Cooperative Learning: Introduced in Three Different Levels of Electrical Engineering Courses at a Military Institution

Transcription

1 Cooperative Learning: Introduced in Three Different Levels of Electrical Engineering Courses at a Military Institution Ellen C. Wooten Department of Electrical Engineering U.S. Naval Academy Annapolis, MD Abstract - Cooperative learning and group work should be prime teaching styles and methods for the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA). For one thing, the students, midshipmen, are all housed in a single dormitory. They have easy access to each other for group homework and group studying, and most of them have commitments to be on campus nightly (Sunday - Friday), as well as most weekends throughout the semester. Also, the midshipmen are formally trained in leadership roles and team management throughout their four years, as part of their military requirement. So the assignment of leadership roles in group learning and their cooperative efforts should come naturally. Therefore, a comprehensive effort to introduce many aspects of cooperative learning was attempted in three different levels of electrical engineering (E.E.) courses for juniors at the USNA this academic year (97-98). The Naval Academy requires every midshipman to take an E.E. course, to familiarize each of them with the technical terms and basic electrical systems that they may encounter in the fleet. One level of the courses was taught to the Humanities majors, one level was taught to the Engineering majors, and another level was taught to the Electrical Engineering majors. This paper addresses the advantages and disadvantages of the new cooperative teaching methods, which were implemented to these three different classes of students. Richard M. Felder and Rebecca Brent introduced these learning styles to the USNA in the beginning of the fall semester in an inspiring Effective Teaching Workshop. A discussion is provided on how the methods matched the different classes, and on how they were assessed by the students and the professor. Introduction The Naval Academy s mission is to develop midshipmen into moral, competent Naval Officers who have been presented with challenges in the academic and physical arena. They also have been tested in their leadership and teamwork roles with professional development courses and military exercises. Their role academically is to absorb as much as they can within their four years at the Academy in the Core subjects to prepare them for the Navy, and then to fulfill the extra requirements in their Major of interest. The freshman year courses are required for all students unless he/she has validated one or more topics. The Core courses range from courses in engineering, natural science, social science, the humanities, and professional military subjects. All midshipmen during their junior year are required to take a course in electrical engineering, which is taught at four different levels. One level of the course is a single semester survey/problem-solving course taught to the Humanities majors. The next level is a two-semester course for the Math and Science majors. Another level is a two semester comprehensive theory and application course taught to the engineering majors (including mechanical, systems, aerospace, marine and ocean engineering students). The last level is the four semesters of basic circuit theory and the application to electronic circuits taught to electrical engineering majors. Each of these courses are 4 credits, and they include a two hour lab session and three 50 minute lecture sessions per week, they are usually small classes with a maximum of 18 students. The midshipmen have learned early on that they need to prioritize their time in order to succeed in all their tasks. Part of that prioritization comes in expecting to get the most out of their class sessions. They are looking mainly for the information needed to help them solve their homework problems, which are due for the next class period. One of the main goals of the teacher is to try to make the material interesting enough to encourage the student to read more about it in the book, or to motivate the student to listen for more than just a specific homework application. One of the problems in the class periods in each course, is not having enough time to introduce the theory of the subject matter, provide examples or applications, and provide supervised practice for the students. In consequence, most of the electrical engineering classes require individual practice assignments to be handed in on a regular basis. The format of the class is inherently rigid from the onset, as the students stand at attention while role is taken, and then sit in 3-4 rows facing the teacher s desk. In previous years, grouping students together to perform an exercise in class has been implemented to encourage

2 the students to work together to help them learn and to provide an active environment to the class. This year, many changes were instituted for both in class and out of class activities in three of the different levels of electrical engineering classes. The changes came about as ideas to involve the students more in the learning process were presented to a group of multidisciplined, interested USNA faculty in August of 1997 by Richard M. Felder and Rebecca Brent. The workshop in effective teaching occurred just in time for many of us to change our course policy and readjust our syllabus and objectives to add group homework and group practice sessions for the upcoming fall semester. Many educational institutions have implemented ideas from the cooperative learning literature, [2][3][4][5][6] as each of us is struggling to motivate our students to learn how to learn our respective disciplines. The midshipmen are all located in a single large dormitory, and almost all the students are required to be on campus nightly throughout the week, and a lot of the times throughout the weekends. The group homework, groupwork, assignments seemed to pose no inconvenience to the students judging from their availability on location. On the first day of class they were provided with a personnel information sheet to fill out, which included information about them, their interests, their time constraints and their learning preferences. The learning preferences are broken down into five categories (using Richard Felder s templates [1,p. 286]) as shown below: How do you learn best? Intuitive Sensing Verbal Visual Active Reflective Inductive Deductive Sequential Global The task of the teacher is to then separate the class into groups of 3-4 students who will interact well to provide a team effort towards understanding the subject and also perform well on assignments. At first, it seemed the best group linking was to provide students with different aptitudes [2], from different majors and different areas of the dormitory to maximize the type of support the students would get, knowing that they would normally use their dormmates on their hall to help them anyway. The assessment by the students after the first semester suggests that this was not viewed as helpful, as the mode of the midshipmen is to be as efficient as possible. Therefore, picking team members which were attending most of the same classes, or who lived in the same or adjacent halls the second semester was liked by the mids in each of the three levels of the course. Each group was also picked such that there was a mix of aptitudes within each, so that they could compete well with each other for group quiz grades. The assignment for the groups in each of the courses is outlined in the next section containing the course policy. This policy changed from first semester in which it was introduced to second semester, as the assessment of the groupwork in the fall provided insight as to the overall learning mode of the midshipmen which seems to override their individual modes of learning. The midshipmen have a task oriented view of learning. Since their freshmen summer as plebes, they have been filled with more tasks to do than time permits, so there is an inherent view that performing the output for the task, means the task is done. This works well for physical tasks, and military obligations for practical tasks, as well as memorization tasks. Unfortunately, this same view is taken towards academics, with homework, quizzes, and exams being the output. In general, the homework is viewed as a bullet to be ticked off on a schedule, where understanding the material is not necessarily the outcome of the homework, unless the assignment is very carefully thought out. During the first semester, when homework was provided as groupwork, the students maximized their time and truly alternated their effort only once every 3 or 4 group periods. But, the individual students need to practice the problem solving necessary for the topic being covered, and this group process reduced the effort of the individual. The fact that time is the critical factor in their schedules, means that the groupwork should not add extra tasks to their already busy lives. During the second semester, individual work is required each lesson and groupwork is designed to task each in the group and it is usually based upon a review of the material, and tied to the lab experiment due that week or the quiz at the end of the week. The three levels of classes, which were taught this year, differ in their background and their approach of the subject material, and it was found that the cooperative learning techniques varied in their effectiveness for the three. The results of the assessment of the groupwork will be provided in the specific sections on the three courses. Course Policy and Group Teams The syllabus, the course objectives and the course policy are carefully prepared for each of the classes. Certain areas of the course policy provide the instructions for the student in terms of group and individual responsibilities for the class. Listed below are the highlights for groupwork from the course policy for homework, quizzes, exams, and labs for the electrical engineering majors for their spring semester course in Electronics II (the other courses have quite similar policies).

3 Homework : # There will be a mixture of individual homework problems, and extra group homework, groupwork, problems, which will be assigned and due on specific dates. # Unless otherwise instructed, you must work in groups of three or four on the group homework, handing in one solution per assignment. The instructor will assign groups, which will together for the entire semester. For each groupwork assignment, roles should be assigned to each member of the group. Designate a coordinator, who makes sure that each member understands what he/she is supposed to do, and where and when the group should meet. The recorder prepares the final solution set, and one or two checkers check the final solution for correctness and verify that everyone in the group understands both the solutions and the strategies to obtain them. The coordinator may want to have each team member set up portions of the problem(s) individually, and then get together to work out the details. The coordinator may also want to keep track of the time spent. These roles should rotate on every assignment. The day the group homework is due, one or two members from each group will put up or explain the solutions for that homework on the blackboard. Staple the pages of the assignment and put the names and roles of the participating group members (for group work) on the paper. If a student s name appears on a solution set it certifies that he/she has participated in solving the problems. # Team members having problems working together should make every effort to resolve them by themselves. Teams will periodically be asked to submit individual effort assessments with completed assignments. These assessments will be incorporated into the assignment of homework grades. If repeated efforts to improve team functioning (including faculty intervention) fail, a nonparticipant may be fired by the unanimous decision of the rest of their team, and a team member doing essentially all of the work may quit. Individuals who quit or are fired must find another group with three members unanimously willing to accept them. Examinations and Quizzes : Three hour exams and one Final exam will be given. In addition, quizzes will be given on a weekly basis. Some quizzes will be given as a group quiz, where the students participate within their team to provide one quiz solution. Also, a student s grade on certain individual quizzes may be calculated by taking the average of the performance of the individuals in that student s group (this will help to ensure that all members of the group participate in understanding the material, while doing the homework in preparation for the quiz). Bonus points will be given to groups performing above average on quizzes and exams. Labs : A preliminary problem for each lab exercise, prelab, will be provided to each group to solve analytically before the lab. The same procedures for working on the homework will be followed, alternating roles of coordinator, recorder, checker, and listing names and roles on the paper. In lab, each student shall have an individual workbench, but these will be located by groups for collaboration. Informal lab reports are required by the group to be handed in by the next lab period. During the semester, there will be two formal lab reports to be written individually. These reports must describe the purpose of the lab, the theoretical and experimental analysis, and a wellwritten conclusion written with a wordprocessor, and it should include any circuit simulator results and spreadsheet tables of data or graphs of results. Electrical Engineering Course for EE Majors During the junior year, the EE Majors take a twosemester course in Electronics. These students have already had a year in the EE Department, have taken courses in DC and AC circuit theory, and have taken a course in Digital Logic. They are accustomed to the demands of homework and laboratory assignments, and they have an understanding of the problem solving techniques. Group homework and group labwork were introduced to this class of midshipmen in the first semester, and there was a reluctance at first to have to get together with a specific assigned group instead of using the regular help avenues already established in their own Companies. The biggest incentive seemed to be the bonus points added to Exam grades. The grade distribution for this course is listed below: Final Grade Distribution Final Exam % Midterm Examinations(3) % Lab Work % Homework, Quizzes, Class Participation...25%

4 The groups worked very well together for the prelab assignment, but in the first semester, most of the homework was groupwork, and individuals would take advantage and not perform their own preparation. The assessment for the groupwork in and out of class was positive, with 2 out of 14 students stating that they liked it, but wished they had done more of their original work for homework assignments before meeting with their group. Some changes were implemented in the second semester of this course to ensure that enough individual homework was included. So the group homework became more geared toward review type problems which helped them prepare for the weekly quiz. Many of students had already participated in groups in the previous course, so they knew what to expect and they still enjoyed working on the prelab assignments together as a group, and many asked to work in lab in groups. As EE majors, they each need to feel comfortable with the equipment and the idiosyncrasies of troubleshooting. Their participation in lab is graded and the Lab Work Grade is one-fourth of the Overall Grade. The placement of the individuals in a group within close proximity gave them a better confidence level to perform their own experiment. Most of the lab write-ups have been set up as group exercises, to reduce the amount of work in weeks where the homework is heavy, but it is important to have an alternation in the roles to ensure that the same individuals within the groups do not write the reports each week. The working together on some joint quizzes has helped some of the weaker students gain confidence, but many individual quizzes are needed to truly test the individual s problem solving ability. The Final Exam is weighted such that individuals can work out most of the misconceptions and errors in practicing the principles in homeworks, quizzes and in the three hour exams before the end of the course, and then have a heavily weighted Final to show where they have arrived. The assessment by all of the students (16) during the second semester is that the groupwork is beneficial to most everyone, and although two individuals claimed they prefer to work alone, they do see the advantage for others. Out of all the groupwork exercises, the students claimed that working in groups on the prelab assignments, and then collectively in the Lab, and then working together on the report provided the best learning experience. Electrical Engineering Course for Engineering Majors As juniors, all Engineering Majors as well as Math, Physics and Chemistry Majors take a two-semester course in Electrical Fundamentals. The first semester provides a review of the physics and math core courses, which they have taken, and provides a means for their application in DC and AC circuit analysis. The second semester introduces them to power generation and use in electromagnetic machines, and applies their first semester analysis tools to communication systems and digital systems. In the first semester groupwork, in and out of the classroom, was new to these students. They were immediately suspicious of the time demands it would impose upon them as the groups initially were assigned providing a mix of students from different majors and different companies and different abilities. The attitude of the midshipmen towards time management and efficiency of resources encouraged the change in the group selection process for the second semester. The groups still keep the mix of abilities but friends, hallmates, and students who have some of the same classes and same Major are kept together. The attitude of the non-electrical engineers towards this course certainly is not as serious as the EE Majors as they do not project that this course has much relevance to their career. Their prior knowledge and familiarity with math and physics as engineers, provides a good foundation for them to build upon. They do seem to attempt to memorize and pattern match and find this does not work for solving problems which have small changes from their original homeworks, or one s in which a different variable is asked. They tended to like any groupwork that produced an output, like homework, or a quiz, because this meant less work in general and the grade would reflect on the group and not an individual. If they were placed in groups for a practice session or to help go through a derivation, they would tend to lose interest, as the relevance to grades was not clear. Their grade distribution is shown below: Final Grade Distribution Final Exam % Midterm Examinations(3) % Lab Work % Homework, Quizzes, Class Participation...10% The assessment of this group was taken after the first semester. The results were mixed, 5 out of 16 did not like the group homework, mainly from the point of view of time inconvenience. There were 2 of these individuals who did like the in class groupwork. Some who liked the group homework claimed that they did not work at all the problems assigned, but felt the group helped them understand most of them. Electrical Engineering Course for Humanities Majors EE300 is a one semester course given by the Electrical Engineering Department to English, Economic, History and Political Science Majors in their junior year (as well as General Science and General Engineering, and Computer Science Majors who can opt for this course).

5 The course is geared to be a good survey course, providing an introduction to electrical systems and terms, and providing an approach to problem solving in analyzing DC and AC circuits. This course has a reputation for being difficult to understand, and most students are fearful of a bad grade from this course. Over the past three years this course has been tailored to make it more approachable for the nontechnical majors (although, the Naval Academy produces officers who have to be technical in their jobs no matter what their major is). More worksheets are introduced, and the exams look more like the homework problems. If the students spend enough time working carefully on the homework problems assigned throughout the semester, and if they do well on weekly quizzes on those same principles, then they should all do well in the course. Each lesson is taught on a certain principle, and the homework problems on that lesson are due by the next class period. This particular course was taught in the second semester, and having had the benefit of trying out cooperative learning ideas in previous classes, the groupwork assigned is tailored to the class and is set up to be very flexible. Most of the students have not seen groupwork outside of class, and the groupwork in class before was usually very informal. Because this class is so tied to the homework practice, the need to ensure that every individual has a chance to work on most of the assigned problems is very important, so individual assignments were required for each lesson. This course is team taught to approximately 500 students on average and the exams are written to cover the material covered by the homeworks, so the policies for homework assignment need to be consistent. Unfortunately this does not give as much flexibility for the instructor to tailor the individual homework, and the students complained in their evaluations about the amount of assignments and the daily requirement. So as not to cause an overload of work, the group assignments were kept simple and geared towards review type problems only, and these were combined with groupwork activity for the prelab assignments. As they entered lab, each group would present to the class their particular problem and we would go over it and ask questions about it. Calling on each member of the groups ensured that each member had participated in the solutions, or did participate by the end of the problem discussion. The weekly quizzes dealt with the review problem ideas and the average of the groups grades were placed on the quizzes along with the individual grade. The groups averages that were above the class average were given bonus points on the individual grades. The consensus of the class seems to be that, the groupwork has helped most of them, the in class exercises allow them to pull together and feel comfortable asking any question, and the incentives for bonus points encourages them to work on preparing for the quizzes as a group. The exams are also graded with group averages to add as bonus points, and they are weighted much more than the quizzes. The grade distribution for this course is: Final Grade Distribution Final Exam % Midterm Examinations(3) % Lab Work % Homework, Quizzes, Class Participation...15% Our grading system requires us to provide 6-week grades, and 12-week grades, as well as the Final grades. So the individual hour exams and quizzes and homework have more weight during certain periods of the semester. The individual exams check to see if the students have learned a specific area and to see if they can use the problem solving skills on these circuits. The main focus of the Final Exam is to check to see if the students have understood some of the principles of electric circuits in general, and have a working knowledge of the terms, which they will be approached with in the fleet. They should also know the basics behind some of the applications of electricity in the naval communities. The main focus for groupwork in this course was to make the material a little more lively and to provide an interactive element for the students to speak up, so that they approach the course with more interest. They specifically were not interested in using the groups to help them learn, but only to help them get through the requirements of the course. Conclusions The Naval Academy is truly a teaching university. The military and civilian professors are committed to working with the midshipmen to get the most out of their academic involvement. The midshipmen s time is their critical factor; everyone is pulling at it, from their academic schedule, to their physical training, military training, ethical training, Company responsibilities, and Brigade responsibilities. The main aspect of groupwork that should help the midshipmen and students in this and other military academies is that it makes the classroom and the dormitory a more active place to learn. As most of the midshipmen are willing to do the work necessary to get them through the academic process, they usually do not see the benefits of extra time spent in trying to make sense of the ideas, or practice exercises. The continual goal for every course in every place of learning is to find ways for the individuals in those situations to discover the material, not just memorize and pattern match. Basically, the same principles are covered in each of the Electrical Engineering Courses described, but the students in each have different perspectives on what their involvement needs to be in each course. The groupwork needs to

6 be geared to maximize that involvement and match their objectives for taking the course, not just the objectives of the course material itself. The laboratory groupwork seemed to maximize the learning experience for the EE Majors, but that was not true for the Humanity Majors, as their motivation to learn the material has not been captured. The survey course probably remains a course where external weekly groupwork is not as much of an advantage. A semester research project may be a better approach for this level of engineering course. Also, an increase in the in-class groupwork may the best way to build up their confidence level with the material, which would help their interest. The actual implementation of the groupwork needs to be flexible in terms of the actual assignments and the mode of the assignments, but the formality of introducing and evaluating effectual group teams is important at the outset. References 1. Felder, Richard M., Reaching the Second Tier- Learning and Teaching Styles in College Science Education, Journal of College Science Teaching, 23 (5), , Thelen, Herbert A., Dynamics of Groups at Work, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, Johnson, David W., Roger T Johnson, Karl A. Smith, Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development, Rabinowitz, Mitchell, Ed., Cognitive Science Foundations of Instruction, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Hillsdale, New Jersey, Halpern, Diane F. and Associates, Changing College Classrooms: New Teaching and Learning Strategies for an Increasingly Complex World, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, Cross, Patricia K., and Mimi Harris Steadman, Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1996.