WPI Experience

Over the course of my last two and a half years at WPI, I have taken a variety of classes to prepare me for my Student Teaching Practicum. As a computer science major, the majority of my courses have been computer science related, however I have also had the opportunity to take basic and engineering science classes as well as psychology and pedagogy classes.

Relevant Coursework

Although I am not focused in physical sciences, I have taken two physics courses at the high school level as well as two more physics courses at the college level. Between my four physics courses, I have gained a strong understanding of many topics to include kinematics of motion, vectors, Newton's laws, friction, work-energy, impulse-momentum, Coulomb's law, electric and magnetic fields, capacitance, electrical current and resistance, and electromagnetic induction. To further prepare me for this experience, I took an introductory engineering science course called Introduction to Engineering. This class covered topics such as, history of engineering, transportation, engines, energy, materials, and types of engineering. With a strong passion for influencing youth and motivating future engineers, my coursework at WPI along with my previous high school engineering courses and robotics experiences better prepared me for my teaching practicum.

Pedagogy Coursework

As part of WPI's Teacher Preparation Program, students are expected to take the following courses to prepare them for their practicum: Psychology of Education, Teaching Methods, Developmental Psychology, and a Sheltered English Immersion certification course. Throughout these courses a wide variety of psychological concepts and educational methods were discussed. In Psychology of Education, the focus was on the cognitive, social, and moral development of students and how this plays a large role in motivation to learn, evaluating student learning, and the learning process. In Developmental Psychology, there was less of a focus on the connection of psychology to education and more of a focus on the scientific analysis of developmental patterns. Learning teaching methods was a very interesting course because it connected all of our previous psychology coursework to the classroom. Teaching Methods included discussion of the following topics: a brief history of education, curriculum and course guidelines, legal issues, developing a course syllabus, and the issue of breadth versus depth in course planning and delivery. Our final course before beginning our practicum was Sheltered English Immersion which better prepared student teachers with the knowledge and skills to effectively shelter their content instruction, so that the growing population of English language learners can access curriculum, and achieve academic success. After completing the sequence of courses, student teachers are well-prepared for tackling their practicum experience with a knowledge of student psychology and educational methodology.

Reflection on Project-Based Learning

As a student at WPI, I have completed many projects every school year. The majority of my classwork consists of projects which apply our content knowledge to real-world applications. While studying at WPI there is no real question of how the material to be learned is connected to the real-world because projects and real-world applications are so integrated into the curriculum. Along with all of the mini-projects students complete in classes, every student at WPI also has a graduation requirement of completing both an Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP) and a Major Qualifying Project (MQP). "The IQP is one of the most distinctive elements of the WPI Plan and WPI’s signature project-based curriculum, giving every WPI student the experience of working in interdisciplinary teams to solve a problem or need that lies at the intersection of science and society" (6). The MQP, on the other hand, is when students experience working on a professional-level design or research project. By the end of their time at WPI, students have a plethora of project-based learning experiences that they can then take into the workforce. This unique college experience has given me a different mindset on how critical it is to integrate project-based learning into the classroom. WPI's strong focus on project-based learning has had a huge impact in shaping my ability to incorporate relevant and applicable connections to the real world in my classroom. In a technology and engineering classroom, it is crucial to include real-world applications of knowledge into the curriculum. Much like I do at WPI, my students do a lot of project-based learning in my classroom. Every unit has at least one project that goes along with it and every topic has multiple real-world connections.