Diversiteit in de instroom 1e bach: zegen of vloek? · • Diversity in inflow is a blessing when...
Transcript of Diversiteit in de instroom 1e bach: zegen of vloek? · • Diversity in inflow is a blessing when...
Introducing myself� prof. dr. ir. Wim Dehaene
� KULeuven,groep W&T, dept. Elektrotechniek-ESAT, afdeling MICAS
� Research domain: digital integrated circuit design “chips”
� “Onderwijsopdracht”• P en O
• Digitale geïntegreerde schakelingen
• Vakdidactiek Techniek-informatica
• Elektrische netwerken 1e bach ir
Aspects of diversity
• ‘Diverse’ in the oxford english dictionary
• Which aspects of diversity/variety are we going to look at?
o Gender
o Motivation: why people study STEM
o Knowledge & skills
• STEM = Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics
adjective
showing a great deal of variety; very different:
a culturally diverse population subjects as
diverse as architecture, language teaching,
and the physical sciences
Returning questions
• How much and what kind of diversity is useful in
1e bach ir?
The more the merrier?
• Can the diversity of the inflow positively be influenced?
How?
Gender
• Diversity is small
o # boys >> # girls
o In all ‘ir’ and ‘ing’ curricula except architects.
• Do we need to tackle this?
o Lack of gender mix is emotionally poorer
o Lack of engineers can anyhow not be mitigated by addressing the remainder of potential engineers in the male population
o So, yes 4
• Root cause?
The keyword is relevance
• Reference publication in this domain
The ROSE project: Relevance Of Science Education
o http://Roseproject.no
Sjoberg, Schreiner, “The Rose project: An overview and
key findings”
o International study on the affective dimensions on how
young learners relate to science and technology
o Some excerpts 0
Contradiction in perception mainly for girls (III)
And thus they don’t
opt for an S&T carreer
At least the boys still
want to be engineers!
Conclusion from this
• We have to address the social relevance of S&T and make it
clear to our young people before they enter the higher
education system today
• This needs to be tackled in secondary and primary education
• This can only be done if STEM is brought in an integrated
way in our classrooms en schools
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Diversity in motivation to study STEM
• Why would somebody want to study something in STEM
o Let’s make a list
• Social relevance � hampered see before
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School education as a motivation for STEM (I)
• Some curricula in Flemish secondary education are labeled STEM
o Wiskunde wetenschappen (ASO)
o Latijn wiskunde
o 4
But they contain mainly a lot of Mathematics, a little bit of Science and no technology or engineering
• In TSO there are some very good options for STEM but they are hardly choosen
o Industriele wetenschappen (ideal prep. for engineering)
o Techniek wetenschappen (ideal prep. for prof. bachelor)
But there are very few pupils choosing this
School education as a motivation for STEM (II)
• Secondary education thus mainly exposes pupils to math, pure math
• Pupils don’t see what the relation is with Science, let alone engineering
• It looks like we mainly attract students to STEM because ‘they are good math’
• Would it not be worthwhile to also try to attract youngsters that have a passion for physics, mechanics or electronics or 0 and tell them they’ll need some math?
School education as a motivation for STEM (III)
• Would it not be worthwhile to also try to attract youngsters
that have a passion for physics, mechanics or electronics
or 0 and tell them they’ll need some math?
• If we want to do that we’ll have to show them howscience
and mathematics with engineering as the hyphen between
them interact to solve technical problems
• We will have to bring integrated STEM to the education
system
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• Looks like we want a lot of diversity0
• Let’s have a look a the prerequisites for knowledge and
skills
• How much diversity do we want there?
• Let’s have a look at mathematics
Open question
• Is the knowledge of particular math topics important?
• If something is missing after secondary school, we can
teach it. Examples are
o Complex numbers
o Logarithms
o Fourier analysis
o Determinants
An example from ‘Elektrische netwerken’
• Transfer functions
o Describe the linear behavior of a network
o Rational polynomials, fully determined by zeros of
numerator and denominator
o What follows comes from the course
• Transfer functions
• Logarithms are essential for this
The actual question
• How much conceptual novelty can a 1e bach student
handle in one course?
• Can they acquire the math of logarithms and transfer
functions as a concept in the same move?
• We think there is a minimum of
o Mathematical knowledge � 6 hours SO mathematics
o Mathematical skills required � “Combinatievragen”
Combinatievraag
• This is perceived as difficult because it more than
just application of a single known recipe
• Combination skills are essential for engineering 0
To much diversity in starting level is a problem
• If the knowledge/skills in math are too diverse in the
beginning
o Very difficult to find right level of teaching
o The level reached at the end of 1e bach is pressurized
o Too many students of which ‘we could have known’ fail
o We used to have an entrance exam that could impose
minimum norms but that was abolished
Ijkingstoets
• Starting from next academic year (we had a pilot this year) we offer the “ijkingstoets”
• Optional multiple choice exam offered to all secondary school pupils that consider STEM studies with a considerable amount of mathematics
• The test will “calibrate” their level of mathematics knowledge and skills relative to what is required for different STEM options
• At FIRW we will reward the students who take the ‘ijkingstoets’ by granting an EVK for a part of a course.
• This is maybe a good topic for another “hapje onderwijs”
• Open question: relation between ‘ijkingstoets’ and the gender problem
Conclusion
• Diversity in inflow is a blessing when it comes to having students with different background, gender, motivation, 4
• We should influence these aspects of diversity in secondary education by bringing integrated STEM � work in progress
• Diversity is a problem if that means that th level of mathematics the inflowing students have is too low.
• The “ijkingstoets” will be a good instrument to advise students that don’t have the necessary prerequisites to do something about it.