creation of collaborative study community in engineering studies

Creation of a Collaborative Study Community in Engineering Studies

Lukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M

Internat ional Conference on Engineer ing Educat ion, 20th – 24th July 2015, Zagreb, Zadar (Croat ia)

Photo (CC0) from Pixabay

Traditional subject-oriented pedagogical approach

51 % drop off

Retention rate in 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

engineering education 42% 40% 43% 45% 49%

Lukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education20th – 24th July 2015, Zagreb, Zadar (Croatia)


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“Collaborative problem solving and project based learning have been considered as central methods to educate present day engineering students, because they simulate challenges that the students will face in the professional work” ~ (Dym et al. 2005)

open ended assignments

uncertainty

coordination of collaborative efforts

opportunities to analyse, synthesise and evaluate ideas cooperatively

informal discussions and interactions

share knowledge and experience

get helpful feedback

learn critical thinking

social interactions

engagement in self-directed collaborative work

communication

joint information processing

coordination

interpersonal relationship

motivation


”Alone we can’t accomplish task like this, so we need team work to do it” – CC BY-SA 2.0 Easa Shamih/Fl ickr

The aim was to integrate new students into the study community by keeping them tightly together in one classroom during the first eight weeks of study.


Hjort, Holvikivi, Vesikivi & Lukkarinen, (2015), Student Collaboration and Independence from Day One in Higher Education. 43rd Annual SEFI Conference, June 29 - July 2, 2015, Orleans, France 27

Collaborative teamwork in practice

© Petri Vesikivi, 2015

Before

Now

Photo: Mikko Mäkelä, 2015

Changes in facilities — Old PC Laboratory


28Lukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education20th – 24th July 2015, Zagreb, Zadar (Croatia)Photo: Mikko Mäkelä, 2015

Changes in facilities — New classroomLukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education

20th – 24th July 2015, Zagreb, Zadar (Croatia)

Information technology —The first year curriculum 2013-> 2014

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Course ECTS

Basic Engineering Mathematics 6

Introduction to Calculus 6

Finnish for Foreigners 1 3

Finnish for Foreigners 2 3

Technical Writing and Presentation Skills 3

English Reporting Skills for ICT Projects 3

Introduction to Computing 3

Introduction to Studies 6

Orientation Project 6

Communication Networks 5

Digital Circuits 6

Programming 5

Circuits and Signals 5

Course ECTS

Orientation* 15

Games 15

Robots 15

Networks 15

Contents %

Project and team work

50 %

Mathematics & Physics

20-30 %

Languages & Communication

20-30 %

* Objects for Finnish students


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Subject Integration – Orientation Course

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri

9—12 Math Comm Project Project

12—13 Lunch

13—16 Project Project Math Project

Mathematics & Physics (20%)

Finnish Language (15%)Team work &

Project (50%)

Communication (15%)


The orientation course outline

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The course was implemented on the fi rst 8 week period of autumn semester 2014. The course outline was arranged around weekly themes, each having technical, social, epistemological and cognitive goals. Team work methods and best practices were introduced parallel to these work exercises.


Week Topic

1 Who am I / Who we are (Knowing each other)

2 University services and facilities (Team work)

3 PC assembly (Team work)

4 Laptops, HTML (Team work, mutual help)

5 Photography, photo editing (Me and the other)

6 Portfolios, web-pages (Individually and together)

7 Review & final evaluation

8 Supplementary work

”The Great Egg Drop Experiment”

38Lukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education20th – 24th July 2015, Zagreb, Zadar (Croatia)


Testing the Design

Theme 2. University facilities


The second week’s theme was to know the university’s facilities. The technical goal was to learn documentation skills and to become familiar with Metropolia’s IT systems, as the social aim was to practice teamwork skills.


Theme 3. PC Assembly

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The third theme was a five day crash course on assembling a PC, aiming to give students a real hands-on experience about how to survive with PCs and operating systems. Another goal was to teach students to work in teams.

Photo (CC BY-SA 2.0), Paddy: How To Assemble A Desktop PC (Wikibooks)



Themes 4, 5 & 6

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All learning and processing took place in small teams within the group. Team work methods and best practices were introduced parallel to these work exercises.

Weeks 4 to 6 tasks were around • basics of photography, • photo edit ing, • creating group portfolios, and • web-pages.

The aims were to • learn basics of portrait photography, • the properties and formats of digital images, • digital image edit ing, and • basics of HTML and CSS coding.

Each student visited a photography studio and practiced taking portrait photographs in small teams and used the material to create their own web-page portfolios.

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Students’ Web-pages

Theme 1.

Lukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education


http://users.metropolia.fi/~nguyenp/bloggame/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~narendrl/gamesblog.html#6

http://users.metropolia.fi/~liyuez/blog/MY%20BLOG.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~duyp/WordPress/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~duyc/blog.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~aleksefo/wordpress/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~duyn/Portfolio/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~hyep/Game/HS_blog.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~konstalo/Wordpress/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~ban/blog/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~dansu/wordpress/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~phuctr/Wordpress/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~rubingm/StudyBlog/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~brentc/wordpress/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~bijayar/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~tehetenm/blog%20skeleton.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~yasamins/indexx.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~sushilb/blog.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~hieut/blogpage/

http://users.metropolia.fi/~minhtn/blog.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~sobhann/games%20course.html

http://users.metropolia.fi/~shuraksk/gamesblog.html

Questionnaire and feedback


Positive(21)81%

Neutral(4)

15%

Negative(1)4%

Overall experience — Students (N = 26)


What was positive or impressive?

57

Students’ evaluation

Getting to know the classmates (6)

Teachers’ help and guidance (6)

Receiving and giving feedback (5)

Teamwork (5)

Learning general knowledge and new technologies (5)

Schedule or rhythm of studying (5)

Overall arrangements (3)

Everything was good (3)

Facilities (2)


What was challenging or disturbing?

58

Students’ evaluationNo problems or everything ok (4)

Unclear content or structure (3)

Finnish language (3)

Schedule, early wakeup time or sleepiness (3)Exercises too trivial (2)

Too few practice (2)

End products not practicable (2)

Weak base if IT knowloedge (2)

Group presentations (1)

Group work (1)

Unknown evaluation criteria (1)

Difficulties or confusion with technical practices (1)


Teachers’ comments

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What worked well?+ teacher collaboration in integrating teaching (3) + schedule and arrangements (3)+ communication with students (3)+ active and motivated students (2)+ student learning (1)+ teaching in general (1)

What did not work well?- a tight timetable (2)- difficulties to find time for joint meetings (1)- the classroom facilities (1)- subject integration (1)- transfer students (1)


About goals of the course

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All five teachers evaluated that the goals of the course were achieved well. One teacher thought that the goals were exceeded because the competence level of the students was so high. One teacher mentioned that the students’ motivation for learning increased from the beginning. One teacher remarked that even though the goals were met, more time should have been allocated to practicing the new ways of learning.



What would you do differently?

“Decrease the amount of content.”

“Organize mathematics as a separate study unit.”

“Less teachers present in the class at the same time.”

“There should be either first or second year students, and no other options should be offered (for transfer students).”


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In total 48 students started the course and of those 47 passed.

98%

Discussion and conclusions

Challenge — Slow integration

65

Solution

Enable students to acquire basic knowledge of the study environment together, and after learning to know each other, they have a large pool of information available. This also helps students to make friends, because everyone is forced to work with others.

One of the main problems with international study groups has been the slow integration to the new university environment and adoption of proper study habits. They have sought help from teachers and study advisors, requiring repeated instruction about the same issues .


Challenge — Unfinalized group works

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Solution

Through multiple successive group assignments the students get repeated opportunities to practice collaboration skills as well as get feedback from peers and guidance from teachers, which many students mention as central positive aspects of the course experience.

In educational settings applying collaborative practices, students do not necessarily succeed very well in group work or progress expectedly in finalizing their products. One reason is that students are left too much alone in managing the new ways of working; they have to learn the critical skills spontaneously or through trial and error.


Encouragement for team work

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Teams must be encouraged to work as a team by designing tasks that very clearly benefit from team activity.

Cross-team competition and mutual helping between teams simulates professional situations within companies or with clients.

Encouragement for students to present their own opinions makes them see their capabilities, and their ability to help others in professional matters.


Final remarks

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The most important goal from the university point of view was achieved:

for the first time ever all but one student passed their first period courses.

The findings are not surprising when compared with other results of project based learning. However, the faculty in our university has been reluctant to apply collaborative methods due to the lack of convincing information. Therefore, close follow-up and continuing research of the development of student competences is still needed.

98%



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1. Collaborative work towards a shared goal is an efficient and inspiring mode of study. Photo: (CC0) skeeze/Pixabay



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2. Teams must be encouraged to work as a team by designing tasks that very clearly benefit from team activity.

Photo: (CC0) geralt/PixabayLukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education



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3. Through multiple successive group assignments the students get repeated opportunities to practice collaboration skills as well as get feedback from peers and guidance from teachers.

Lukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education20th – 24th July 2015, Zagreb, Zadar (Croatia)Photo: (CC0) geralt/Pixabay

Acknowledgments

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The study was partially supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union under Grant KA3MP-2013-4764/001-001 Promoting nowledge Work Practices in Education; the KNORK project; http://knork.info.


http://knork.info/

http://knork.info/


78Photo: Sakari Lukkarinen, 2013Lukkarinen S, Holvikivi J, Hjort P, Mäkelä M & Lakkala M. (2015) International Conference on Engineering Education


creation of collaborative study community in engineering studies

Education

engineering education

holvikivi j

hjort p

international conference

mikko mkel

vesikivi lukkarinen

higher education

practice hjort