COMBINED STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE ACTIVE LEARNING AND RETENTION

Retention rates in engineering courses in Ireland and worldwide are an increasing problem. There are numerous reasons for students not progressing to the second year of their STEM courses, which can include everything from issues related to the transition from a school setting to University and living away from home. The volume of theoretical work undertaken in large lecture theatres can be off-putting to new students, who can feel isolated and can struggle with the new content and learning environments. In the first year, students often cannot visualize how the individual subjects covered are going to lead them to their engineering degree. This paper aims to analyze the introduction of an active learning component through the repurposing of a first-year spring semester module while maintaining the existing learning outcomes. A Design-Build-Compete (DBC) project requires students to work in teams to design and build a vehicle to transport a payload up a 15m slope. It requires students to use mechanics calculations along with engineering design and drawing principles to design this vehicle. Students are encouraged to employ related prior learning such as computer coding and mechanics equations learned in the previous semester to optimize their designs. To support students at the developmental stage of their designing, the module assessment approach utilizes Adaptive Comparative Judgment (ACJ) as a medium to engage students in peer assessment. This process is based on the students making multiple holistic comparative judgments on peers’ work, presented in an e-portfolio, generating a rank order of perceived quality by the group. Students also generate formative feedback through the ACJ platform, which contributes to the knowledge-building process. This has an added meta-cognitive benefit where the student is encouraged to reflect on their own design based on their judgement activity prior to receiving feedback on their individual submission. This process is repeated later in the module when the final team report/portfolios are submitted. Students work on different sections of this report and submit it as a team and then build the vehicle in the workshop using basic workshop tools. At the end of the module, all teams take part in a timed race, sponsored by local industry (Modular Automation and J&J Automation Centre of Excellence). At this event, each team is interviewed by practicing engineers who provide feedback on the project and ultimately award a number of prizes related to performance, design and teamwork.