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Measuring the Impact of an Interdisciplinary Experiential-learning Activity on Student Learning

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Conference

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Salt Lake City, Utah

Publication Date

June 23, 2018

Start Date

June 23, 2018

End Date

July 27, 2018

Conference Session

Embedding Sociotechnical Systems Thinking II

Tagged Division

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

Page Count

21

DOI

10.18260/1-2--30799

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/30799

Download Count

462

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Paper Authors

biography

Anne-marie Nickel Milwaukee School of Engineering

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Dr. Anne-Marie Nickel is a Professor of Chemistry at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). In 2002, she earned her Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned her B.A. in Chemistry at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1997. Dr. Nickel is a member of the ASEE and the American Chemical Society (ACS).

e-mail:nickel@msoe.edu

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Jennifer Kelso Farrell Milwaukee School of Engineering

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Jennifer Kelso Farrell is an Associate Professor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. She has a PhD in English Literature (Science Fiction) from Louisiana State University (2007), an MA in English from Montana State University, and a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. At LSU, Jennifer was part of the Communication Across the Curriculum (CxC) and worked in the Engineering Communication Studio. Jennifer has published articles in The Leading Edge, Carbon, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Foundation.

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Alicia Domack Milwaukee School of Engineering

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I am associate professor and chair of the Humanities, Social Science, and Communication department at MSOE. I am also the IRB Director at MSOE. My background is in Developmental Psychology and I am also interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

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Gina Elizabeth Mazzone Milwaukee School of Engineering

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Gina Mazzone is the Administrative Assistant for the Physics and Chemistry Department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). In 2006, she earned her B.S. in Psychology from Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

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Abstract

An English professor and a chemistry professor from different academic departments collaborated to broaden engineering students’ learning experience in two different courses by bringing their students together for an interdisciplinary experiential-learning activity. Educational pedagogy reports the value of incorporating experiential learning opportunities into course work to greater impact student learning [1], [2]. The courses involved were a humanities elective on science fiction and a science elective on nanotechnology. The activity was built on a common theme in each course, the societal impacts of new technologies. It involved the students presenting content from their course’s discipline to students in the other course in a face-to-face event. The authors reported previously on how these courses were integrated [3]. The effects of the activity on students’ experiences were measured by evaluating learning outcomes in each class and by employing course surveys over a two-year period. The experimental group’s scores on each of the course outcomes, as measured by exam questions, were compared to the control group’s scores on each of the course outcomes while controlling for pre-test scores. Similarly, pre- and post-survey questions for the experimental group were compared to the control group’s responses. Presented data will relate to the evaluation of the hypothesis that students’ mastery of learning outcomes would be greater for those students participating in the integrated coursework as compared to the control group. Included is an evolution of the collaboration and the development of the activity from an asychronistic reading and writing assignment to an interactive, experiential-learning activity. The challenges related to collaborating across departments and associated with measuring student learning will be discussed as well as planned future work in this collaboration.

Nickel, A., & Farrell, J. K., & Domack, A., & Mazzone, G. E. (2018, June), Measuring the Impact of an Interdisciplinary Experiential-learning Activity on Student Learning Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30799

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