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My Project John Doe Date

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My Project

John Doe

Date

Before ...

TeacherLearnerLearning

EssaysLearningEssays

Reflective Learner

Learner Teacher

Previously: Defining / Supporting the Learning Essay Task..

A Problem: A problem with current project-based design classes is that insufficient attention is given to 1) defining and refining what we expect the students to learn and 2) monitoring and mediating their learning relative to these expectations.

Why: Role of the Learning Essays in Learning. - Explanation and beneficial impacts on learning (Chi)- Ready to determine whether essays impact learning...

and Now ...

LearningEssays

Reflective Learner

Class Feedback

Teaching Revision

Learner Teacher

PK

Currently: Role of the Learning Essays in Teaching.

1. Gain Knowledge: Teaching of the Subject Situation Awareness

2. Take Action: Intervention Refine Goals

Goal Today:–Describe the learning essay activity and the Reflective Learner testbed–Demonstrate, through examples that the intervention has potential to be useful–Discuss next steps

Learning Essay

Student compositions – Students answer question, “What did you learn?”, as essay

– Students relate experiences to learning

Why activity in general?– Social Loafing, lack of individual accountability– Students ask -- Why did we have to do this?– Students see Task as End, not Means to an End

Why this activity? – Explanation Research– Open Ended and Simple (relative to other possibilities)– Existing Opportunities to Study

Examples - Good

Class Terminology and Concepts

Relationships

CautionNecessary

Anchored toExperience

Example - Mediocre

Relate toExperience

Jump toConclusion

Believable??

Reflective Learner - Overcome...

Problems: Writing, Management and Research...

RL - Writing Support:– Content Scaffolds: What to Observe?

– Paragraph Scaffolds: How to Structure? RL - Management Support

– Students: Maintenance, Reminders, Automated Submission,

Online Grading

– Teachers/Researchers: Customization of Parameters (assignments, scaffolds), Data Capturing, Collection and Tracking

Reflective Learner

Web-based software

Organized around classes

Student, instructor, and research workspaces

Work to Date Stages

– Fall, 96 - Does RL address technology and assignment problems?

(data collection effort, working with students effort)

– Winter ‘97 - Can RL support activity on a larger scale?

– Spring ‘97 - Does assignment/RL make sense in multiple contexts?

On the right track, but– Promising Data: Over 500 essays, requests for software, students say it helps, essay

scores go up, students write more

– What do the students write?– What can we learn about students? about teaching in domain?

Assessment Case Study

Goal: Look at content of essays– Determine how students construct the class assignment / essay task – Determine what problems they are having.– Document/Explore uses of this information.

Data: All 26 essays from a single assignment.– Focus on assignment where all students did well.

Exploratory Method:– Getting to Know the Essays:

Immersion: Free response to 5 essays, focusing on goals Dialogue: Look at what graders say in response to students Thematic Coding: Extract themes, code examples in other essays

– Selection: Provocative Examples for Illustration

5. Justification: Only one justification is submitted by the group. Why is what you proposeworkable? How can it be improved? What are some of the concerns each of you have withrespect to the plan of action. What could go wrong? Have you accounted for it? Why is this theright team to tackle the project? What is missing from the team? etc. etc.

6. Learning: What have each of you learned from this exercise?

The format of this submission is as follows:

1. Grade Sheet for Design Report II (FORM 8).1. Cover Sheet (FORM 2) appropriately completed.2. Technical Brief for System.2. Meta-Design: PEI Diagram and Flow Diagrams using DSPT Palette icons.3. Schedule.4. Bar chart.5. Team organization and structure.6. Partitioning of system into subsystems.6. Justification.7. Learning. (Individual.)

Please be brief and to the point. You may use point form - but it must be understandable. We want the bidto be submitted in a press binder. Please affix an appropriate label (with your names on it) on the outsideof the folder.

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

THE GEORGE W. WOODRUFF SCHOOL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

ME 3110: CREATIVE DECISIONS & DESIGN

DESIGN PROJECT MEMO 7SUBJECT: DESIGN REPORT II - META-DESIGN

BackgroundOK so now you have had some experience working with each other. You know what to expect from eachother and what are time sinks. In this exercise please use this experience to plan your activities for thefuture. Uuse the DSPT icons to communicate with each other and me.

1. Meta-Design: Implement Phase 1 of the DSP Technique.

PEI Diagram. Draw the PEI diagram and explain its contents. Relating the Phases, Events andTasks to various dates along the time-line.

Events & Tasks: Model these using the DSPT Palette icons.

This is a crucial step for the overall success of the project in general and directly influences theamount of time you will end up spending on the project. Planning will be the key to how muchtime you will have for testing the system before the competition. Hence, this activity and shouldbe taken very seriously.

2. Work schedule: You should identify all the steps (or events) you will take to complete the project.This schedule should be prepared on a week by week basis. It should include routine tasks andmandatory submissions that are required. Remember to budget time for redoing work and timefor modification and testing. Building the project always takes more time than students budget(certainly more than one week). The start and completion times for each activity should be notedon the work schedule and the PEI diagram. Identify who is going to be responsible for whatsubsystem and what tasks.

3. Bar chart: A bar chart should accompany the schedule. In this bar chart please show the amountof time that you have budgeted for various activities. Indicate which activities need to beperformed concurrently and which activities have to be completed before starting the next one.The schedule and the bar chart are extremely important tools for project management and teamco-ordination. The Bar Chart could be integrated with the PEI diagram.

4. Team organization and governance: How will you structure your team? Who will be responsiblefor what? Where will you meet? How will you resolve differences? What are the ground ruleswith respect to meeting times, tardiness, poor work, expenses and conflict resolution? What is theguiding philosophy for designing for this group? For example, design using available assets? etc.

DRII:Meta-Design -- Tasks

• Third team activity• Second major report• Many representations involved• Students are novice at planning• Learning essay is component

DRII:Meta-Design -- Goals

Class Goals– to negotiate solutions to open problems. Open problems are ... – to work in teams, understand and deal with interpersonal relationships and communicate at

personal and technical levels;– to use mathematical models in design (make connection between engineering science and

engineering design);– to design the specifications and configure an engineering system using available assets (existing

components or modules); – to function in self-governing teams, that is, develop the necessary skills of critical evaluation,

planning, time management and implementation;– to gain an understanding of the product realization process, TQM and associated tools;– identify, model, solve decision problems.

Assignment-Specific Goals– to learn to use several different design representations for planning purpose– to understand the roles of planning in the overall context of design

Backdrop

Grades: A, A, B+, B+, B

Interpretation– They did complete what they were asked to do.– Did they walk away with an understanding of

what it meant? – What are some of the problems that they

experience?

Planning - Successes

Student A: What I took away from the planning exercises was an important realization that I will find useful often. I’ve always enjoyed planning early for fun activities and especially for vacations. The early planning usually makes for a better activity or trip, and also allowed me to anticipate doing something really enjoyable which is enjoyable in itself. Conversely, I’ve usually leaned away from premature planning when it comes to academics in order to avoid anticipation of hours of work or studying. The thing I didn’t realize was happening as a result of this tendency was that my assignments were seeming worse or more intimidating in their vagueness. After really exploring the rest of the quarter and especially DRIII, I felt less overwhelmed by the work although the amount of work to come was apparent. The lesson I took away was that anticipation of work is actually less stressful for me when I know the specifics of the work. I never had to really look ahead and analyze my workload before, so I never had a catalyst for this realization.

Student B: Overall, I gained a valuable lesson of how real planning can help to eliminate ambiguity about what the next step is. The report we composed is not written in stone and we as we progress, appropriate changes may have to me made. However, this living document gives us a framework to expand upon. I feel much more confident in dealing with each piece of the process since I can see how it is connect to the whole. The information from the previous stage gives a solid starting point, and looking downstream to the upcoming dependent pieces affords direction and a goal to shoot for.

Planning - (Mis) Conceptions

Student C: The other thing that never ceases to amaze me is the fact that we are not given very much direction on this [IS THIS FAIR]. I tink that is very unrealistic in that a customer will take every opportunity the can get to clarify matters to ensure satisfaction, where as we are not getting that [PLEASE REVISIT]."

Student D: "With all the planning and scheduling we have done already, it seems the chances of us getting lost or off track are slim [IF DONE PROPERLY]."

Learning - Successes

Student E: Doing the PEI and getting the information took a while. Next, I looked at the Flow chart and when, darn, tons of work. Since it was about 3:45 in the morning, I decided to stop there and sleep. The next day (after having a total of 3 hours sleep), I looked over the MEMO and really tried to understand the assignment. It then dawned unto me that hey, once I completed the PEI diagram, I can use that information in my flow chart and schedule and bar chart. Of course, a good amount of work is still required, but hey, thats design for you.

Student F: One last thing I learned was from the grading of the DRI. I noticed that most every group in my class got about the same grade. The funny thing about this is that the design reports were all pretty different. I learned from this that these reports can be different from each other and still be pretty much correct. There is not set "right way" to do these reports [CAREFUL, UP TO A POINT]. You must just include all needed information however will get the message across the best. That is what is most important. Getting all the information to the customer in an organized fashion [YES].

Learning - Struggles Student G: At this moment I just do not see how this break down is going to aid us at

all. The biggest problem I am is the different between a bar chart and the schedule. The bar chart to my knowledge is a gant chart. this chart includes the events required, due dates, and hours spent on events. The schedule to my knowledge is suppose to have alist of all events needed to complete project. To me this is included in the gant chart I don't see the point and I don't even know what format to use for the schedule. I just do not have a clue. I have sought assistance, but nothing in the explainations have been of any help [IS THERE A WAY THAT YOU COULD MAKE IT USEFUL OR DIFFERENT]. I know my main reason for knocking this system is because I do not understand it, but the schedule is suppose to be an aid to us. None of the struggles, I experience, have anything to do with a learning process that will help us toward our goal. I am struggling with format issues. And right now my feeling is that the format of the schedule should fit a form beneficial to you [TRUE!]. I have reached a stopping point for this section. I do not feel that I have learned anything this week.

So What?

We know more about ..– Defining goals: same information across different plan repr.

– Divergent outcomes including problems: planning reduces

ambiguity, cannot see differences between repr.

– What is happening at present: vagueness is not authentic

We can act by...– Giving feedback: embedded essay comments, class comments

– Class Inteventions: discussions, activities, lemonade asgn

– Changing the Assignments/Class

Concluding Thoughts

Learning Essays are a context for students to reflect on experience.

Reflective Learner successfully manages some of the difficulties of using this intervention in the classroom.

Learning essay content have potential to capture useful insight into student constructions.

Role of this insight is promising, but – Much work remains to validate this information source.– How to capture what students say in broader measures?

Schematics of RL Student Workspaces

Journal

Format

Display of

Essays

Elec. Submission

Viewing Area

Conceptual DesignLearning Essay: Edit

Planning Learning Essay: Edit

Submission/Grading/Publishing

Assignment Submit Grade Publish

Conceptual Des

Planning

Concept Selection

Configuration

Demonstration

Final Learning Essay: Create

. . .

Y: 10/9

(Essay not yet created)

Y: 10/17

N: 9/30

N: 9/30

N: 9/30

Excellent

Right track

ungraded

ungraded

ungraded

Y: 10/9

N: 9/30

N: 9/30

N: 9/30

N: 9/30

Assignments Reminders

and Due Dates

Links

for Creation

and

Editing

Grading Verification

Publication in Library

Reflective Learner Tom's Main Page

[Main Page] [Library] [Help] [ME3110 Web] [History]

Essay Editing

with Structure

Scaffolding

Links to Help and

Essay Library

Suggested Topics

Viewing Area

Editing Area

1. Title2. Observation: Describe something...

3. History (Reflection): Describe how

n. Save. . .

Reflective Learner Essay Editing: Tom's Goals Essay

[Main Page] [Library] [Help] [ME3110 Web] [History]

Topic Scaffolding

Structure Scaffolds

Viewing of Final Product Essay

Figure 3. Essay Editing Figure 4. Learner "Main Page"

Schematics of RL Instructor Workspaces

Assignment Maintenance

Essay Grading Control:

Reflective Learner Instructor Main Page

[Grading] [Assignments] [Users] [ME3110 Web] [Help]

User Maintenance:

Help Maintenance

Assignment Maintenance:

Conceptual Des:

Planning:

Concept Selection:

Configuration:

Demonstration:

Allen, Barker, Clark, ..., Zimba

Allen, Barker, Clark , ..., Zimba

Allen, Barker, Clark , ..., Zimba

Allen, Barker, Clark , ..., Zimba

Allen, Barker, Clark , ..., Zimba

Conceptual Design: Edit Due Date: 10/17/96

Content Prompts: xxx, xxx

Paragraph Prompts: xxx, xxx, xxx

Planning: Edit Due Date: 10/17/96

Content Prompts: xxx, xxx

Paragraph Prompts: xxx, xxx, xxx

Add Assignment

Edit Users

- How to - Grading Methods - Use

Links to Grading Workspace for Submitted Essays

Assignment Descriptions

Links to Assignment Creation/ Editing

Editing of the Help

Information

Links to Registered User Editing

Essay Viewing

Reflective Learner Essay Grading: Tom's Goals Essay

[Grading] [Assignments] [Users] [ME3110 Web] [Help]

Essay Grading

1. Overall Grade:2. Summary Grading Comments:

3. Embedded Grading Comments

n. Save. . .

Author: xxx Essay Title: What I need to learn Overall Grade: Excellent Summary Comments: Try relating to your experiences Essay : alkdf adslf atja asdlkjat ;lt a;ljasdf ;ljat aljt asdfljk at atljasd fas f;lkaf atj;lka jadsf af ;lkaer alk jdsfj afljads;fl at atlkj asdf jasdf a;jsdf;al jtja;tj a sf ;lk asdflja t;altj adf alkja sdf;ja t atlkjadfj a flkja at;lkae asdf ;jtr;ljaf ;lasdf jat;

Viewing of

Currently Stored Essay

Assignment of Overall Grade

General Comments

Editing Window for Embedding Comments Direction into Essay

Figure 5. Activity Management Workspace Figure 6. Essay Grading Workspace