VaNTH and The Legacy Cycle: Bioengineering and Problem Based Instruction Cherie McCollough Graduate Research Assistant – VaNTH ERC University of Texas at Austin

What is VaNTH – ERC? "Uniting educators and engineers, in industry and academia, to develop curricula and technologies that will educate future generations of bioengineers.“

Components of VaNTH What is an ERC? Engineering Research Centers Comprised of professionals in academia and bioengineering Teams from Vanderbilt, Northwestern, UT, and Health Science Technology center at Harvard – MIT and industrial partners Focused on new technology Initially dependent on NSF – become independent

What is the VaNTH approach to education? People learn best when presented with authentic, personally meaningful challenges “How People Learn” Framework – John Bransford, Vanderbilt University National Academy Press Use of Legacy Cycle in K – 12, college, and graduate courses.

How People Learn: Key Findings Students come to class with preconceptions about how the world works Initial understanding must be engaged – pre- or mis-conceptions can contradict naïve understandings. Example – what causes the change in seasons? For scientific understanding to replace the naive understanding, students must reveal the latter and have opportunity to see where it falls short.

HPL – Key Finding #2 To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: Have a deep foundation of the factual knowledge Understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application (transfer of knowledge). Example - geography

HPL: Key Findings #3 A metacognitive (verbalized thinking) approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress to achieve them. Techniques share a strategy of teaching and modeling the strategy, evaluating their merits in helping attain a goal, and monitoring progress toward that goal. Goal – independence and self-regulation of skill development. Example – reciprocal teaching

Designing Classroom Environments in HPL Framework 1.Schools and classrooms must be learner centered – includes a broader understanding of the learner. Cultural differences Student theories of what it means to be intelligent can affect their performance, i.e., “looking good” rather than risk making mistakes. Intelligence is malleable belief leads to willingness to struggle with challenging tasks, comfort with risk.

2. Schools and classrooms must be knowledge centered Learning with understanding (vs. memorizing) does not use disconnected facts Provides necessary depth of study, assessing student understanding rather than factual memory. Encourages hands-on minds-on vs. hands-on minds off approach.

3. Classrooms must be assessment centered Formative – ongoing – assessments of understanding are designed to make thinking visible to both teachers and students Assessments are learner-friendly, providing students with opportunity to revise and improve their thinking, see their progress, help teachers identify problems.

4. Schools and classrooms are community centered Requires that the development of norms for the classroom and school, as well as connections to the outside world, that support core learning values. Teachers must be enabled and encouraged to establish a community of learners among themselves. Schools need to develop ways to link classroom learning to other aspects of students lives.

The Legacy Cycle Schwartz, D., Lin, X., Brophy S., Bransford, J. (1999). Toward the development of flexibly adaptive instructional designs. In C. Reigeluth (Ed.) Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory (Pp. 183 – 214). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Challenge Three: Diamonds, Stars, and Shadows – What are the properties of light? Context – Why Optics? Optics and the curriculum – TAKS, TEKS Content covered in First and Second Challenge

Look Ahead and Reflect Back Provides an understanding of the goals, context, and challenges students will face Provides a benchmark for reflection and self-assessment Helps students represent a specific problem as an example of a larger set of issues

Generate Ideas Helps students make their own thinking explicit Helps students see what other students are thinking Encourages sharing of ideas Helps teacher assess current state of student knowledge Provides students with baseline to more easily see how much they learn

Multiple Perspectives Provides a way to introduce students to vocabulary and perspectives of experts Allows students to compare their ideas to expert’s ideas Provides guidance on what students need to learn about Provides realistic standards of performance Indicates that multiple perspectives exist in the domain

Research and Revise Exploring the Challenge: Consult resources Collaborate with other students Listen to “just-in-time” lectures Complete skill-building lessons Look at legacies left by other students Conduct simulations and hands- on experiments

Test Your Mettle Formative assessment Wide variety of forms: multiple choice tests, essays, opportunities to test their designs, etc. Feedback suggests which resources to consult to reach target level of understanding Feedback is motivational

Go Public Presents students best solutions – electronic posting, multimedia presentation, oral presentation, etc. Leave a legacy of tips, ideas, strategies, data, etc. for future students

Go Public - Criteria Makes thinking VISIBLE Helps students to assess themselves and others Helps set standards for achievement Helps students to learn from each other Motivates students to do well (high stakes)

Following completion of Legacy Cycle: Return to Look Ahead and Reflect Back and see how much has been learned (benchmark) – shows the payoff for perseverance Focuses on the process and content learned – can make CD that contains their solutions and legacies, provides a review Helps students decide what legacies will be most useful to others Teachers should also leave legacies

Websites of Interest Information regarding VaNTH The optics website per/ go to “workshops”