers' students on state writing tests. The authors accordingly developed a test to compare the writing of those students with the writing of students of non-writing project teachers. The test, however, produced no significant difference in the writing of the two groups. Seventeen years later, the authors compared the longevity of writing project teachers with that of comparable non-writing project teachers to see if the institutes infused a spirit of professionalism and self-efficacy in participants that other teachers did not possess. This comparison affirmed the authors' beliefs: writing project teachers had greater staying power than comparable teachers.     

Undergraduate project work: can directed tutor support enhance skills development?

Students' perceptions of their skills development and the overall value of their undergraduate project work were evaluated using data derived from questionnaires. Thirty‐nine students completing their second year of study (i.e. prior to the commencement of project work) and 42 students completing their third‐year project work took part. Thirteen tutors also completed questionnaires. They were asked to give their perceptions as to what skills project students developed and what attributes of project work enhanced both students' personal development and students' assessment grades. Results showed a shift in students' perceptions of the types of skills reinforced, developed and assessed within project work during the course of their third‐year project. Their perceived views did not fully coincide with tutors' perceptions of student skills development, although evaluation of both the assessment and personal importance of particular aspects of project work showed some interesting relationships between students and tutors. The diversity of opinion shown in these results may be due to lack of clarification of assessment criteria rather than a ‘hidden curriculum’. For example, the distinction between presentation of work and scientific writing may not be clear from an initial reading of the criteria. The outcomes of this study, with particular reference to the relationship between scientific writing and thinking, have implications regarding tutor and student discussion, the development of marking criteria and the use of plenary project support sessions.     

基于项目教学法的初中英语实践案例设计与实施

用项目教学法开展初中英语实践活动,教学的项目由教师设计,学生是实施项目的主体,教师在项目实施的过程中是指导者和帮助者。项目活动的开展采取课堂与课外相结合的方式,由教师带领学生通过合作探究,开展项目活动,指导学生完成各项项目作业,从而掌握知识、开发智能、培养自主学习能力。