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Tabassum Farzana Jahan, Dag Wedelin, Tom Adawi, Sven Andersson
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Mathematical modelling and problem-solving skills are important for engineers in their daily work. It is therefore essential that engineering curricula provide students with opportunities to develop these skills needed to deal with complex real-world problems (Alpers et al., 2013; Litzinger et al., 2011). But how do we design courses that help engineering students to develop these key skills? In this case study, using a mixed- method approach (Creswell, 2013), we evaluate the design of a course in mathematical modelling and problem solving, offered to second-year engineering students at Chalmers University of Technology. The dominant pedagogy underpinning the course is inquiry-based learning (Prince & Felder, 2006) and the course is based on a collection of about 30 small but reasonably realistic problems that the students solve in pairs.
Scaffolding is provided through lectures and supervision sessions (Wedelin & Adawi, 2014).
Data was collected through reflective reports submitted by 204 students after completing the course. In these reports, they were asked to describe what they had learned in the course and how the different aspects of the learning environment contributed to these learning outcomes. The data was first analysed using a general inductive approach (Thomas, 2006), which led to the identification of a number of categories representing the most significant aspects of the learning environment, the main learning outcomes, and their relation. In the second stage, a quantitative analysis was conducted to explore the frequency of statements belonging to different categories and as a means to develop a graphical visualisation of how students perceived teaching and learning in the course.
The results indicate that the course has significantly developed the students’ mathematical modelling and problem-solving skills, metacognitive skills (Flavell, 1979), technical and subject knowledge and has helped them to become more independent problem solvers. The aspects of the learning environment that contributed to these learning outcomes are, in particular, the authentic problems, the Socratic supervision and the act of making thinking visible during the lectures. The aspects of the learning environment that the students emphasized will be discussed in the light of a set of instructional design principles based on situated learning theory (Herrington & Oliver, 2000).
We believe that these findings offer useful pointers for engineering educators wishing to develop their students’ mathematical modelling and problem-solving skills and prepare them for real-life engineering problems.
Tabassum Farzana Jahan, Doctoral student at the division of Engineering education research, Applied IT.
Dag Wedelin, Associate professor at department of computer science and engineering.
Tom Adawi, Professor and division head at the division of engineering education research, department of applied IT.
Sven Andersson, Associate Professor at division of engineering education research, department of applied IT.