Analyzing Student Achievement to Measure the Effectiveness of Active Learning Strategies in the Engineering Classroom
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual On line
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2020
- Start Date
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June 22, 2020
- End Date
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June 26, 2021
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Faculty Development Division
- Tagged Topic
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Diversity
- Page Count
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16
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--34150
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/34150
- Download Count
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409
Paper Authors
Sarah Hoyt Arizona State University
Sarah Hoyt is currently the Education Project Manager for the NSF-funded JTFD Engineering faculty development program. Her educational background includes two Master's degrees from Grand Canyon University in Curriculum and Instruction and Education Administration. Her areas of interest are in student inclusion programs and creating faculty development that ultimately boost engagement and performance in students from lower SES backgrounds. Prior to her role as project manager, Sarah worked as the SEI Coordinator for a local high school and has also developed an inclusion program for Migrant and Immigrant students that utilized co-teaching and active learning as keystones of the program. She began her educational career as a high school teacher, teaching courses in English, math, and science.
Lindy Hamilton Mayled Arizona State University
Lindy Hamilton Mayled is the Director of Instructional Effectiveness for the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. She has a PhD in Psychology of Learning, Education, and Technology from Grand Canyon University. Her research and areas of interest are in improving educational outcomes for STEM students through the integration of active learning and technology-enabled frequent feedback. Prior to her role and Director of Instructional Effectiveness, she worked as the Education Project Manager for the NSF-funded JTFD Engineering faculty development program, as a high school math and science teacher, and as an Assistant Principal and Instructional & Curriculum Coach.
Eugene Judson
Arizona State University
orcid.org/0000-0002-0124-8476
Eugene Judson is an Associate Professor of for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. He also serves as an Extension Services Consultant for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). His past experiences include having been a middle school science teacher, Director of Academic and Instructional Support for the Arizona Department of Education, a research scientist for the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (CRESMET), and an evaluator for several NSF projects. His first research strand concentrates on the relationship between educational policy and STEM education. His second research strand focuses on studying STEM classroom interactions and subsequent effects on student understanding. He is a co-developer of the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) and his work has been cited more than 2200 times and he has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals such as Science Education and the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.
Stephen J. Krause Arizona State University
Stephen Krause is professor in the Materials Science Program in the Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University. He teaches in the areas of introductory materials engineering, polymers and composites, and capstone design. His research interests include faculty development and evaluating conceptual knowledge and strategies to promote conceptual change. He has co-developed a Materials Concept Inventory and a Chemistry Concept Inventory for assessing conceptual knowledge and change for materials science and chemistry classes. He is currently conducting research in two areas. One is studying how strategies of engagement and feedback and internet tool use affect conceptual change and impact on students' attitude, achievement, and persistence. The other is on a large-scale NSF faculty development program and its effect on change in faculty teaching beliefs, engagement strategies, and classroom practice. Recent honors include coauthoring the ASEE Best Paper Award in the Journal of Engineering Education in 2013 and the ASEE Mike Ashby Outstanding Materials Educator Award in 2018.
Kara L. Hjelmstad Arizona State University
Kara Hjelmstad has been a faculty associate and student teacher supervisor for Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University since 2010. Previously, she earned an M.Ed. degree in curriculum and instruction, and spent twelve years teaching at the elementary level.
From the fall of 2016 through the spring of 2019, Kara worked with the JTFD Project, an NSF grant working to improve active learning in engineering education. She has completed 300 RTOP classroom observations in ASU engineering courses (civil, environmental, construction, chemical, aero/mechanical, materials, transportation, and biomedical engineering). The RTOP or Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol, is a rubric designed to assess student centered instruction in math and science. Kara also provided instructional coaching for 37 engineering faculty grant participants, after their teaching observations.
Keith D. Hjelmstad Arizona State University
Keith D. Hjelmstad is President's Professor of Civil Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University.
Lydia Ross Arizona State University
Dr. Lydia Ross is a clinical assistant professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. She also serves as the executive director of the Association for Education Finance & Policy. She holds a PhD in Educational Policy and Evaluation from Arizona State University. Her research focuses on equity and access and in higher education, with a focus on STEM.
Robert J. Culbertson
Robert J. Culbertson is an Associate Professor of Physics. Currently, he teaches introductory mechanics and electrodynamics for physics majors and a course in musical acoustics, which was specifically designed for elementary education majors. He is director of the ASU Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) Project, which strives to produce more and better high school physics teachers. He is also director of Master of Natural Science degree program, a graduate program designed for in-service science teachers. He works on improving persistence of students in STEM majors, especially under-prepared students and students from under-represented groups.
James A. Middleton Arizona State University
James A. Middleton is Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Director of the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology at Arizona State University. For the last three years he also held the Elmhurst Energy Chair in STEM education at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Previously, Dr. Middleton was Associate Dean for Research in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University, and Director of the Division of Curriculum and Instruction. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992, where he also served in the National Center for Research on Mathematical Sciences Education as a postdoctoral scholar.
Claire Fletcher Honeycutt Arizona State University
Ke Liu Arizona State University
Abstract
This Evidenced-Based Practice Paper examines how active learning integration can be measured by student achievement. Research has unequivocally illustrated the positive impact of active learning on student achievement and engagement, and this paper delves into the process of how student achievement can indicate the success of active learning as a best practice. When paired with an evaluation rubric, like the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP), student achievement can provide evidence that active learning is present and impacting how students are performing and interacting with their coursework.
This paper is an extension of research conducted through the Just-in-Time-Teaching with Two Way Formative Feedback for Multiple Disciplinary Programs (JTFD) grant, an NSF-funded IUSE grant that started in the fall of 2015. The grant used a model of faculty development that consisted of eight biweekly workshops and six subsequent biweekly Communities of Practice (CoPs) to instill best practice strategies in active learning and engagement style teaching in over 80 engineering faculty from multiple disciplines at a large southwestern university.
This paper provides information on how student achievement can measure the effectiveness of active learning in the engineering classroom. While students have historically perceived traditional lecture methods as more effective, research has emerged showing the opposite: student achievement is higher when active learning is integrated into the classroom. This paper also discusses past findings as they relate to student achievement and how the data associated with this four-year project aligns with the research that student achievement is increased in classrooms that utilize active learning and engagement-style strategies. Preliminary results show an increase in persistence along with an overall shift in grade distribution. Full results of this data analysis are ongoing and will be explored in the final paper. The preferred method of presentation is active lecture to engage the audience.
Hoyt, S., & Mayled, L. H., & Judson, E., & Krause, S. J., & Hjelmstad, K. L., & Hjelmstad, K. D., & Ross, L., & Culbertson, R. J., & Middleton, J. A., & Honeycutt, C. F., & Liu, K. (2020, June), Analyzing Student Achievement to Measure the Effectiveness of Active Learning Strategies in the Engineering Classroom Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34150
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