Talk:Engineering and technology learning projects

Hi, you have reached the discuss page. What do you think? 1sfoerster (talk) 15:40, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Simplify
Mark, you said:
 * I am hoping that the grading can be simplified/streamlined. I know you’ve spent many semesters refining your system, but for the sanity of new instructors (Mike and myself), and the sanity of students, something simpler might be helpful.  That said, I want to learn your system better and we can discuss.

I am happy with the tension the students walk around with associated with the grading. Ideally it is graded pass fail, but we can not do that. Students see a point total going up, a project bucket total going up and a club total going up. They add three numbers that change weekly to see where they stand in the course. Most grow puzzled over the details and ask "what do the three notebook numbers mean again?" and this turns into another conversation opportunity of explaining the rubric and engineering. What was beautiful this semester is that no one harassed me for a detailed report of their grade. I do feel it fairly reflects the level of engineering that goes on. I don't believe all students will ever connect the feed back given in their notebooks and on wikiversity to their point totals. But this does not bother me.

I agree it is complicated from an instructors point of view. But I think it is worth the effort of figuring out.

The grading starts with a spreadsheet called a grading sheet printed once a week on paper. I take attendance on it, record notebook grades on it, record presentation grades on it while they are making the presentation, record wikiversity grades on it, make notes to myself and then enter it into a spreadsheet once a week. The spreadsheet moves everything around, generates a CSV file that I upload to canvas. This part of the grading seems to take no time at all.

I feel it is easier, more fun and takes less time to grade than statics:
 * Notebook grading takes about 10 minutes per week and is done in class.
 * Wikiversity grading takes about 1 hour a week and is done at any time.
 * Project grading takes about 2 hours every 4 weeks and has to be done the class meeting before the projects start.

The wikiversity grading should be done at the beginning of the week or before the first class of the week. It really helps me sink into what I can do for the projects in the up coming class.

Here it is why it has grown complicated:
 * Students will not pay attention to certain things unless they are graded. Other things they will do without grading. For example they will build and tear apart with out grading, but will never document.
 * The grading reflects rubrics that are just about as rich as any normal class. From this perspective there are three grading events: notebook, wikiversity and team. Two grades per week, one every four weeks.
 * The grading seems complicated because we are recording the rubric details, not the rubric summary.

The advantage of this grading system is that it produces a rich set of data that we can run statistics on, identify problem areas and see improvement. For example, the goal is to increase "problem" points in the notebook, "design" points in wikiversity. "Push" points capture creativity. The detail is necessary to become a metric, create an accountability process, set a base line, and be assessed in order to improve the class.

Ultimately another form of project assessment needs to happen ... by working engineers reading about these projects and responding to a survey. This could lead to a form of on-going external assessment. I have not figured out how get this process going ... yet. 1sfoerster (talk) 17:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Stronger Attendance
Michael, you said:
 * I think that attendance should be factored in, but have a larger effect--something like (Final_total_points)*(days_attended / possible_days_attended - 1). This would give one free day to miss.

The goal is to get students to come to class on time. This year out of 28 class days, the average was 18 with standard deviation of 6. This is with attendance taken at the beginning of class. If you count people that showed up late, this is much higher. If you count people that pay no attention to attendance or grades, show up outside of class, show up in different classes, the count is even higher. As I write this now, there are three people from other classes working in this class .. and this is the last day of classes. This is with the attendance potentially reducing 50% of the project bucket points.

The normally class starts off with presentations: presentations by the professor, presentations by students. This means it is important to be in class at the beginning of class. The purpose of face to face class meetings is to figure out what the next steps of the project are. Random attendance does not help.

I encourage students to come to different classes. The "Drop In" at any time strategy was instrumental in getting this course to first base initially. Keeping the room open, embracing students working at any time does help get projects done, it does create more chances of conversations with students. Maybe it encourages students to say to themselves "why should I come on time, when I am going to stay an hour after class?" Maybe this is the source of the problem.

There is an attendance project that is past 2nd base at automating attendance taking use a web cam and facial recognition software.

Maybe presentation points could be reduced by missing the beginning of classes .. and do this for the entire semester. This would put more focus on attendance and the reasons for attendance.

Maybe the 5 projects the entire semester will cause a competition between classes that improves attendance.

Any ideas? 1sfoerster (talk) 14:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)