Transforming a Flipped STEM Course Through Adaptive Learning

美国国家工程院21世纪的重大挑战之一是“推进个性化学习”，该项目有助于为这一知识库做出贡献。课堂上的主动学习已被证明是一种有效的方法，可以提高学生的学习和参与度，并为STEM劳动力做好准备。主动学习的一个例子是翻转课堂模式，在这种模式下，内容交付和问题解决的练习顺序被颠倒了。学生首先在课前和课外被介绍到讲课内容，并在课堂上由讲师协助参与协作活动。为了增加翻转课堂模式，并进一步加强学生的学习，该项目引入了一个免费可用的自适应平台，为每个学习者提供个性化的课前活动。预计这种个性化的课前体验将进一步丰富学生在课堂上的协作和学习。本项目从平台开发和学生学习评价两个方面来考察该方法的有效性。这项工作将促进我们对翻转和适应相结合的方法对来自不同人群的学生的认知和情感学习收益的影响的理解。许多工程问题导致数学模型没有确切的解，或者需要很长时间才能解决。为了解决这样的问题，许多工科学生和数学系的学生都选修了一门名为数值方法的课程，以学习求解复杂数学模型的计算技术。这个项目的背景是一门数值方法课程，它将被重新设计为一个结合适应性(个性化)学习的主动学习课堂。更具体地说，本项目将比较三种教学方法(有适应性学习的翻转班、没有适应性学习的翻转班和没有适应性学习的混合班)在学生的概念习得、程序性知识习得、高阶问题解决和情感学习方面的有效性。在本次调查中，将同时使用定性和定量指标。项目成果包括在自适应平台上的翻转环境中教授数值方法的教学材料和最佳实践。传播渠道包括免费提供的Knewton适应平台、开放的教育资源门户和社交媒体。

One of the National Academy of Engineering's 21st Century Grand Challenges is "Advancing Personalized Learning" and this project helps to contribute to this knowledge base. Active learning in the classroom has been proven to be an effective approach to improve student learning and engagement, as well as readiness for the STEM workforce. An example of active learning, which will be part of this project, is the flipped classroom model where the sequence of content delivery and practice of problem solving is flipped. Students are initially introduced to the lecture content prior to and outside of class, and participate in collaborative activities under the facilitation of an instructor during the classroom. To add to the flipped classroom model and to further enhance student learning, this project introduces a freely-available adaptive platform to personalize the pre-class activities for every learner. It is expected that this personalized pre-class experience will further enrich student collaboration and learning in the classroom. This project involves both development of the platform and assessment of student learning to investigate the efficacy of the method. This body of work will advance our understanding on the impact of the combined flipped and adaptive approaches on cognitive and affective learning gains of students from diverse populations.Many engineering problems result in mathematical models that do not have exact solutions or otherwise would take a long time to solve. To solve such problems, many engineering students and also mathematics students, take a course called Numerical Methods in order to learn computational techniques to solve complex mathematical models. The context of this project is a Numerical Methods course that will be redesigned as an active learning classroom incorporating adaptive (personalized) learning. More specifically, this project will compare the effectiveness of three instructional approaches (a flipped class with adaptive learning, a flipped class without adaptive learning, and a blended class without adaptive learning) on students' conceptual gains, procedural knowledge gains, higher-order problem solving, and affective learning. Both qualitative and quantitative metrics will be used during this investigation. Project deliverables include instructional materials and best practices for teaching Numerical Methods in a flipped setting on an adaptive platform. Dissemination avenues include the freely-available Knewton adaptive platform, an open education resource portal, and social media.