Ruth Streveler

An active learning, student-centered approach to training graduate teaching assistants

For over a decade, new graduate teaching assistants (TAs) from four departments at the Colorado School of Mines have been part of a three-day training program prior to the start of the fall semester. The unique feature of this training program is the strong emphasis on active learning philosophy and methods. Our goal is to teach new TAs how to employ active learning methods in their laboratory and recitation teaching. We do this by having TAs experience most of their training as students in active learning classes and then having them discuss the activities for form, student involvement, and purpose. The TAs spend half their time together focusing on general aspects of effective teaching and the other half with their respective department faculty focusing on the specific course they will teach. This paper will present specifics of activities, logistics, teaching sound bites, and feedback on this TA training program. We feel that it is a model adaptable to other institutions.

Communities of practice in engineering education

A university is a learning organization in both the traditional academic and contemporary management senses. The social foundation for learning is clearly established, and there are many contexts that support learning formally and informally. This panel will explore the social contexts, or communities, that are in place or have the potential to enrich the academic environment. Panelists bring unique perspectives on higher education, engineering education and research, and communities.

Why are some science and engineering concepts so difficult to learn? identifying, assessing, and "repairing" student misunderstanding of import concepts

This special session will provide an active learning environment where participants will (1) be introduced to the idea of difficult concepts in engineering and science, (2) learn how they might use concept inventories for assessing understanding, and (3) begin examining how they can help improve student understanding of these concepts.

The study strategies of academically successful students at the Colorado school of mines

A 42-item questionnaire was administered to 285 Colorado School of Mines students in sophomore design. Factor analysis was performed, resulting in a five-factor solution. Factors were then correlated with cumulative grade point average. Four of the five factors were significantly correlated to cumulative grade point average. Three factors were negatively correlated, one positively correlated to grade point. Step-wise regression was also performed to see the effect of each factor on cumulative grade point average.

Panel Session - Future of FIE: Where are we and where do we want to go?

To provide a framework for discussing the future of the Frontiers in Education (FIE) conference while recognizing the contributions of a diverse group of participants with different interests and needs, the FIE06 organizers added a category section for submissions to FIE06. These included scholarly teaching, scholarship of teaching and learning, engineering education research, and other. The categories were intended to represent a continuum but not to be hierarchical. High quality contributions from all categories are encouraged and important. In this panel session, the distribution of papers in these categories for FIE05 and FIE06 will be presented. Panel participants will then assess where FIE is now and facilitate a discussion among interested FIE06 participants of where FIE is now, what the unique and valuable aspects of the conference are, and where the FIE community would like to go

Work in Progress – The Kolb Learning Model Applied to an Advanced Energy Systems Laboratory

An Advanced Electric Power and Energy Systems Laboratory was offered for the first time at Colorado School of Mines (CSM) during the spring 2005 semester. The pilot course represents an innovative approach to lab instruction. This paper describes the course materials developed to introduce the power flow problem to a group of senior level undergraduate students using the Kolb learning model. The Kolb model is helpful for conceptualizing how people learn and for developing course curriculum that will accommodate the various learning styles. A special feature of this laboratory experience was the utilization of industrial contacts to provide the students with added motivation to learn. Initial feedback from students and industry representatives has been very positive. Based on the success of the pilot program, the course will now become a permanent part of the undergraduate power engineering curriculum at CSM