Supporting active learning in an undergraduate geotechnical engineering course using group-based audience response systems quizzes

Abstract

Supporting active learning in an undergraduate geotechnical engineering course using group-based audience response systems quizzes Donohue, S. (2014). Supporting active learning in an undergraduate geotechnical engineering course using group-based audience response systems quizzes. European Journal of Engineering Education, 39(1), 45-54. DOI: 10.108045-54. DOI: 10. /03043797.2013 General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact openaccess@qub.ac.uk. AbstractThe use of Audience Response Systems (ARS) or "clickers" in higher education has increased over recent years, predominantly owing to their ability to actively engage students, for promoting individual and group learning, and for providing instantaneous feedback to students and teachers. This paper describes how group-based ARS quizzes have been integrated into an undergraduate civil engineering course on foundation design. Overall, the ARS summary quizzes were very well received by the students. Feedback obtained from the students indicates that the majority believed the group based quizzes were useful activities, which helped to improve their understanding of course materials, encouraged self-assessment and assisted preparation for their summative examination. Providing students with clickers does not, however, necessarily guarantee the class will be engaged with the activity. If an ARS activity is to be successful, careful planning and design must be carried out and modifications adopted where necessary, which should be informed by the literature and relevant student feedback.Keywords: active learning, clickers, civil engineering, peer interaction 1.Introduction Active learning enhances understanding and longer lasting memory retention (Bligh 1998;Felder and Brent 2003). Shuell (1986) suggested that if students are to learn desired outcomes in a reasonably effective manner, then the teacher's fundamental task is to get students to "engage in learning activities that are likely to result in their achieving those outcomes". Entwhistle (1997) suggested that this fundamental task involves encouraging students to adopt a deeper approach to learning, where students think critically and interact actively with the information they receive rather than accepting it passively and simply reproducing it during assessment. In an engineering learning environment, students may be exposed to a wide range of methods aimed at stimulating activ...

An integrative review of in-class activities that enable active learning in college science classroom settings

“…The polling questions are multiple-choice items whose questions may be conceptual (McConnell et al, 2003) or factual (Crossgrove & Curran, 2008). Polling is also used to administer quiz questions (Donohue, 2014;Slish, 2005).…”

Embedded formative assessment in the undergraduate engineering classroom

“…Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to review this emerging body of evidence, a few recent representative publications pertaining to engineering education can be referenced from recent conferences, illustrating the current use of technology-facilitated formative assessment in a lower-level engineering mechanics course (Statics) [9], upper-level fluid mechanics course [10], a civil engineering course on foundation design [11], an industrial engineering course on engineering economy [12], a large computer science class [13], and graduate level engineering courses [14].…”

Undergraduate Geotechnical Engineering Education of the 21st Century

“…In order to generate interest and allow the students to develop a more detailed understanding, the course should include some demonstrations and/or site visits. These active learning activities encourage student involvement and reinforce engineering concepts in "real-life" applications (Donohue 2014). There should be at least one site visit per semester and at least two tabletop demonstrations in addition to weekly lab instruction.…”