 Building A System to Ingrain Core-competencies  David Dorran School of Electrical Engineering Systems College of Engineering & Built Environment Ext: 4873 Teaching Fellowship

Lecturer: “Using the potential divider rule from first year theory the output voltage of the circuit is 4 volts” 2 nd year student : “I remember hearing about the voltage divider rule – must look it up some time – didn’t realise it was important”. 2 nd year student : “Oh yes – the potential divider rule, also known as the voltage divider rule, it shows how voltage is spread across resistors in series” 2 nd year student : “Potential divider??? Voltage?? Teaching Fellowship

 Exams structured to allow content be omitted from exam studies.  Surface learning for sole purpose of passing exam.  Student unaware of relative importance of certain content. Teaching Fellowship

 Develop a system which encourages students to spend more time on fundamentals/basics.  Implemented on webcourses:  Easy/wide access  Facility to provide quick feedback  Easy reuse of quizzes (thanks Michael Carr!)  Allows multiple attempts  Automatic corrections  Facility to track student progress (score and duration spent on quiz)  Demo on webcourses Teaching Fellowship

1. Identify core competencies within a programme – DT021 Electrical Engineering being used as test case. 2. Develop database of questions 3. Implementation – logistics and student perspective 4. Evaluation Teaching Fellowship

1. Review module descriptors ◦ not very useful – too much information 2. Discussions with colleagues ◦ Initially asked “What are the core competencies developed in your module?” ◦ Changed this to: “What are the prerequisite core competencies for your module?” Identifying core competencies within a programme 66 Teaching Fellowship

1. Reused and adapted Michael Cores Maths quizzes. 2. Started with core competencies identified in stage 1 – applicable to all stages – Four categories of question:  Mathematics  Electronic Systems  Electrical Systems  Programming – ability to read code 3. Multiple choice questions avoided – webcourses calculated questions preferred Teaching Fellowship

1. Students required to complete 6 core competency quizzes. 2. Quizzes feed into assessment of 3 modules – 2 per module. 3. Quizzes represent 5% of continuous assessment mark. 4. Students must score 80%+ in quizzes in order to receive any marks toward CA. 5. Quizzes available for one week – multiple attempts allowed – quizzes unsupervised Teaching Fellowship

1. Students participated in 3 focus groups - which were facilitated separately by Muireann O’Keefe (LTTC), Gavin Duffy (SEES, former Teaching Fellow), Brian Bowe (Head of Learning Development, EnBE) 2. Two focus groups were recorded (audio only) 3. Approx 6 students per group. Recorded groups were chosen to have at least one international student and one mature student. Non-recorded group coincidently only contained students who transferred in to the degree programme. 4. Each facilitator was provided with a set of questions to guide the discussions (see Teaching Fellowship

Full reports at 1. Students felt the quizzes were beneficial as they help motivate revision. 2. They felt that more quizzes related to material they were currently studying would be useful. 3. Quizzes were time consuming – up to two hours in some cases. 4. 5% of CA mark was enough to motivate them; as did the 80% pass mark 5. A certain amount of copying occurred (approx 10% of questions completed without any real understanding – mainly multiple choice) 6. Students felt they benefitted from having multiple attempts and being able to work together. Teaching Fellowship

Questions/Suggestions/Comments? Teaching Fellowship