Francis S. Broadway

The use of reflective journals for student learning and development

For three years, undergraduate freshman through senior participants were required to submit a reflective journal each week during a design project. In our first implementation, we found that reflective journals were meaningful as assessment tools because they communicated how the participants learned. We show in this three-year study how subsequent use of reflective journaling leads to intellectual development on the part of one student. The form of this paper is a first-person autobiographical narrative of a third year (junior) student through which different and multiple identities and knowledge unfold. The authors of the study create a narrator based on knowledge, experiences, concepts, and ideas that a chemical engineering student constructed, reconstructed, and deconstructed in his journal entries. Through these stories, the student showed a deep understanding of teamwork, developed empathy and a sense of belonging, and demonstrated the ability to explain, interpret and apply chemical engineering content knowledge

A Thought: From Hero Toward Myth-Making

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With Sexuality: Theological Discourses, Curriculum and Pedagogy

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Vertically integrated multidisciplinary teaming: an instructional framework adapted to a nonengineering course

We present a case study of the use of vertically integrated multidisciplinary teams in a nonengineering general science course. We constructed our teams from students with different majors, genders, and class ranks, reflecting several of the ingredients for effective teaming discussed in the literature. This type of multidisciplinary and stratified team member distribution helped to build a sense of community and shared ownership in the learning process. Our experience demonstrates that vertically integrated teaming concepts can be successfully adapted as an instructional framework in multidisciplinary general-audience courses. In this paper, we discuss content analyses of student journal entries, self-reflection reports, and survey responses.

The impact of vertical integration of design teams on the chemical engineering program

For the last five years, the Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Akron has implemented a vertically integrated team design project (VITDP) involving our departments entire undergraduate student population. Teams, consisting of freshman through seniors, work together with an industrial or faculty mentor to solve an open-ended design problem over a five-seven week period during the fall semester. Each project is designed to require positive interdependency between the team members, thus creating an instructional framework where students learn through teaming rather than group work. All freshmen learn what chemical engineering is about, sophomores enhance their learning in process economics, juniors and seniors improve their proficiency with process simulation, and seniors make major improvements in their ability to lead or guide other people. When the design project introduces a concept or topic that has not been fully integrated into the curriculum, all students, including those who prefer to work alone, effectively increase their knowledge of that topic. The vertically integrated team structure provides a way to learn information in context, which has a particularly strong effect on women in the program. Overall, the VITDP has a positive impact on the chemical engineering program.

A circle of learning through Invention Convention

Technology and Invention in Elementary Schools (TIES) engaged participants in a learning experience that would subsequently be translated into instructional practice in elementary school classrooms. The goals of TIES included teachers’ engagement in an inventive thinking process called “Invention Convention.” In this article project directors answer the following questions: “How did the TIES training affect science classroom instruction?” “What lessons did the teachers learn from their implementation of an Invention Convention in their own classrooms?” and “What did the TIES teachers’ students teach their teachers about science teaching?” The TIES project provided teachers with the research-supported professional development training that the standards (NRC, 1996) suggest is necessary to effect change in the science education classroom. The positive impact of the Invention Convention process on inventive and creative thinking in the classroom is evidenced and supported in the words of teachers and the lessons learned from their students. Teachers clearly learned lessons about the power of design technology and invention from their students as well. In such a reciprocal learning environment the teachers’ understanding and application of TIES’ themes were supported and strengthened. The work described in this article was supported by National Science Foundation Grant ESI-955650. Opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed or implied here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.