Creating Connections in Statics - Case Study from University of Washington-Tacoma
Creating Connections in Statics - Case Study from University of Washington-Tacoma
Embedded Files
by Heather Dillon & Seung-Jin Lee
by Heather Dillon & Seung-Jin Lee
At UW-Tacoma faculty members in multiple departments are using concept maps across the curriculum in courses like Statics, Dynamics, Numerical Methods, Circuits, and Computer Science Algorithms. We combined concept maps in those courses to include a technical topic and later an EM-related concept.
Course context: Major courses across class years
Assignment: use a word bank to fill-in a cmap related to statics (word bank+construct a map); construct-a-map related to "creating value"
Student learning outcomes:
1. Organize your knowledge of statics using a concept map.
2. Connect concepts for your career and this course.
Assignment and assessment details
Assignment and assessment details
The purpose of this project was to develop a classroom project module that supported students in developing conceptual understanding of topics in statics, and building awareness of career value creation in engineering. The module developed includes a sequence of concept mapping activities that students complete that includes both technical topics and entrepreneurial mindset topics. The concept mapping for technical topics was found to be a useful formative assessment tool for students to connect concepts in the course.
Who: This module was designed for a sophomore level required class on statics. The students were mostly mechanical engineers. The activity was done in a small class, but has since been used each time the course is offered.
Where: The technical concept map was assigned to students as a homework after the unit on forces had been completed in the lecture. During class, students were given a brief introduction to concept maps by the faculty member and provided a video overview of the CmapTools software.
At the end of the term, the second concept map focused on entrepreneurial mindset was assigned.
What: The concept mapping activity required very small in-class time, but had large cognitive benefits to students. Students needed no prior knowledge of concept maps, making this easy to implement in any class.
For in-class grading we simply gave students credit/no credit for completion of the maps. However for assessment purposes we used several of the well established methods (counting) and rubrics for EM.
A 2022 ASEE Conference paper includes example student concept maps and details how the concept maps were scored. Check out Benefits of Statics Concept Mapping in Career Cognition.
Lessons learned & tips
Lessons learned & tips
We found it very helpful to introduce students to concept maps with a technical topic (forces) before we asked them to use it for mapping EM topics. Since running this project for the first time, we now find our students making concept maps in other classes (without an assignment!). This is probably the best demonstration of the value of this work for students.
Page updated
Report abuse