Dear All
Apologies if you already receive 'Tomorrow's Professor' postings - but I thought the some aspects of the message below would be of interest - particularly in view of our 'Learning Styles' conversations ...
John
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From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rick Reis
Sent: 29 January 2008 16:06
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Subject: TP Msg. #842 The Habit of Learning
Reminder: You can comment on this or any past posting by going to: http://amps-tools.mit.edu/tomprofblog/
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"Academics often "teach their research," but few "research their teaching," at least formally, for a host of good reasons, not least being the investment required to become conversant in theories and methodologies outside one's primary academic community. However, with rapid change in the practice of engineering spurring new educational requirements and approaches to teaching, there is ample opportunity and need for those interested in educational research to provide insight into effective pedagogy."
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Folks:
The posting below describes an interesting study on efforts to develop self-directed, lifelong learners (SDLL). It is by Scott Jiusto and David Dibasio and is from the November 2007 issue of ASEE Prism, Volume 17, Number 3. <http://www.asee.org/prism/>. Scott Jiusto is assistant professor of geography in Interdisciplinary and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. David DiBiasio is associate professor and department head of Chemical Engineering at WPI. This article is adapted from "Experiential Learning Environments: Do They Prepare Our Students to be Self-Directed, Life-Long Learners?" in the July, 2006 JEE. http://www.asee.org/publications/jee/index.cfm Copyright (c) 2007 ASEE, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Rick Reis
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UP NEXT: Inside the Undergraduate Experience - Assessing Personal Growth
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
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The Habit of Learning
A Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) study explores whether experiential education produces self-directed students.
Academics often "teach their research," but few "research their teaching," at least formally, for a host of good reasons, not least being the investment required to become conversant in theories and methodologies outside one's primary academic community. However, with rapid change in the practice of engineering spurring new educational requirements and approaches to teaching, there is ample opportunity and need for those interested in educational research to provide insight into effective pedagogy.
At Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), much of our teaching is connected with the Global Perspective Program, an experiential learning program that has third-year students conducting intensive, interdisciplinary research projects for sponsoring organizations in Puerto Rico, Thailand, Australia, Namibia, England and other places worldwide. The goals of the program are ambitious, among them developing student capacity to research real, open-ended challenges at the interface of technology and society and in the process to develop capacities for teamwork, written and oral communication, critical thinking and cross-cultural appreciation and collaboration.
A large cohort of some 350 global program student participants per year provides ample opportunity to better understand this primarily inductively-taught, constructivist learning process. We recently completed research assessing whether the program effectively develops student capacity in a number of these areas so as to prepare them to become self-directed, lifelong learners (SDLL).
The research process generated insight into educational programming and research methodology, and helped us see new opportunities as teachers to support student development.
Anything as complex and inherently prospective as student capacity for SDLL raises methodological challenges. We addressed these challenges through a triangulated research protocol involving two widely used instruments for student self-assessment of learning and growth, and one instrument based on independent faculty review of student work.
The results suggested strong student development on key SDLL-related capacities. However, some indicators were less emphatic than others, depending on the instrument. One concern is that some highly self-directed learners entering the program are at risk for regression, as may be students at non-English-speaking locations. Because self-directed and life-long learning are complex psycho-social phenomena, and because our triangulated research strategy depended on three overlapping but not directly comparable methods, divergent findings might result from how the tests were administered, how SDL is operationalized in each, or both.
The results raised important questions about the relationships among our ambitious learning goals, student preparation, context, sojourn length, persistent effects, and program structure. The results have implications for assessing the effectiveness of innovative educational programs designed to meet non-technical learning objectives that are increasingly recognized as essential elements in engineering education.
The research has also contributed to changes in how we prepare and advise students through their project experience. For one, the possibility that intensive, cross-cultural, open-ended project work might, for a few students, reduce their confidence in undertaking self-directed learning is something we knew was possible from other research.This concern sensitized us to the more general need for helping students process their experiences after the projects have ended.
Given the uniqueness of the experience for students and the many ways in which we hope they will grow-including in areas like "critical thinking" that may be difficult for students even to recognize-we believe there is valuable student learning and development potential to be had from relatively small investments in such post-project reflective activities as structured conversations and short introspective essays. In implementing such strategies, we expect also to generate new questions and devise new, practical ways to continue educational research that complements our other academic pursuits.
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