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Impact of Feedback and Revision on Student Team Solutions to Model-Eliciting Activities

Abstract

Helping first-year engineering students to embrace the iterative and open-ended nature of engineering problem solving is a challenge when their prior learning experiences have focused heavily on achieving a correct answer in a single attempt. In this paper, the authors will present a case study of student work from the Fall 2007 implementation of Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) to demonstrate the impact of the iterative process of feedback and revision on the quality of student products. They will also discuss some of the future research questions resulting from the iterative process used with MEAs.

Introduction

Model Eliciting Activities (MEAs) are realistic, open-ended, client driven problems designed to foster students’ mathematical modeling abilities. Built around the models and modeling perspective established by Lesh and Doerr [1], MEAs are carefully developed around six guiding principles. The development process is described in greater detail by Moore and Diefes-Dux [2]. The product students generate from an MEA is a memo directed to the client describing a process (procedure) for solving the client’s problem that is sharable, repeatable, and generalizable. Sharable solutions are ones with clearly articulated steps that the client can easily understand. Repeatable solutions are those where the output of the procedure is the same regardless of the individual implementing the procedure. Generalizable solutions are applicable to other similar situations.

Engineering-based MEAs were introduced into Purdue’s First-Year Engineering (FYE) course, ENGR 126, Engineering Problem Solving and Computer Tools, as part of a NSF-HRD Gender Equity in STEM grant titled “Small Group Mathematical Modeling (SGMM) Approaches to Improved Gender Equity in Engineering” (NSF HRD 0120794). The use of MEAs in this required first-year engineering course was investigated as a means of keeping underrepresented students, especially females, as interested and persistent in engineering as their counterparts [3, 4].

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Verleger, M., & Diefes-Dux, H. (2008, June), Impact Of Feedback And Revision On Student Team Solutions To Model Eliciting Activities Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3693