Re-tooling Information Instruction Delivery and

Assessment for the Freshman Engineering

Class: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Mary L. Strife, Marian G. Armour-Gemmen, Robin A.M. Hensel

120th ASEE Annual Conference Atlanta, GA 23-26 June 2013

Began Summer 2011 Continuous part of Engineering 101

Consensus to fit in Living Partnership

Buy-in by administration to ABET outcomes

Background

Knowledge of how to evaluate an article Ability to appropriately cite an article Familiarity with four source databases for

engineering research Understanding of plagiarism and how to

avoid it Ability to identify four types of intellectual

property

Student Outcomes

Focus on Problem-Based (Active) Learning in the construction of all sessions

Three Delivery Environments:◦ In-Class Session◦ IP Module on Blackboard◦ “Out of Class Experience” (OCE)

Information Delivery

Basic library webpages (including LibGuide) Exercise about when to quote a source Information use overview:

◦ Worldwide web resources and Wikipedia◦ Evaluating resources with a mnemonic device

Class exercise to identify different types of citations as well as parts of a citation

Introduction to Summon (WVU Libraries’ discovery service)

Topics Covered in In-Class Session

Topics Covered in Intellectual Property Module

Article on eReserve Introduction to intellectual property Exercise identifying trademarks Introduction to patents Exercise for searching patents Quiz on intellectual property

Length◦ Initial: One hour sessions◦ Change: Expanded to 1.5 hours in 2nd semester

Assignments◦ Initial: Could complete within two weeks◦ Change: Needed to be completed in the session

Assignment Worksheet◦ Initial: Included paper and electronic resources◦ Change: Included electronic resources only

MLA Citations◦ Initial: Full citation had to be written out by student◦ Change: Provided fill-in-the-blank citations

Out of Class Experience (OCE)

1st semester added many additional sessions because students didn’t sign-up

2nd semester integrated sign-ups during the in-class session

OCE Sign-ups: LibGuide Survey Function

Topics Covered in OCEEach student: Was provided a

different subject to research

Searched for a book, technical report, and journal article

Searched for graph in a specific book

Databases used: MountainLynx

(library catalog) DOE Information

Bridge SAE Digital Library EI Compendex Knovel

Evaluation & Observations

Overall Results

Pre-Test Post Test9.5

10.0

10.5

11.0

11.5

12.0

12.5

Pre-Post Test Analysis

Aver

age

Num

ber

Corr

ect

Item

s

p-value = 0.001

Results from the Course Section Pre- and Post-Tests

6 5 H01 2 3 8 13 9 H02 1 7 4 H03 H05 0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

Average Gain Per Course Section

Course Section ID

Aver

age

Pre-

Post

Tes

t D

iffer

ence

Increased cooperation and buy-in by faculty Librarians integrated as part of the teaching

team Librarians participation as judges of

Engineering 101 mini-conference Significant learning by students over the pre-

and post-tests

The Good

Consistency across sections Different instructor personalities

and teaching styles

Challenges (the Bad)

# SectionsContact hrs. # OCE

Contact hrs.

Total teaching hrs.

Fall 2011 18 3 0 0 54Spring 2012 3 1 1 1 4Fall 2012 17 1 36 1 53Spring 2013 8 1 15 1.5 30.5

Time allocation

Plagiarism Avoidance Tutorial wouldn’t work

Lack of participation in the on-line IP Module

The Ugly

Out of Class Experience

Retooling for Fall 2013◦ Plagiarism Avoidance Tutorial◦ IP Module

Continued Dialog with Professors

Improvements

Contact

Mary Strife Mary.Strife@mail.wvu.edu

Marian Armour-Gemmen marmour@wvu.edu

Robin Hensel Robin.Hensel@mail.wvu.edu