An official website of the United States government
When schools and universities across the world transitioned online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ed+gineering, a National Science Foundation (NSF) project that partners engineering and education undergraduates to design and deliver engineering lessons to elementary students, also had to shift its hands-on lessons to a virtual format. Through the lens of social cognitive theory (SCT), this study investigates engineering and education students’ experiences during the shift to online instruction to understand how they perceived its influence on their learning. As a result of modifying their lessons for online delivery, students reported learning professional skills, including skills for teaching online and educational technology skills, as well as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) content. Some also lamented missed learning opportunities, like practice presenting face-to-face. Students’ affective responses were often associated with preparing and delivering their lessons. SCT sheds light on how the mid-semester change in their environment, caused by the shift in designing and teaching from face-to-face to online, affected the undergraduate engineering and education students’ personal experiences and affect. Overall, the transition to fully online was effective for students’ perceived learning and teaching of engineering. Though students experienced many challenges developing multimedia content for delivering hands-on lessons online, they reported learning new skills and knowledge and expressed positive affective responses. From the gains reported by undergraduates, we believe that this cross-disciplinary virtual team assignment was a successful strategy for helping undergraduates build competencies in virtual skills. We posit that similar assignment structures and opportunities post-pandemic will also continue to prepare future students for the post-pandemic workplace.
more »
« less
Relevance as perceived by high school students in decontextualized mathematics lessons
When mathematics educators work towards making mathematics more relevant, they often think about including more real-world applications into mathematics lessons. But what happens when a lesson is devoid of real-world contexts? In what ways can students find it relevant? This study explores how high school students perceived relevance when they were asked to describe their experiences during decontextualized mathematics lessons. Students highlighted how they found certain characteristics of the lessons to be useful in their learning and how they perceived relevance through different feelings experienced in the lessons.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1652513
- PAR ID:
- 10392965
- Editor(s):
- Lischka, A. E.; Dyer, E. B.; Jones, R. S.; Lovett, J. N.; Strayer, J.; Drown, S.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the forty-fourth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1562-1569
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Student motivation within a STEM course is dependent on their perceived relevance and utility of the topics learned. This paper presents an Informative Utility Value Intervention (IUVI) designed to promote perceptions of utility. The IUVI was designed as a series of assignments for general chemistry students in large lecture courses, but the method can be adapted to other science disciplines. The intervention begins by establishing a baseline of students’ utility-value of chemistry then scaffolds new connections to their field of interest. The scaffold includes directing students to published articles demonstrating real-world connections between topics they are learning and their career interests. Student responses indicate they were able to make connections between the topic and their career interests and they perceived the articles as relevant to their career interests.more » « less
-
Research has shown that making STEM socially relevant can attract more diverse students to STEM fields. Learn to utilize the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to center socially relevant goals in first-year seminars, as we did when constructing STEM linked-course learning communities. The seminars were designed to foster a communal view of science and mathematics, both in terms of the importance of collaboration to STEM success and the application of STEM to real-world problems. Course structures and sample materials will be shared as inspiration. Conversations will focus on helping visitors increase the social relevance of their own courses or curricula.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Purpose As the field of Computer Science (CS) continues to diversify and expand, the need for undergraduates to explore career possibilities and develop personalized study paths has never been greater. This reality presents a challenge for CS departments. How do the students striving to become competent professionals in an ever-changing field of study? How do they do this efficiently and effectively? This study addresses such questions by introducing RadGrad, an online application combining features of social networks, degree planners and serious games. Design/methodology/approach RadGrad application is designed to promote participation in extracurricular activities, value real-world experience and provide guidance for students planning their degrees. What follows is an exploration of how the application was designed, along with an analysis of how students used it in its first year. Findings Findings suggest RadGrad helped students to participate in relevant community activities and take an active role in planning their degrees. Originality/value The paper describes the features of the application, introducing how the concept of Innovation, Competence and Experience (ICE) scores – rather than a GPAs – were used to motivate undergraduates to participate in extracurricular activities. Initial results suggest RadGrad and the concept ICE scores can be applied to any field where students are encouraged to gain real-world experience as part of their degree program. Lessons learned and future directions are discussed.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Abstract Engineering students need to spend time engaging in mathematical modeling tasks to reinforce their learning of mathematics through its application to authentic problems and real world design situations. Technological tools and resources can support this kind of learning engagement. We produced an online module that develops students’ mathematical modeling skills while developing knowledge of the fundamentals of rainfall-runoff processes and engineering design. This study examined how 251 students at two United States universities perceived mathematical modeling as implemented through the online module over a 5-year period. We found, subject to the limitation that these are perceptions from not all students, that: (a) the module allowed students to be a part of the modeling process; (b) using technology, such as modeling software and online databases, in the module helped students to understand what they were doing in mathematical modeling; (c) using the technology in the module helped students to develop their skill set; and (d) difficulties with the technology and/or the modeling decisions they had to make in the module activities were in some cases barriers that interfered with students’ ability to learn. We advocate for instructors to create modules that: (a) are situated within a real-world context, requiring students to model mathematically to solve an authentic problem; (b) take advantage of digital tools used by engineers to support students’ development of the mathematical and engineering skills needed in the workforce; and (c) use student feedback to guide module revisions.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
