Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for Engineering Laboratories
Half of the courses that undergraduate engineers take are labs, but relatively little literature studies exactly how labs make students learn. This project is trying to fill in that gap.
This wide-ranging project is trying to link different psychological and educational concepts – goal orientation, group formation, level of inquiry and more – to student learning in lab experiences. We are using a mix of methods to answer these questions, including quantitative in-class assessments and qualitative interviews. The underlying goal is developing more efficient, interesting and educational experiential learning for everyone.
Example projects have included interviewing students taking a major engineering lab course, running workshops to understand how new users learn about circuit design software, and using A/B testing to compare how students learn from small variations in lab manuals.
ESSAY PROMPT: Total length is ~4 paragraphs. It's easier for me to find your main points in a shorter essay, so please be mindful of this recommendation.
1. Explain why you're interested in this project and what you hope to get from it.
2. How much time can you commit to research this semester?
3. Tell me about a time you you needed to learn about a completely new topic. How did you go about doing it?
4. Tell me about a past project that required writing and literature searches.
NOTE: Successful applicants to this project will be recruited to the research group during the fall or spring semester and compensated with academic credit. Full time, paid summer hires will be recruited from within the research group in the spring.
The ACE lab trains students to be circuit experts, social science enthusiasts, engaging communicators and persistent, independent researchers.. The ACE lab SoTL group studies crucial parts of Mudd’s engineering curriculum, and our findings inspire significant changes in instruction at Mudd and beyond. Further, the techniques you learn in the SoTL group can inform your practice in a wide variety of professions, engineering or otherwise: join to learn new ways to do research and think about understanding people and their experiences.