Building A System to Ingrain Core-competencies

David DorranSchool of Electrical Engineering SystemsCollege of Engineering & Built Environment

david.dorran@dit.ieExt: 4873

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 1

Lecturer: “Using the potential divider rule from first year theory the output voltage of the circuit is 4 volts”

2nd year student : “I remember hearing about the voltage divider rule – must look it up some time – didn’t realise it was important”.

2nd year student : “Oh yes – the potential divider

rule, also known as the voltage divider rule, it shows how voltage is spread across resistors in series”

2nd year student : “Potential divider??? Voltage??

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 2

Exams structured to allow content be omitted from exam studies.

Surface learning for sole purpose of passing exam.

Student unaware of relative importance of certain content.

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 3

Develop a system which encourages students to spend more time on fundamentals/basics.

Implemented on webcourses: Easy/wide access

Facility to provide quick feedback

Easy reuse of quizzes (thanks Michael Carr!)

Allows multiple attempts

Automatic corrections

Facility to track student progress (score and duration spent on quiz)

Demo on webcourses

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 4

1. Identify core competencies within a programme – DT021 Electrical Engineering being used as test case.

2. Develop database of questions

3. Implementation – logistics and student perspective

4. Evaluation

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 5

1. Review module descriptors ◦ not very useful – too much information

2. Discussions with colleagues◦ Initially asked “What are the core competencies

developed in your module?”◦ Changed this to: “What are the prerequisite core

competencies for your module?”

66Teaching Fellowship 2010-11

1. Reused and adapted Michael Cores Maths quizzes.

2. Started with core competencies identified in stage 1 – applicable to all stages – Four categories of question: Mathematics Electronic Systems Electrical Systems Programming – ability to read code

3. Multiple choice questions avoided – webcourses calculated questions preferred

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 7

1. Students required to complete 6 core competency quizzes.

2. Quizzes feed into assessment of 3 modules – 2 per module.

3. Quizzes represent 5% of continuous assessment mark.

4. Students must score 80%+ in quizzes in order to receive any marks toward CA.

5. Quizzes available for one week – multiple attempts allowed – quizzes unsupervised

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 8

1. Students participated in 3 focus groups - which were facilitated separately by Muireann O’Keefe (LTTC), Gavin Duffy (SEES, former Teaching Fellow), Brian Bowe (Head of Learning Development, EnBE)

2. Two focus groups were recorded (audio only)

3. Approx 6 students per group. Recorded groups were chosen to have at least one international student and one mature student. Non-recorded group coincidently only contained students who transferred in to the degree programme.

4. Each facilitator was provided with a set of questions to guide the discussions (see http://eleceng.dit.ie/dorran/basics)

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 9

Full reports at http://eleceng.dit.ie/dorran/1. Students felt the quizzes were beneficial as they help

motivate revision.2. They felt that more quizzes related to material they were

currently studying would be useful.3. Quizzes were time consuming – up to two hours in some

cases.4. 5% of CA mark was enough to motivate them; as did the

80% pass mark5. A certain amount of copying occurred (approx 10% of questions

completed without any real understanding – mainly multiple choice)

6. Students felt they benefitted from having multiple attempts and being able to work together.

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 10

Questions/Suggestions/Comments?

Teaching Fellowship 2010-11 11