GIFTS: Integration of a Problem-Solving Heuristic Across Teaching and Assessment
- Conference
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14th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience (FYEE) Conference
- Location
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University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee
- Publication Date
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July 30, 2023
- Start Date
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July 30, 2023
- End Date
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August 1, 2023
- Page Count
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3
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--44836
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/44836
- Download Count
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43
Paper Authors
Baker A. Martin
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
orcid.org/0000-0003-3437-9293
Baker Martin is a Lecturer in Engineering Fundamentals at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he teaches in the first-year engineering program. His research interests include choice and decision making, especially relating to first-year engineering students’ major selection. He earned his Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education from Clemson University, his M.S. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Courtney June Faber University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Courtney Faber, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on empowering engineering education scholars to be more effective at impacting transformational change in engineering and developing educational experiences that consider epistemic cognition. She develops and uses innovative research methods that allow for deep investigations of constructs such as epistemic thinking, identity, and agency. Dr. Faber has a B.S. in Bioengineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education from Clemson University and a M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University. Among other awards for her research, she was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2022 to study epistemic negotiations on interdisciplinary engineering education research teams.
Betsy Chesnutt University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Betsy Chesnutt is a lecturer in Engineering Fundamentals at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She is interested in understanding how to prepare pre-service teachers to teach engineering, as well as how to support current K-12 teachers so that they can implement engineering into K-12 classrooms more effectively.
Erin McCave
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
orcid.org/0000-0002-9823-3181
Erin is a Research Assistant Professor and Lecturer in the Engineering Fundamentals Program at the University of Tennessee. She completed a postdoctoral/ lecturer position split between the General Engineering program and the Engineering & Science Education Department and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Clemson University. Erin’s research interests include preparing students for their sophomore year, minority student engineering identity development, and providing mentoring relationships to help foster student growth and success.
Abstract
Supporting students’ development of problem-solving skills is a common goal within first-year engineering. It is important that students develop the ability to solve complex problems that require multiple steps because these types of problems will be common within later core engineering courses (e.g., thermodynamics, statics, dynamics, fluids). Research has shown that students struggle to break complex problems down and often get stuck identifying the first step to take. Furthermore, many students will consider a problem complete after getting a numeric answer and do not consider the reasonableness of the value they calculated. There are many processes and heuristics that have been developed to support problem solving. As instructors, we have focused on teaching our students PROCESS, which was developed by Grigg and Benson (2014, 2015). This approach breaks problem solving into 7-steps that start with problem definition and ends with evaluation of the solution. For this GIFT, we will share how we have integrated PROCESS into our instruction and assessment within our first-year engineering courses. We will share our observations (both positive and negative) from using PROCESS over the last year in three different courses.
Martin, B. A., & Faber, C. J., & Chesnutt, B., & McCave, E. (2023, July), GIFTS: Integration of a Problem-Solving Heuristic Across Teaching and Assessment Paper presented at 14th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience (FYEE) Conference, University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--44836
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