Penn State University , Pennsylvania
July 28, 2019
July 28, 2019
July 30, 2019
FYEE Conference - Paper Submission
5
10.18260/1-2--33695
https://peer.asee.org/33695
293
Dr. Olukemi Akintewe is an instructor in the Department of Medical Engineering. She received a B.E. degree in chemical engineering from City College of New York, CUNY, a M.Sc in materials science & engineering from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of South Florida. Dr. Akintewe has focused her research in service-learning in engineering education; engineering predictive assessment models that supports students’ learning, classroom management techniques and best teaching practices.
Jonathan E. Gaines is faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of South Florida. He is the Director of First Year Experiential Education and Learning. Through this position, he develops and implements the curriculum for USF's Foundations of Engineering Lab course. He is also the Principle Investigator for Bulls Engineering Youth Experience (Bulls-EYE Mentoring) a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math based outreach program that uses undergraduate students to mentor middle school youth.
Schinnel Small is an Instructor I and IT Director at the University of South Florida. She pursued a Bachelor-to-Doctorate path of study at Morgan State University and obtained her Bachelor of Science and Doctorate degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2004 and 2010 respectively. She currently teaches Introductory Programming and Engineering courses for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. As an IT coordinator, she assists the department with IT curriculum and course development, as well as advising for IT students. Her research interests include programming languages and visual analytics.
This Work in Progress paper describes the active learning techniques adapted in a first-year interdisciplinary engineering course at a research university in the southeast region. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a combined learner-centered pedagogical model: the flipped classroom model and the Jigsaw strategy (flipped Jigsaw), called “Flip-J”. Implementation of an active learning strategy such as this Flip-J technique allows for both acquisition of knowledge and applied learning pursuit that is focused on application, evaluation, analysis and synthesis of pertinent information. Freshmen-engineering students participate in a team-based design project curriculum in sections of up to 90 students with additional coursework for professional development. Students primarily learn about the engineering design process, including a variety of technical and professional skills on topics like computer aided design (CAD), 3D printing to memo writing and oral presentation. Adapting the Flip-J technique encompasses both cooperative and collaborative learning strategies that are executable in four stages. The first stage is allocation of instructional materials, where a lesson module is divided into subsections identified by letters, and each student is assigned a letter and a reading assignment (to be completed outside of the classroom) that corresponds to the letter in the subsections. The second stage is formation of collaborative “expert” groups, where students with the same letter assignments sit together to discuss individual main points and to formulate more points pertaining to the reading assignments in stage 1. In the third stage cooperative Jigsaw groups are formed by randomly assigning a number to students while in their expert groups. The students are then directed to sit in a newly formed group consisting of peers with different reading assignments. The fourth stage focuses on reflection on instructional materials, where the instructor poses higher-order thinking questions to students to assess comprehension and clarify any misconceptions. The expert groups discuss lessons learned from the reading assignments, clarify any misconceptions, reinforce important concepts and lastly prepare a presentation to the Jigsaw group. The objective of the Jigsaw groups is to learn instructional materials from each expert member in the number group by actively listening, intentionally taking notes and asking questions for clarity. An assessment of the Flip-J learning strategy may have shown an effective method for knowledge retention, promotion of student engagement and development of professional skills in freshman engineering course. The ability to synthesize thoughts and form collaborative solutions deemed practical with the implementation of this learner-centered model. Based on the midterm course evaluations, students reported that the Flip-J activities provided an opportunity to learn engineering concepts, foster team building, conduct interactive lectures, encourage creative thinking and helped strengthen their communication skills. Feedback from students also highlighted minor areas for improvement, such as time spent on letter groups versus number groups, and the opportunity to switch number groups in subsequent classes to allow more peer interactions. Corrective actions would be applied in forthcoming classes to reflect students’ feedback.
Akintewe, O., & Gaines, J. E., & Small, S. K. (2019, July), Flip-J instructional strategies in the first-year engineering design classroom Paper presented at 2019 FYEE Conference , Penn State University , Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--33695
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