Transforming a Flipped STEM Course Through Adaptive Learning

美国国家工程院的21世纪重大挑战之一是“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，也是这个项目的一部分，是翻转课堂模式，其中内容传递和问题解决的顺序是翻转的。学生首先在课前和课外了解讲座内容，并在课堂上在讲师的指导下参与协作活动。为了丰富翻转课堂模式，进一步提高学生的学习能力，本项目引入了一个免费的自适应平台，为每个学习者个性化的课前活动。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合作和学习。本项目涉及平台的开发和学生学习的评估，以调查该方法的有效性。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。许多工程问题产生的数学模型没有精确的解，否则需要很长时间才能解决。为了解决这些问题，许多工程专业的学生和数学专业的学生都选修了一门叫做数值方法的课程，以学习计算技术来解决复杂的数学模型。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主动学习的课堂，结合自适应（个性化）学习。更具体地说，本项目将比较三种教学方法（带适应性学习的翻转课堂、不带适应性学习的翻转课堂和不带适应性学习的混合课堂）在学生概念收获、程序性知识收获、高阶问题解决和情感学习方面的有效性。定性和定量指标将在本次调查中使用。项目可交付成果包括教学材料和在自适应平台翻转设置中教授数值方法的最佳实践。传播途径包括免费使用的Knewton自适应平台、开放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.