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Learning critical concepts that are centered on the analysis, design, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure systems poses a measure of difficulty for undergraduates in engineering. Therefore, hands-on learning pedagogy should be an excellent precursor to increase understanding of these concepts, since the pedagogy incorporates real-life experience in the delivery. This paper describes how a hands-on learning pedagogy called experiment-centric pedagogy (ECP) has been used to teach these concepts to undergraduate students at a historically Black university. The research questions are as follows: (1) How well can ECP improve students’ understanding of concepts essential to the analysis and design of transportation infrastructure systems? (2) How has the ECP facilitated the achievement of the learning objectives of these concepts? and (3) Does an ECP increase the engagement of undergraduate students in their transportation infrastructure engineering learning and lead to measurable lasting gains? To answer these research questions, ECP was implemented and assessed when used to teach the concepts of stress and strain utilized in the analysis of bridges and other transportation infrastructure, sound used in the development and design of noise barriers, moisture content in controlling compaction of highway infrastructure systems, and degradation of infrastructure systems exposed to various environmental settings. Assessment results from 92 undergraduates reveal an increase in students’ motivation and cognitive understanding of the relevant concepts, as well as learning gains and an improved success rate compared to the traditional method of teaching.
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Increasing Student Motivation and Learning by Adopting the Experiment-Centric Pedagogy: A Case of Undergraduates in Biology
This research is focused on the adoption of an experiment-centric teaching approach to enhance student’s learning, develop their critical thinking skills, and help students better understand the underlying concepts in biology, thereby giving them a better comprehension of how these concepts may be applied in practice as well as facilitating their academic success. Traditional and experiment-centric teaching methods are used to instruct students in four biology courses (BIO 101-W09 Introductory Biology for Non-Major, Bio 103 Introductory Biology for Nursing Major, BIO 109-001 Foundations in Biology, Diversity, and Organismal Systems and Bio 201. Anatomy and Physiology I) taken by first and second-year students. The sensor from a heart rate app is used to conduct and monitor several common experiments in Biology. On phone screens, the data gathered from these experiments can be visualized in real-time. In order to measure the key constructs associated with students’ success (motivation, epistemic and perceptual curiosity, and self-efficacy), data collection was done pre-and post-implementation of the experiments using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich, Smith, García, and McKeachie, in 1991. Also, the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) was employed to characterize the simultaneous activities of instructors and learners during class sessions. More so, students’ understanding of the course and how they process instructions were evaluated using signature assignments. Data analysis would be conducted using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS 25.0). This research would carefully investigate the association between students’ motivation and their gender at 95% confidence level.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1915614
- PAR ID:
- 10467758
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE https://peer.asee.org/43669
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Experiment-centric teaching approach, Biology, Critical thinking.
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- https://peer.asee.org/43669
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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