Dennis Abruzzi's mini-course

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• ETAP 623 Spring 2023 (Zhang)
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Engineering Better Learning

source: http://edudemic.com

Overview and Purpose

The purpose of this mini course is to provide teachers with resources aimed at helping their students understand their own learning habits. By breaking down the learning process, understanding common challenges, and identifying effective strategies, teachers and their students will gain a better understanding of how they can learn more effectively.

Needs Assessment

The problem: Students often do not understand the how or why behind learning. Scientists have studied many different learning strategies and how frequently found that meta-cognition is a valuable tool in effective learning. Students often remain unaware of how their own thinking works. By helping students understand their own learning habits, we can put them in a better position to take control of their own education.

The Gap: The students that this course is intended for are ages 10-15. Many students at this age have little self-awareness and do not feel in control of their own learning. To assess each students starting point, a survey should be administered that will assess their experiences and views on education.

The Goal: If students understand how to help themselves learn more effectively, they are more likely to take an active role in their education. If they see education as a personal responsibility rather than a chore that they are forced to do, they may be more willing to apply themselves and will hopefully benefit more from the experience.

Performance Objectives

Students will be able to:

Define what metacognition is.

Identify how metacognition can affect the way that we perceive information.

Explain how we can use this information to enhance our learning strategies.

Describe how the Engineering Design Process works and how it can be used to help solve any problem.

Course Units

This mini-course includes the following units. Click the title of a unit to go to its page.

Unit 1: The Engineering Design Process

• Lesson 1 - What is The Engineering Design Process?
  • This lesson will teach students about the engineering design process and how it can be used to help identify and solve problems.
• Lesson 2 - Using the Engineering Design Process.
  • Students will engage in an activity where they use the Engineering Design Process to break down a problem and identify each step they followed to solve it.

Unit 2: What is Metacognition?

• Lesson 1 - What is Metacognition?
  • Students will engage in a webquest to identify and explain what metacognition means and answer questions about how it can be used to help us learn.
• Lesson 2 - Metacognition in action.
  • In this lesson, students will answer some questions about their own educational history. Students will identify what their favorite subjects are and what their least favorite subjects are. We will then try to identify what makes certain subjects more interesting or easier for each individual and discuss how we can use this information to our advantage.

Unit 3: Putting it all together.

• Lesson 1 - Creating a Presentation.
  • The class will be slipt into small groups (3-4 people per group) and they will create a Google Slides presentation explaining what Metacognition is and how we can apply it in our lives. Students will use the instruction sheet as a guide to explain matacognition using the Engineering Design Process.
• Lesson 2 - Presenting our findings.
  • Groups will present their slideshow to the class. Viewers will follow along and come up with at least 1 thought provoking question or provide feedback to share at the end of the presentation.

Extended Resources

Krajcik, J., & Blumenfeld, P. (2006). Project-Based Learning. In R. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 317-334).

Darling-Hammond, L. et al. (2008). Powerful Learning: What We Know About Teaching forUnderstanding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (ISBN 978-0-470-27667-9)

Tanner, Kimberly D. “Promoting Student Metacognition.” CBE life sciences education 11.2 (2012): 113–120. Web.

Lin, Kuen-Yi et al. “Effects of Infusing the Engineering Design Process into STEM Project-Based Learning to Develop Preservice Technology Teachers’ Engineering Design Thinking.” International journal of STEM education 8.1 (2021): 1–15. Web.