My Project

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My Project

• John Doe
• Date

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Before ...
Previously Defining / Supporting the Learning
Essay Task..
Why Role of the Learning Essays in Learning. -
Explanation and beneficial impacts on learning
(Chi) - Ready to determine whether essays impact
learning...
A Problem A problem with current project-based
design classes is that insufficient attention is
given to 1) defining and refining what we expect
the students to learn and 2) monitoring and
mediating their learning relative to these
expectations.
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and Now ...
Currently Role of the Learning Essays in
Teaching.
PK
1. Gain Knowledge Teaching of the
Subject Situation Awareness 2. Take
Action Intervention Refine Goals
Reflective Learner

• Goal Today
• Describe the learning essay activity and the
  Reflective Learner testbed
• Demonstrate, through examples that the
  intervention has potential to be useful
• Discuss next steps

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Learning Essay

• Student compositions
• Students answer question, What did you learn?,
  as essay
• Students relate experiences to learning
• Why activity in general?
• Social Loafing, lack of individual accountability
• Students ask -- Why did we have to do this?
• Students see Task as End, not Means to an End
• Why this activity?
• Explanation Research
• Open Ended and Simple (relative to other
  possibilities)
• Existing Opportunities to Study

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Examples - Good
Class Terminology and Concepts
Anchored to Experience
Caution Necessary
Relationships
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Example - Mediocre
Relate to Experience
Jump to Conclusion
Believable??
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Reflective Learner - Overcome...

• Problems Writing, Management and Research...
• RL - Writing Support
• Content Scaffolds What to Observe?
• Paragraph Scaffolds How to Structure?
• RL - Management Support
• Students Maintenance, Reminders, Automated
  Submission,
• Online Grading
• Teachers/Researchers Customization of Parameters
  (assignments, scaffolds), Data Capturing,
  Collection and Tracking

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Reflective Learner

• Web-based software
• Organized around classes
• Student, instructor, and research workspaces

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Work to Date

• Stages
• Fall, 96 - Does RL address technology and
  assignment problems?
• (data collection effort, working with students
  effort)
• Winter 97 - Can RL support activity on a larger
  scale?
• Spring 97 - Does assignment/RL make sense in
  multiple contexts?
• On the right track, but
• Promising Data Over 500 essays, requests for
  software, students say it helps, essay scores go
  up, students write more
• What do the students write?
• What can we learn about students? about teaching
  in domain?

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Assessment Case Study

• Goal Look at content of essays
• Determine how students construct the class
  assignment / essay task
• Determine what problems they are having.
• Document/Explore uses of this information.
• Data All 26 essays from a single assignment.
• Focus on assignment where all students did well.
• Exploratory Method
• Getting to Know the Essays
• Immersion Free response to 5 essays, focusing
  on goals
• Dialogue Look at what graders say in response
  to students
• Thematic Coding Extract themes, code examples
  in other essays
• Selection Provocative Examples for Illustration

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DRIIMeta-Design -- Tasks

• Third team activity
• Second major report
• Many representations involved
• Students are novice at planning
• Learning essay is component

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DRIIMeta-Design -- Goals

• Class Goals
• to negotiate solutions to open problems. Open
  problems are ...
• to work in teams, understand and deal with
  interpersonal relationships and communicate at
  personal and technical levels
• to use mathematical models in design (make
  connection between engineering science and
  engineering design)
• to design the specifications and configure an
  engineering system using available assets
  (existing components or modules)
• to function in self-governing teams, that is,
  develop the necessary skills of critical
  evaluation, planning, time management and
  implementation
• to gain an understanding of the product
  realization process, TQM and associated tools
• identify, model, solve decision problems.
• Assignment-Specific Goals
• to learn to use several different design
  representations for planning purpose
• to understand the roles of planning in the
  overall context of design

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Backdrop

• Grades A, A, B, B, B
• Interpretation
• They did complete what they were asked to do.
• Did they walk away with an understanding of what
  it meant?
• What are some of the problems that they
  experience?

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Planning - Successes

• Student A What I took away from the planning
  exercises was an important realization that I
  will find useful often. Ive always enjoyed
  planning early for fun activities and especially
  for vacations. The early planning usually makes
  for a better activity or trip, and also allowed
  me to anticipate doing something really enjoyable
  which is enjoyable in itself. Conversely, Ive
  usually leaned away from premature planning when
  it comes to academics in order to avoid
  anticipation of hours of work or studying. The
  thing I didnt realize was happening as a result
  of this tendency was that my assignments were
  seeming worse or more intimidating in their
  vagueness. After really exploring the rest of
  the quarter and especially DRIII, I felt less
  overwhelmed by the work although the amount of
  work to come was apparent. The lesson I took
  away was that anticipation of work is actually
  less stressful for me when I know the specifics
  of the work. I never had to really look ahead
  and analyze my workload before, so I never had a
  catalyst for this realization.
• Student B Overall, I gained a valuable lesson
  of how real planning can help to eliminate
  ambiguity about what the next step is. The
  report we composed is not written in stone and we
  as we progress, appropriate changes may have to
  me made. However, this living document gives us
  a framework to expand upon. I feel much more
  confident in dealing with each piece of the
  process since I can see how it is connect to the
  whole. The information from the previous stage
  gives a solid starting point, and looking
  downstream to the upcoming dependent pieces
  affords direction and a goal to shoot for.

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Planning - (Mis) Conceptions

• Student C The other thing that never ceases to
  amaze me is the fact that we are not given very
  much direction on this IS THIS FAIR. I tink
  that is very unrealistic in that a customer will
  take every opportunity the can get to clarify
  matters to ensure satisfaction, where as we are
  not getting that PLEASE REVISIT."
• Student D "With all the planning and scheduling
  we have done already, it seems the chances of us
  getting lost or off track are slim IF DONE
  PROPERLY."

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Learning - Successes

• Student E Doing the PEI and getting the
  information took a while. Next, I looked at the
  Flow chart and when, darn, tons of work. Since
  it was about 345 in the morning, I decided to
  stop there and sleep. The next day (after having
  a total of 3 hours sleep), I looked over the MEMO
  and really tried to understand the assignment.
  It then dawned unto me that hey, once I completed
  the PEI diagram, I can use that information in my
  flow chart and schedule and bar chart. Of
  course, a good amount of work is still required,
  but hey, thats design for you.
• Student F One last thing I learned was from the
  grading of the DRI. I noticed that most every
  group in my class got about the same grade. The
  funny thing about this is that the design reports
  were all pretty different. I learned from this
  that these reports can be different from each
  other and still be pretty much correct. There is
  not set "right way" to do these reports CAREFUL,
  UP TO A POINT. You must just include all needed
  information however will get the message across
  the best. That is what is most important.
  Getting all the information to the customer in an
  organized fashion YES.

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Learning - Struggles

• Student G At this moment I just do not see how
  this break down is going to aid us at all. The
  biggest problem I am is the different between a
  bar chart and the schedule. The bar chart to my
  knowledge is a gant chart. this chart includes
  the events required, due dates, and hours spent
  on events. The schedule to my knowledge is
  suppose to have alist of all events needed to
  complete project. To me this is included in the
  gant chart I don't see the point and I don't even
  know what format to use for the schedule. I just
  do not have a clue. I have sought assistance, but
  nothing in the explainations have been of any
  help IS THERE A WAY THAT YOU COULD MAKE IT
  USEFUL OR DIFFERENT. I know my main reason for
  knocking this system is because I do not
  understand it, but the schedule is suppose to be
  an aid to us. None of the struggles, I
  experience, have anything to do with a learning
  process that will help us toward our goal. I am
  struggling with format issues. And right now my
  feeling is that the format of the schedule should
  fit a form beneficial to you TRUE!. I have
  reached a stopping point for this section. I do
  not feel that I have learned anything this week.

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So What?

• We know more about ..
• Defining goals same information across
  different plan repr.
• Divergent outcomes including problems planning
  reduces ambiguity, cannot see differences between
  repr.
• What is happening at present vagueness is not
  authentic
• We can act by...
• Giving feedback embedded essay comments, class
  comments
• Class Inteventions discussions, activities,
  lemonade asgn
• Changing the Assignments/Class

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Concluding Thoughts

• Learning Essays are a context for students to
  reflect on experience.
• Reflective Learner successfully manages some of
  the difficulties of using this intervention in
  the classroom.
• Learning essay content have potential to capture
  useful insight into student constructions.
• Role of this insight is promising, but
• Much work remains to validate this information
  source.
• How to capture what students say in broader
  measures?

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Schematics of RL Student Workspaces
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Schematics of RL Instructor Workspaces