GEDC LATAM Chapter Meeting August 20-21, 2012

Blended Learning in Engineering: A College-wide Approach to Educational Innovation

Paul S. Peercy, Dean College of Engineering

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Educational Innovation Thrust in the College of Engineering

• Based on input from – Undergraduate and graduate students – College of Engineering Academic Planning

Council with revisions and approval of the CoE Strategic Plan

– Engineering Beyond Boundaries Task Force – CoE Industrial Advisory Board

8/20/2012

Vision for Engineering Beyond Boundaries “The College of Engineering will provide a contemporary

engineering education that is strong in the fundamentals of the discipline and fosters an understanding of the societal context of engineering and a passion for life-long learning. This will be achieved by guiding students through new educational opportunities that:

– build disciplinary excellence with a multidisciplinary perspective,

– nurture critical thinking, – develop multicultural competence, – cultivate collaboration and leadership skills, and – promote an ethic of service to the profession and the

community.”

The verdict is in • Multiple in-depth comparisons and research studies

conclusively demonstrate that on-line and blended learning / education is more effective than the traditional lecture mode – On-line education is more effective than the traditional lecture

format even without classroom interaction – Blended approaches (on-line lectures, on-line quiz and on-line

homework on each lecture) plus classroom sessions to help students with problem areas are much more effective than either lecture or on-line alone

• CMU finds students learn certain material in half the time

John Hennessy, Stanford President

• “I‟m a believer in online technology in education. I think we have learned enough about this to change the world, and it‟s going to change the way we think about education. Institutions like Stanford should be willing to fund the experiments, to try different things, to think about different models. We can do what other institutions would be strained financially to do, and they can learn from our experience.”

– Source: IEEE Spectrum, May, 2012

Accelerating the Rate of Change • February 2011: Differential Tuition Roundtable Meeting

Recommendations / Requests

• On-line lectures / materials (pervasive throughout College) – Lectures (accessed by a variety of mobile devices) – CAE Lab Software (accessed by a standard device) – Quizzing/Grading (accessed by a standard, basic device) – question/discussion boards – text books, materials

• Software – Training – 1 credit or certificate – Improved tethered software – Remote access to software

• Infrastructure improvements

Lecture capture & online deployment

Adapt teaching for new learning environments

Flexibility for students

Efficiency, flexibility and productivity for

faculty

Enable new revenue sources

Primary Objectives

8/20/2012

Pedagogical course redesign for blended instruction

Vehicles to objectives Objectives

The Goal

8/20/2012

• Lecture capture in 75% of core CoE courses over the next 4 years

(from CoE Strategic Plan approved

by the College of Engineering Academic Planning Council November 2011)

Key Components to EBB Educational Innovation Effort

1. Build alignment on goals – Engage and listen to students, faculty, industry/employers – Administration must lead and support – Keep the goal consistent – Unanimous agreement is not a necessary precondition for

progress

2. Build support framework – Hardware/software infrastructure in classrooms – Have technical and course design expertise available

3. Offer modest incentive and effort release for faculty

Mission WisCEL strives to reach success for all students by creating learning environments in spaces where students live and learn on their own initiative. In these new spaces individualized learning experiences are provided through courses, tutoring and social events in order to develop confident, independent, lifelong learners.

College Library WisCEL Center

Moving towards 24X7 utilization

Supporting new classroom instruction and learning approaches

Peer collaboration Instructor-as-coach model Self-pacing opportunities Frequent and immediate learning progress

feedback Increased instructor time with students International connectivity

Peers helping each other, spontaneously

Instructor is a “coach-in-the-midst” instead of a “sage-on-the-stage”

Fall 2011

Spring 2012

Promising Results

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

95-100 90-94 85-89 80-84 75-79 70-74 65-69 60-64 50-59 < 50Perc

enta

ge s

tude

nts

rece

ivin

g gr

ade

Student Grade (percent)

ECE 230: intro electric circuits analysisFall 2011: conventional lecture/HW (80students)

Class average score increased from 77 to 83.5% ! 20% of students moved from < 80% to > 80% ! Increasing subject mastery success for all!

The Future – Selected Article Titles • Disruptive Innovation – in Education (Kurzweil) • New, free on-line computer science courses from Princeton,

Stanford, UMich, Univ. Pennslyvania • News: Disruption, Delivery, and Degrees (Inside Higher Ed) • “Careful meta-analyses of this literature reveal an important

difference: on-line learning, and in particular blended learning, can result in significantly better student learning compared to learning in the conventional classroom”

• Rethinking Higher Education in an Online and Recession Wary World

• Rethinking How We Teach the „Net Generation‟ - NPR • Instruction for Masses Knocks Down Campus Walls (NYT) • It‟s Time to Improve Academic, Not Just Administrative,

Productivity (Chronicle of Higher Ed) • Harvard and MIT team to offer free courses • 12 major research universities join Coursera

Back up Slides •

Blended Learning in Engineering: A College-Wide Approach to

Educational Innovation May 10th, 2:30-4:30

The Wisconsin Idea Room in the School of Education

Fall 2012 Courses Wendt Commons WisCEL Center

CEE/GLE 330 ECE 431 ECE 230 EMA 201 ILS 275 INTEREGR 103 MSE 351 NEEP 271 P207

College Library WisCEL Center Pre-calculus math courses: Math 95 (1 section), Math 101 (5

sections), Math 112 (20 sections)

What is next? External evaluation and assessment

Wisconsin Center for Educational Excellence DoIT, Academic Technology Evaluation group

Teaching as research Submission of IRB Proposal later this month

Building a stronger WisCEL teaching and learning community

Increased WisCEL facility utilization and efficiency Promoting awareness of WisCEL

Pilot Projects • Distribution of educational innovation

projects over last five years – 57% technology in the classroom – 45% multidisciplinary perspective – 12% intersection of engineering and the

humanities – 7% international experiences for global

engineer – 5% leadership development

History of Engineering Beyond Boundaries at U. Wisconsin

• 2001 – Task Forces to rethink undergraduate education

- Free Tutoring in Math and Science

- Common first year curriculum

- Freshman engineering required course

• 2005 - Engineering Education Leadership Institute (sponsored by NAE and NSF)

• 2005 - College-wide listening sessions

• 2005 - Engineering Beyond Boundaries Task Force – 7 faculty

• 2006 – EBB Roundtable – 25 faculty and staff

• 2009 – NAE Workshop on “Developing Engineering Faculty as Leaders of Academic Change”

Followed the Massy Approach

• Massy, W. Honoring the Trust, Anker Publishing Co, Inc., 2003, 376 pgs. 1. Build awareness and commitment 2. Commission pilot projects 3. Create venues for ongoing discussion and

development 4. Organize skill development and consultation

services 5. Broaden the rewards, recognition, and

incentives environment 6. Adopt performance-based resource allocation 7. Develop an internal oversight and review

capacity

Wisconsin Collaboratory for Enhanced Learning

John H. Booske, Director (and Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering)

April 13, 2012

Bringing formal learning to informal spaces

Wendt Commons WisCEL Center

“Aha! NOW I get it!”

WisCEL Combining pedagogies, learning space design and instructional technology deployment to personalize and humanize learning, improve learning outcomes and prepare students for the 21st century knowledge economy

Visit our Website: http://www.wiscel.wisc.edu/