Promoting the Development of Metacognition and Combating Robust Misconceptions In a Gateway STEM Course Using an Intelligent, Web-based Homework System

为了满足行业对科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）专业人员的当前和预计需求，全国各地继续努力招募学生进入STEM领域。 一旦被招募到STEM领域，保留是至关重要的。 对保留问题的审查已经确定了关键的门户课程，因为许多学生在STEM领域失去了。 这些课程的失败率和退学率通常超过30%，与元认知技能不足和学生自我调节学习有关的问题似乎是造成减员的关键因素。 该项目正在探索具有成本效益和可转移的方法，以促进STEM专业学生在关键门户工程课程中的元认知技能发展，使学生成为自我调节的学习者，不仅通过门户课程，而且通过整个课程成功地取得进展。为此，正在开发一个“智能”网络平台，并在两个机构的电路分析课程中部署。 该系统旨在确定学生的知识缺陷，并根据每个用户目前的掌握程度为他们提供个性化的体验。 基于网络的方法确保了干预措施的可扩展性和可转移性，其基于认知科学的既定理论表明它们将是有效的和广泛适用的。 该系统的独特之处在于，它促进了用户的自我反思，并有望提高元认知技能和纠正常见的误解。已制定严格的评估和评价措施，以量化项目的成效。

To meet the current and projected needs of industry for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) professionals, significant efforts to recruit students into STEM fields continue across the nation. Once recruited into a STEM field, retention is of paramount importance. Examinations of the retention issue have identified key gateway courses as areas in which many students are lost from STEM fields. Failure and withdrawal rates in such courses often exceed 30% and issues related to inadequate metacognitive skill and self-regulated learning among struggling students appear to be key contributors to attrition. This project is exploring cost-effective and transferable means to foster metacognitive skill development among STEM majors in a key gateway engineering course so students become self-regulated learners and progress successfully not only through the gateway course, but through the entire curriculum.Toward this end, an "intelligent" web-based platform is being developed and deployed in an electric circuit analysis course at two institutions. The system is being designed to identify knowledge deficits of a student and to deliver an individualized experience for each user according to their current level of mastery. The web-based approach ensures the interventions will be scalable and transferable and their grounding in established theories from cognitive science suggests they will be effective and broadly applicable. Unique within the system are features which foster self-reflection on the part of the user with the promise of enhancing metacognitive skill and the correction of common misconceptions. Rigorous assessment and evaluation measures are in place to quantify the project's effectiveness.