Asee peer logo

Facilitating Cross-Course Connections & Knowledge Transfer between Engineering Thermodynamics and Mathematics (WIP)

Download Paper |

Conference

2019 Fall Mid Atlantic States Conference

Location

New York, New York

Publication Date

November 1, 2019

Start Date

November 1, 2019

End Date

November 30, 2019

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--33805

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/33805

Download Count

368

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Alexander John De Rosa Stevens Institute of Technology (School of Engineering and Science)

visit author page

Alexander De Rosa is a Teaching Assistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. Alex specializes in teaching in the thermal-fluid sciences and has a background in experimental combustion. He gained his PhD in 2015 from The Pennsylvania State University.

visit author page

author page

Denis Serbin

author page

Stephanie Lee

Download Paper |

Abstract

Promoting “deeper learning” so that students can access and apply knowledge in different contexts and circumstances beyond the scope of a given course is a major goal of educators. However, it is well-established that students have difficulty transferring knowledge and skills between courses in their undergraduate curriculum. Simple methods are needed to help students draw upon prior knowledge to solve problems in different courses and ultimately in their careers. In this study, thermodynamics students were posed a problem that required the application of skills learned in calculus courses to solve. Without providing any guidance, the students were asked to solve the problem. After this first attempt, students were asked to solve a relevant calculus problem in order to activate their requisite prior knowledge. Again, no guidance was provided. Finally, students were provided a second attempt at solving the initial thermodynamics problem. Student responses to each of the attempts and the calculus problem were scored. Prompting students with the calculus problem was successful in showing students the need to integrate to solve the thermodynamics problem but did not significantly improve their problem solving success. Many students did however state that they felt they had the skills to solve the thermodynamics problem and that barriers to success included lack of learning applications of math skills and the gap in time between completing the math sequence and thermodynamics course.

De Rosa, A. J., & Serbin, D., & Lee, S. (2019, November), Facilitating Cross-Course Connections & Knowledge Transfer between Engineering Thermodynamics and Mathematics (WIP) Paper presented at 2019 Fall Mid Atlantic States Conference, New York, New York. 10.18260/1-2--33805

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2019 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015