Transcript Document

Dr David Knight, Dr David Callaghan,
A/Prof. Tom Baldock, A/Prof. Mehmet Kizil,
Prof. Erik Meyer, Dr Liza O’Moore
Teaching and Learning Week
Faculty of Science/EAIT Showcase
31 October 2012

Focus on Metalearning
◦ Goal: Make learning behaviours visible for students so they can
take more ownership of their own learning success

Threshold Concepts
◦ Goal: Identify the concepts within courses that students must
first understand so they can apply that knowledge to address
more advanced, end-goal concepts of the course

Administered metalearning instrument in:
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ENGG 1400 (n=169, class=423)
MINE 2105 (twice) (n=97, class=143)
CIVL 3130 (n=138, class=277)
CIVL 3140 (twice) (n=204, class=276)
Collected written student reflections in:
◦ MINE 2105 (n=60)
◦ CIVL 3140 (n=147)
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Lesson: Tie the activity to some form of assessment

Course level
◦ High variation in students’ approaches to learning
◦ Saw consistencies across cohorts and across disciplines

Student level
◦ 84% who wrote reflections found the activity useful
 “It opened my eyes to how important it is to understand a topic
rather than struggle with it and just memorise the topic to get by.”
 “It has definitely shaped how I listen and
take notes in class as well as how much
repetition of course work I do in order to
understand the content.”

Lessons learned
◦ Need a follow-up visit to class to explain interpretation
◦ Students indicate the activity would serve them best if done in
Year 1 or early Year 2
◦ Encourage academics to support learning strategies focused on
understanding rather than memorisation
Academics
Assessments
Analysis
of
Concepts
in a
Course
Students

Engage academic staff to identify threshold concepts
◦ Two instructors of CIVL 3140
◦ Develop concept maps
◦ Identified critical flow as a threshold concept

Ask students to identify threshold concepts and report on
how they learned
◦ Student written reflections (n=147); Hour-long focus group
◦ Concept mapping activity
◦ Learned critical flow in many ways
 Variation between learning the concept versus preparing for assessment
◦ Students identified gradually varied flow, hydraulic jump,
other/multiple flow types, math as being difficult to grasp
 More advanced forms of learning (e.g., linking back to previously
understood concepts) for gradually varied flow relative to other concepts

Analysis of previous assessments
◦ Completed for CIVL 3130 (n=253) and CIVL 3140 (n=225)
◦ Score distributions
 We expect a normal distribution of scores
 Bimodal or skewed distributions may suggest that a threshold
concept is embedded in a question
(some students “get it” and others do not)

Analysis of previous assessments
Concepts:
Critical Flow
Channel Choking
Rapidly Varied Flow
Concepts:
Rapidly Varied Flow
Hydraulic jump
Exam Total

Analysis of previous assessments
◦ Multiple choice responses
 Group these according to concepts
 Result from this: individual feedback on MC questions

Analysis of previous assessments
Momentum
Energy
Physical Modelling
Channel Flow
Inlet Control
Gradually Varied Flow
Outlet Control
Bridges
Total Exam
Score

Analysis of previous assessments
Channel
Flow
Gradually Varied Flow
Channel
Flow
Bridges

Analysis of previous assessments
◦ Linked in-semester assessments to various concepts on the
exam and adjusted accordingly
◦ Learning analytics: Performance on specific concepts could be
used to predict performance on later assessments, and that
information could be provided directly to students.
ACADEMICS
Threshold Concepts
Curriculum–Assessment–Feedback
Improved
Teaching and
Learning
STUDENTS
Metalearning
Metacognition
Dr David Knight, Dr David Callaghan,
A/Prof. Tom Baldock, A/Prof. Mehmet Kizil,
Dr Liza O’Moore, Prof. Erik Meyer
Teaching and Learning Week
Faculty of Science/EAIT Showcase
31 October 2012