This study examines the evidence for the effectiveness of active learning. It defines the common forms of active learning most relevant for engineering faculty and critically examines the core element of each method. It is found that there is broad but uneven support for the core elements of active, collaborative, cooperative and problem-based learning. I.

The term cooperative learning (CL) refers to students working in teams on an assignment or project under conditions in which certain criteria are satisfied, including that the team members be held individually accountable for the complete content of the assignment or project. This chapter summarizes the defining criteria of cooperative learning, surveys CL applications, summarizes the research base that attests to the effectiveness of the method, and outlines proven methods for implementing CL and overcoming common obstacles to its success.

To state a theorem and then to show examples of it is literally to teach backwards. (E. Kim Nebeuts) Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning with theories and progressing to applications of those theories. Alternative teaching approaches are more inductive. Topics are introduced by presenting specific observations, case studies or problems, and theories are taught or the students are helped to discover them only after the need to know them has been established. This study reviews several of the most commonly used inductive teaching methods, including inquiry learning, problem-based learning, project-based learning, case-based teaching, discovery learning, and just-in-time teaching. The paper defines each method, highlights commonalities and specific differences, and reviews research on the effectiveness of the methods. While the strength of the evidence varies from one method to another, inductive methods are consistently found to be at least equal to, and in general more effective than, traditional deductive methods for achieving a broad range of learning outcomes. A. Two Approaches to Education I.

As college students experience the challenges of their classes and extracurricular activities, they undergo a developmental progression in which they gradually relinquish their belief in the certainty of knowledge and the omniscience of authorities and take increasing responsibility for their own learning. At the highest developmental level normally seen in college students (which few attain before graduation), they display attitudes and thinking patterns resembling those of expert scientists and engineers, including habitually and skillfully gathering and analyzing evidence to support their judgments. This paper proposes an instructional model designed to provide a suitable balance of challenge and support to advance students to that level or close to it. The model components are (1) variety and choice of learning tasks; (2) explicit communication and explanation of expectations; (3) modeling, practice, and constructive feedback on high-level tasks; (4) a student-centered instructional environment; and (5) respect for students at all levels of development. Keywords: Intellectual development, Baxter Magolda’s model, Perry’s model I. INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW According to a model of intellectual development formulated by Marcia Baxter Magolda [1], college

The greatest single challenge to SMET pedagogical reform remains the problem of whether and how large classes can be infused with more active and interactive learning methods.

In order to examine the implications of applying a teaching strategy that integrates a systems approach and project-based learning (PBL), it was implemented in two courses. The objective of the first course was to train preservice teachers to teach the subject of “science and technology for all. ” The second course was an introductory freshman course in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. This paper describes a qualitative study that followed the progress of the two classes. The students in the courses were the participants in the study. In order to prepare pre-service teachers to teach the subject of “Science and Technology to All ” (mandatory subject in all of Israel’s junior high schools), a mandatory methods course has been developed in the Department of Education

Engineering professors, like professors in every field, have always experimented with innovative instructional methods, but traditionally little was done to link the innovations to learning theories or to evaluate them beyond anecdotal reports of student satisfaction. More scholarly approaches have become common in the past two decades as a consequence of several developments, including a change in the engineering program accreditation system to one requiring learning outcomes assessment and continual improvement, and the literature of the scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering has grown rapidly. Most published studies have used surveys and quantitative research methods, approaches with which engineers tend to be relatively comfortable, but studies that use some of the qualitative methods characteristic of social science research have also begun to appear. The challenge to engineering education is to make the scholarship of teaching and learning equal to the scholarships of discovery, integration, and application in the faculty reward system.

The under-representation and poor retention of women in computing courses at Victoria University is a concern that has continued to defy all attempts to resolve it. Despite a range of initiatives created to encourage participation and improve retention of females in the courses, the percentage of female enrolments has declined significantly in recent years, from 32 % in 1994 to 18 % in 2004, while attrition rates soared to 40 % in 2003. A recent research study investigated these negative trends with respect to gender equity in computing courses: of interest was the possibility of gender bias in the learning environment and its impact on female attrition rates. Focus groups and surveys involving computing students of both genders were used as data collection tools in the study. The overall findings from the focus groups were rather surprising, as they yielded no strong indication of gender bias in the learning environment of the computing course; this applied to the logistical arrangements, academic staff, pedagogical methods, and course content. The thesis that the existence of gender bias in the learning environment contributes to high attrition rates of females in computing courses was not sufficiently supported. While the fact that students, both male and female, found their learning environment gender neutral was comforting, the realization

This study examined the impact of cooperative learning activities on student achievement and attitudes in large-enrollment (�250) introductory biology classes. We found that students taught using a cooperative learning approach showed greater improvement in their knowledge of course material compared with students taught using a traditional lecture format. In addition, students viewed cooperative learning activities highly favorably. These findings suggest that encouraging students to work in small groups and improving feedback between the instructor and the students can help to improve student outcomes even in very large classes. These results should be viewed cautiously, however, until this experiment can be replicated with additional faculty. Strategies for potentially improving the impact of cooperative learning on student achievement in large courses are discussed.

In this paper we survey the literature to identify the issues and challenges of broadening participation in computer science, and provide some suggestions to address these challenges. Our attention focuses on redefining the way we approach computing education so that we can successfully entice students to computing that have not traditionally participated, thereby promoting diversity and increasing the total numbers of computing professionals. Based on the literature review, we propose an interactional model from the social sciences to inform the way in which we might restructure and broaden the definition of computing and provide some examples of strategies that we have found to be successful in practice.