The Effect of Student Placement on the Assessment of   Learning and Teaching Styles

Moses Kwame Tefe; Edwin R. Schmeckpeper

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Conference: 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Publication Date: June 15, 2014
Start Date: June 15, 2014
End Date: June 18, 2014
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Civil Engineering Division Poster Session
Tagged Division: Civil Engineering
Page Count: 8
Page Numbers: 24.1206.1 - 24.1206.8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--23139
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/23139
Download Count: 443

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Paper Authors

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Moses Kwame Tefe Norwich University

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Moses is currently an Assistant Professor of Transportation Engineering at Norwich University, where he instructs students in Transportation Engineering, Surveying and Site Development. He graduated from the University of Alabama in August 2012 with a PhD in Civil/Transportation Engineering, and started working with Norwich University, immediately after graduation.

He had his college education in Ghana, where he graduated with a BS in Civil Engineering. After that he worked as a Traffic/Transportation Engineer for ten years with a private consulting firm in Ghana called Associated Consultants, before proceeding to the Netherlands in 2002 to pursue a Master’s degree in Urban Infrastructure Engineering and Management. After completion in 2004, he returned to Associated Consultants until 2007 when he gained admission to The University of Alabama. His work experience include traffic studies, signal design, pre-contract services like writing of technical proposals and post-contract services like project supervision

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Edwin R. Schmeckpeper Norwich University

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Edwin Schmeckpeper, P.E., Ph.D., is the chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Norwich University. Norwich University was the first private school in the United States to offer engineering courses. In addition, Norwich University was the model used by Senator Justin Morrill for the Land-Grant colleges created by the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act. Prior to joining the faculty at Norwich University, Dr. Schmeckpeper taught at the University of Idaho, the Land-Grant College for the State of Idaho, and worked as an engineer in design offices and at construction sites.

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Abstract

The Effect of Student Placement on the Assessment of Successful Class Delivery TechniquesIt is a common practice to assess student success from different class environments and underdifferent conditions. For some instances different sections of the same class are offered to groupsof students in different settings, to test some phenomenon say a class delivery technique. But thequestion is how students should be registered into different class sections when there is aresearch component to the class. The common practice of registering students into classes is bymaking the sections available and based on their own preferences and constraints, students areallowed to select the classes that best suit their schedules. However, this paper argues that thistype of student placement into classes may not always produce the right balance of students forresearch purposes.The author is teaching a sophomore class that has two sections taught by the same professor. Theearlier class has a size of 25 students and the second class has a size of 14 students. Theseinitially appeared to be an ideal configuration to practice an active teaching technique and to testthe effect of class size. So the same active teaching style was being used in both classes. It isbelieved that the Professor even did better in the smaller, class because lessons from the earlierclass helped improve the delivery technique in the second class, which also has the smaller classsize. With this double advantage, it was expected that students in the second class will havebetter performance. Contrary to this expectation however, mid semester grades showed thatstudents in the larger class performed better.The initial reaction is that teaching technique may not have been the only factor that influencedstudent performance in the two classes. This observation is what this paper sets out toinvestigate, to unveil the underlying factors that explain the discrepancy. The lesson at a glanceis that for class comparisons to be effective, student placement into the different sections shouldhave some element of control to produce a comparable pool of students in both classrooms.Key words: Class size, student placement, teaching technique, teaching technique assessment,classroom research.

Citation
Format

Tefe, M. K., & Schmeckpeper, E. R. (2014, June), The Effect of Student Placement on the Assessment of Learning and Teaching Styles Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--23139

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -         The Effect of Student Placement on the Assessment of Successful                           Class Delivery TechniquesIt is a common practice to assess student success from different class environments and underdifferent conditions. For some instances different sections of the same class are offered to groupsof students in different settings, to test some phenomenon say a class delivery technique. But thequestion is how students should be registered into different class sections when there is aresearch component to the class. The common practice of registering students into classes is bymaking the sections available and based on their own preferences and constraints, students areallowed to select the classes that best suit their schedules. However, this paper argues that thistype of student placement into classes may not always produce the right balance of students forresearch purposes.The author is teaching a sophomore class that has two sections taught by the same professor. Theearlier class has a size of 25 students and the second class has a size of 14 students. Theseinitially appeared to be an ideal configuration to practice an active teaching technique and to testthe effect of class size. So the same active teaching style was being used in both classes. It isbelieved that the Professor even did better in the smaller, class because lessons from the earlierclass helped improve the delivery technique in the second class, which also has the smaller classsize. With this double advantage, it was expected that students in the second class will havebetter performance. Contrary to this expectation however, mid semester grades showed thatstudents in the larger class performed better.The initial reaction is that teaching technique may not have been the only factor that influencedstudent performance in the two classes. This observation is what this paper sets out toinvestigate, to unveil the underlying factors that explain the discrepancy. The lesson at a glanceis that for class comparisons to be effective, student placement into the different sections shouldhave some element of control to produce a comparable pool of students in both classrooms.Key words: Class size, student placement, teaching technique, teaching technique assessment,classroom research.
AU  - Moses Kwame Tefe
AU  - Edwin R. Schmeckpeper
CY  - Indianapolis, Indiana
DA  - 2014/06/15
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - The Effect of Student Placement on the Assessment of   Learning and Teaching Styles
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/23139
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--23139
ER  -