Dan Cernusca

Longitudinal Evaluation of a GIS Laboratory in a Transportation Engineering Course

This paper focuses on the potential impact of student-centered feedback for enhancing the learning experience of civil engineering students that used a geographic information system (GIS) based tutorial in a transportation engineering course. The tutorial was implemented in a laboratory environment developed as a self-guided activity supported by a web-based learning system. The formative research proposed in this study includes a series of four successive implementations of this laboratory. Students’ performance, beliefs, and perceptions were monitored by using a mixed-methods design approach and weaknesses identified from early implementations were addressed before the next implementation of the laboratory activity. The students’ performance was found to improve when the GIS web-based tutorial was complemented with an instructor-driven short introduction that anchored the laboratory activity in traffic safety. In addition, students’ feedback in both quantitative and qualitative format indicated weakness...

Application of Threshold Concepts to Improve a Design-Focused Course in Transportation Engineering

Design is an integral part of engineering courses. To address its associated problems, however, is a challenging task in instruction because of designs open-endedness and complexity. In this study, two theoretical models were implemented in an introductory transportation engineering course to address the challenges associated with design of a highway. First, the theoretical framework proposed by the threshold concepts model was used to identify a candidate concept for the instructional redesign process. Two major characteristics of threshold concepts, integrativity and transformativity, were used to identify horizontal alignment as a candidate concept for the highway design process. Second, concept mapping was done to create operational measures of the integrativity of complex concepts, such as horizontal alignment. These maps and measures led to several changes to the structure of lecture materials and project tasks. Finally, questions for reflective assessment were administered to students after each redesigned instructional task and at the end of the course to find evidence of the potential transformativity of the proposed instructional changes. Implementation of the above-mentioned theoretical framework allowed the instructor who participated in the study to successfully streamline the instructional process and benefitted student perceptions and attitudes about learning highway design.