Browsing by Author "Soledad, Michelle Millete"
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- Achieving What Gets Measured: Responsive and Reflective Learning Approaches and Strategies of First-Year Engineering StudentsVan Tyne, Natalie Christine Trehubets (Virginia Tech, 2022-02-24)Background: Engineering students who achieve academic success during their first year may later disengage from challenging course material in their upper-level courses, due to perceived differences between their expectations and values and those of their degree programs. In the extreme, academic disengagement can lead to attrition. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to better understand the learning approaches and strategies used by first-year engineering students. Research questions were as follows: How do first-year engineering students describe their learning approaches and strategies? How do first-year engineering students customize their learning strategies among their courses? How do first-year engineering students employ reflection as part of their learning strategies? Design/Method: I employed both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect and analyze data, using an explanatory design approach consisting of two surveys and a set of semi-structured interviews between survey administrations. The interview data from a purposive sample of survey participants were coded using a priori, pattern and comparative coding. The survey data were analyzed for medians and interquartile ranges in order to identify trends in reflective learning strategies among courses. Results: One notable finding was the fact that many interviewees stated that their overall purpose for studying was to achieve high grades by preparing for tests (a surface-level approach), and yet the learning strategies that they used reflected a deeper engagement with their course material than one would expect from students whose singular focus was on grades. Certain strategies were similar for both technical and non-technical courses, while others were dissimilar. There are also ways to combine the surface and deep learning strategies sequentially. They need not be mutually exclusive. Conclusions: The results of this study will provide educators with a starting point for the development of guided practice in meaningful learning strategies to encourage a greater engagement with learning. Both educators and administrators should be amenable to measures that would improve their students' chances for success, by providing guidance in how to learn as well as what to learn. Several recommendations are given for future studies, such as the relationships among reflection, metacognition, and critical thinking, and the integration of meaningful learning strategies into technically overloaded engineering degree curricula.
- Exploring the Implementation of Care in Teaching in a First-year Engineering CourseSunil Kumar, Siddharth (Virginia Tech, 2023-11-14)Instructors in higher education are typically hired for teaching positions based on their research expertise in a particular area, understanding that subject matter expertise is necessary for teaching and instruction. What is sometimes overlooked and not given enough importance is that teaching is also a relational activity, and because of this, care can be considered to be a fundamental component of effective instruction. Research has shown that some faculty are hesitant in showing care to their students since this might suggest a lack of academic rigor and lessening expectations for students. It might also be that faculty view care as a concept that does not belong in higher education and is something that is more appropriate for younger children. Yet there is research in higher education which shows that implementing care to students motivates them to perform well in class, meet and exceed the goals set for them by the instructors, make constructive improvements and create overall ideal conditions for learning. Along with this, prior research on care in teaching has focused mostly on primary and secondary education levels, with far less attention given to care in teaching in higher education specifically, and little in the context of Engineering Education. To advance our understanding of the potential value of care in teaching in higher education, this study presents an empirical case study of how care can be enacted in teaching in an Engineering Education classroom. The study draws on Tronto's political ethics of care framework, originally developed in the context of feminist theory and methodology, and operationalizes it in the teaching and learning setting by situating the context of the study in a first-year general engineering classroom in the department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Since the purpose of the study is to understand what teaching behaviors can act as evidence of care, this context was selected as a likely scenario where these teaching approaches might be present. Virginia Tech is an R1 institution, the Department of Engineering Education values student-centered teaching, and the foundations of engineering course: ENGE 1216, is a project-based course where it may be more likely to see care being implemented in the teaching. Along with this, the three instructor participants that were chosen to bring light to this phenomenon have been recognized for their teaching expertise by being given teaching awards in the past, and also have experience in teaching this specific course, having taught it at least twice before. This study used a case study approach and included two interviews with the instructor participants to understand their general beliefs about care as well as how they intended to implement care in relation to Tronto's ethic of care framework. It also included three observations of their classrooms, one for each phase of the semester, and looked at three years' worth of students' SPOT comments. Tronto's framework includes four ethical elements: attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness. Findings suggest that instructors' intentions with implementing care, their enactment of care in the classroom, and students' perception of what instructor behaviors they found to be most valuable to their learning, all have strategies and approaches that relate to each of the four ethical elements. The responsibility element iii was seen to have the most approaches and strategies. Findings also showed that despite different instructor backgrounds, beliefs and personalities, each instructor had relatively similar approaches to implementing care in relation to each of the four ethical elements, with some unique features for each instructor. There also seems to exist, a reasonable degree of alignment between instructors' intention with implementing care, their enactment of the care in the classroom, and what students commented was helpful. This study took a framework developed in accordance with another discipline and operationalized it in a teaching setting. It has shown what teacher behaviors can act as evidence of care in the context of Engineering Education. The study has also disaggregated common instructor actions that usually tend to be conflated, to more specific behaviors to understand the impact each behavior can have in relation to care. It has also grouped common approaches and strategies together that instructors use, to show how when this is combined, is also a way of implementing care. There are a list of specific teacher approaches and strategies that instructors should be using that can satisfy each element in the care framework and can thus implement care in the classroom.
- Understanding the Teaching and Learning Experience in Fundamental Engineering CoursesSoledad, Michelle Millete (Virginia Tech, 2019-06-21)Fundamental engineering courses are important to the undergraduate engineering student experience but have been associated with challenging educational environments. Several factors influence the educational environment, although learning experiences are primarily the outcome of interactions between instructors and students. To initiate change, it is important to understand teaching and learning experiences in fundamental engineering courses from the perspectives of the key players in these environments: instructors and students. To accomplish the goal of understanding teaching and learning experiences, I conducted studies that examined instructors' and students' perspectives on their experiences and the educational environments, using qualitative research methodology. Through these studies, this dissertation: 1) examined instructors' beliefs and self-described behaviors, guided by motivation theory and focusing on the role of instructors as socializers in the learning process; 2) considered interacting fundamental engineering courses as a foundational curriculum within engineering curricula to describe the educational environment in these courses from instructors' perspectives; and 3) examined student perceptions of their learning experiences and the educational environments in fundamental engineering courses using responses to open-ended items in end-of-semester student evaluations of teaching surveys. Data indicate that participants strive to integrate strategies that promote effective learning despite challenges posed by course environments, although expected gains from these behaviors may not always be maximized. Students and instructors may benefit from a student-focused, collaborative and holistic course planning process that considers interacting fundamental courses as a foundational curriculum within engineering curricula, and that engages instructors as equal partners in the planning process. Student feedback may be infused into the course planning process by productively and meaningfully utilizing students' responses to end-of-semester student evaluations of teaching surveys. Overall, the results of this dissertation highlight the importance of institutional support, collaboration, and integrating student feedback in the quest for facilitating effective educational environments and positive learning experiences in engineering.