Step 2 is establishing what my Significant Learning Goals are for the course. There’s a worksheet for this one as well on p11 of the SDG. The task here is to identify two to three main items in each one of the six areas (foundational knowledge, applications, integration, human dimensions, caring, and “Learning-how-to-learn”) of the significant learning taxonomy that Fink has proposed in his text. This selection is to be guided by constantly considering the phrase “Two to three years from now after this course is over, I want and hope the students will ____________.”
1. Foundational Knowledge
- What key information (e.g. facts, terms, formulae, concepts, principles, relationships, etc.) is/are important for students to understand and remember in the future? I have the ABET syllabus to guide me on this response as well, however from my memory I would say A) measurement terminology – accuracy, reliability, etc, B) sources of measurement error, C) transducer fundamentals and selection, D) dynamics of measurement systems, E) statistics and data analysis, F) documentation of work and good report writing.
- What key ideas (or perspectives) are important for students to understand in this course? The purpose of measurements is to provide knowledge for decision making regarding product characteristics and performance, or for control purposes. Critically evaluating the quality of measurements is important. Documenting the measuring process and reporting the analysis and conclusions is what provides evidence of quality. The choice of transducers for measurements will be constantly changing throughout an engineer’s career, the sophistication of analysis will be increasing as well. Engineers will need to know when to hire an expert and to understand what the expert tells them.
2. Application Goals
- What kinds of thinking are important for students to learn? see the sublist below
- Critical thinking, in which students analyze and evaluate? YES!!
- Creative thinking, in which students imagine and create? yes, but this one is a very tenuous connection in my mind at the moment. I’d like to incorporate some open ended challenge questions for lab, but the time commitment to evaluation and guidance of this exercise is scary
- Practical thinking, in which students solve problems and make decisions? YES!!
- What important skills do students need to gain? Working with various transducers to obtain quality measurements. See ABET syllabus for list of standard types. How to communicate the measurement process, results, analysis, and conclusions in a clear and concise method.
- Do students need to learn how to manage complex projects? Not so much in this course, but the preliminary skills built in lab will feed the ME4444 Senior Capstone Design course, which is the “complex” project. Incorporating the certain “management” skills such as introductory design of experiments would be a luxury in this first pass of redesign of the course.
3. Integration Goals
- What connections (similarities and interaction) should students recognize and make? see detailed list below
- among ideas within this course? hmmm
- Among the information, ideas, and perspectives in this course and those in other courses or areas? the dynamics of measurement systems relates to physical modeling and first principles such as the physics of heat transfer and dynamic motion, and more complex considerations such as mechanics of materials for strain gage applications. One can map how this course ties into future courses as well.
- Among material in this course and in the students’ own personal, social, and/or work life? Many students have experienced circumstances when an engineering measurement could have provided needed information for a crucial decision. Identifying such is an opportunity for “reflection.” some students have already gained exposure to measurements in the workplace via their co-op, intern, or job background.
4. Human Dimension Goals
- What could or should students learn about themselves? How do they handle ambiguity, or inconclusive findings. Are errors with the equipment or with the process? How patient are they with difficulties? Who will they blame if something goes wrong? How much perseverance will they demonstrate in the face of adversity? Will they be critical in matching analytical expectations to experimental realities?
- What could or should students learn about understanding others and/or interacting with others? Students can learn to appreciate the necessity for teamwork in verifying quality work. Can all students do all work or can more be learned from dividing the work among groups and then correlating the findings. A student can learn how to coach someone else through the process of dealing with trouble in a calm and systematic manner.
5. Caring Goals
- what changes/values do you hope students will adopt? developing a sense of ownership of quality of work and desire to improve that work at all times. To be committed to providing quality evidence for either themselves or others to use when making decisions
- Feelings? hmm
- Interests? want to know more about how modern sensing technologies can influence the measuring process
- Ideas? generate creative concepts for new measuring solutions
6. “Learning-how-to-learn” Goals
- What would you like for students to learn about: see list below
- how to be good students in a course like this? fostering inquisitiveness, take joy in new things, appreciate the challenges of failure as an opportunity to learn more
- how to learn about this particular subject? what professional tools of the trade are there for undergraduates to go ahead and make use of, what professional development in this field is all about, where new information is likely to be found, what companies are doing to promote new innovations
- how to become a self-directed learner of this subject, i.e., having a learning agenda of what they need/want to learn, and a plan for learning it? an exercise could be to envision how you will apply this skills and information acquired in this course into a new setting, such as ME4444 a year from now.