Adding active and blended learning to an introductory mechanics course

Transkript

1 Adding active and blended learning to an introductory mechanics course Ulf Gran Chalmers, Physics

2 Background Mechanics 1 for Engineering Physics and Engineering Mathematics (SP2/3, 7.5 hp) 200+ students I took over the course in 2013 During the last ten years the pass-rate (on the first exam) has been around 50%

3 New elements - Active and Blended Learning (Tom Adawi, Hampus Linander & Stellan Östlund) Videos before the lectures Quiz with Peer Instruction ( Problems on the web - web-based system for exercise problems with automated marking etc. Problem of the week - Old exam problem with video solution á la Khan Academy Self-moderating forum (Piazza) Each week forms a learning sequence

4 How did it go? Students liked the new elements in the course - course evaluation average of 4.42 I was awarded Guldäpplet - F and TM s pedagogical prize Pass-rate of 53% on the first half of the course Why didn t the students exam results improve?

5 The Active Learning elements was not used as intended! The students looked too quickly at the full solution when encountering problems in problem on the web. The students didn t use problem of the week during the course; they just watched the video solution while preparing for the exam. Hypothesis: Students need to independently solve more problems

6 5. Om du vill ge tips nästa års studenter, vad är viktigt för att klara kursen? Bocka i de alternativ du tycker är viktiga. 72 svarande (på denna fråga var det möjligt att välja flera svarsalternativ) Göra många uppgifter» 61 Läsa boken (Engineering Mechanics - J.L. Meriam, L.G. Krai» 84% 15 20% Gå på räkneövningar» 22 30% Gå på föreläsningar» 52 72%

7 With the web-based system for problems we can make a preliminary test of the hypothesis! In order to check if an answer is correct or not it has to be entered into the web system. Only 1/3 of the students solved the recommended problems!! This matches the number of students who did reasonably well on the exam.

8 How do we motivate the students solve more problems? Make use of the automatic marking in the web-system!

9 The 2014 iteration of the course Now obligatory and bonus problems.

10 Results Mechanics Passed 53% 69% 74% # of students Average score (max 9p)

11 Result distribution (max 9 points)

12 What s most important, time spent solving problems or number of solved problems? Tentapoäng statik Timmar Tentapoäng statik Antal lösta uppgifter

13 Outlook The web-system has been developed to provide more data regarding how the students work (Stellan Östlund). Anonymous until after the exam is corrected. Time spent per problem (identify what the students struggle with). Problems worked on the last 24 hours or the last week. Answer history per problem and student. Time distribution over the week (distributed practice or spaced repetition/practice). Web platform is open source.

14 Conclusions Even if you introduce course elements facilitating student learning they might not use these due to e.g. high workload from other courses. Limited information from course evaluations. Important to be able to have obligatory problems without drowning in marking these problems. Valuable to be able to follow the students learning process almost in real-time during the course and be able to adjust the teaching accordingly!

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