My multifaceted experiences with engineering education have shaped my teaching philosophy. My practical teaching experiences, my engineering education research experiences, as well as my experiences as an engineering student all inform my pedagogical approach. Society has claimed that more innovative engineers are needed, and to me that means helping engineering students develop into independent critical thinkers. I believe every student is capable of becoming his/her best self, and that every student is full of inspired potential. It is my job to help students on their path to becoming his/her best self by helping them discover and fostering their inspiration and aspirations.
Pedagogical Approach
Simply stated, I believe the best way to help engineering students develop into independent critical thinkers is through active learning. Active learning is a broad term that encompasses a variety of pedagogies, but I do not believe any one particular pedagogical approach is best suited for all students or all educational contexts. I always begin with the learning objectives with designing any lesson. For example, when I taught an introduction to computational modeling of the human body to undergraduate students in an Introduction to Biomedical Engineering course, I first listed the major objectives I wanted students to take away from the lesson. From this list, I began to design the lesson. Knowing I only had 75 minutes to teach 80 students, the lesson was primarily lecture-based, but I added small but effective active learning activities throughout the lesson to engage students with the content I was covering. I also designed assessments for the lesson (i.e. homework assignment and test questions) by referring to those initial objectives, and relating the assessments to the in-class active learning activities. I used a similar pedagogical approach when asked to teach a lesson for a graduate-level Injury Biomechanics course.
Teaching in First-Year Engineering
Through my experience with facilitating the design and development of the revamped first-year engineering course, I was able to scale-up my pedagogical approach from a single lesson to a full-semester course. The other course instructors and I first determined the overall learning objectives for the course at the beginning of the semester. Additionally, we determined the specific objectives for each week’s lesson. I continued to implement active learning strategies that were based on these underlying learning objectives, keeping in mind the different educational context. By revamping the first-year engineering course, the other course instructors and I were able to do a pseudo-flipped classroom approach. We met with ~30 students for 2-hour workshops at the beginning of the week, and then again with ~150-students for 50-minute lectures at the end of the week. This structure allowed us to do full problem-based learning and inquiry learning approaches in the classroom during the 2-hour workshops. The corresponding lectures would then act as a reflective lecture of the content related to the workshop activities. Although the 50-minute lectures were primarily lecture-based, we still incorporated small active learning strategies to engage students through small-group activities. For example, we frequently used the DyKnow software to encourage students to engage with each other and with the lecture materials.
A key component of effective pedagogical approaches are corresponding effective assessments of student learning. Aligned with my pedagogical approach, I believe an effective assessment is one that stems from the underlying learning objectives. By aligning assessments to learning objectives, I try to ensure assessments fairly demonstrate student understanding. For example, when I began to develop to the first comprehensive exam for the first-year engineering course, I started directly from the learning objectives that were shared with the students at the beginning of every module. My teaching colleagues and I also frequently used formative assessment techniques using DyKnow polling, think-pair-share, concept-mapping strategies. As an approach to helping students develop as independent critical thinkers, I believe research-based formative assessment methods that are designed to encourage student reflection is an effective approach to fostering critical thinking as well as an effective approach to assessing student understanding.
Summary
As a former engineering student, the most salient engineering lessons I experienced were the ones that involved some form of active learning. More recently, my different teaching experiences have shaped my belief that active learning has a valuable role in any classroom. As shown by the research, the key is to ensure that active learning pedagogies align with educational context and the overall learning objectives. Overall, I believe engaging students through active learning is an effective way to help students develop into independent critical thinkers.
To summarize, I believe it is my job as an engineering educator to help students become his/her best self by helping them discover their inspiration and aspirations. Through my experiences as an engineering student, as well as an engineering educator and researcher, I believe an effective approach to fostering students’ independent critical thinking skills is by engaging students through active learning in the classroom, and by encouraging out-of-classroom student engagement and learning.
Teaching philosophy
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View my LinkedIn profileCurriculum Vitae | Stephanie M. Kusano | skusano@vt.edu