(Applications Due April 1, 2015)
Two
Research Experience for Teachers (RET) will be available for summer 2015 in the
Sketch Recognition Lab, mentored by lab director Dr. Tracy Hammond. The two teachers will contribute
to the ongoing NSF EEC project 1129525, titled “Collaborative Research: Enabling
Instructors to Teach Statics Actively,” (PIs Tracy Hammond, Julie Linsey, Erin McTigue, Matthew Green) working with the Mechanix software project in the Computer Science Department at Texas A&M University. Mechanix is a sketch recognition system that automatically corrects students hand-drawn homework assignments for trusses and free body diagrams. The Mechanix software for testing as well as a video tutorial can be downloaded from http://sketchmechanix.com. Applications are dues April 1, 2015.
 |
| The Mechanix Interface |
About Mechanix:
Introductory
engineering courses within large universities often have annual enrollments
exceeding several hundreds of students, while MOOCS and online classes have
even larger classes. It is very challenging to achieve differentiated
instruction in classrooms with class sizes and student diversity of such great
magnitude. In such classes, professors can only assess whether students have
mastered a concept by using multiple-choice questions. However, in a multiple-choice
scenario, students only have to identify the answer rather than create the
answer, and the feedback received is only of a binary nature (right or wrong).
Additionally, a growing concern among engineering educators is that students
are losing both the critical skill of sketched diagrams and the ability to take
a real system and reduce it to an accurate but simplified free-body diagram
(FBD).
Mechanix
is a sketch-based deployed tutoring system for engineering students enrolled in
statics courses. Mechanix not only allows students to hand-draw solutions with
planar truss and free body diagrams, just as they would with pencil and paper,
but it also checks the student’s work against a hand-drawn answer entered by
the instructor. It uses sketch recognition to determine both the component
shapes and features of the sketched diagram and the relationships between those
shapes and features. Mechanix then uses those relationships to determine whether
a student’s work is correct and why it is incorrect, enabling Mechanix to
return immediate personalized feedback to the student otherwise not possible in
large classes. Additionally, because sketching is the preferred mode of problem
solving for many professional engineers, producing a tool that utilizes
sketching should increase the transfer of skills from the classroom to the real
world. Finally, the iterative correction process facilitates student learning.
Preliminary results suggest that Mechanix increases homework motivation in
struggling students, and have shown that Mechanix is as effective as
paper-and-pencil-based homework for teaching method of joints truss analysis.
Focus groups have revealed that students believe Mechanix enhances their learning
and that they are highly engaged while using it.
Currently,
Mechanix can correct three different types of static homework problems: 1)
Standard truss problems requiring calculations of method of joints, 2)
Free-form free body diagrams, and 3) Creative Design problems. In creative
design mode, the student must think creatively to create a viable truss that
abides by the constraints. Creative design mode offers an infinite number of
possible solutions for the student, and thus presents an interesting
recognition problem. Additionally Mechanix contains three different interfaces:
1) the student interface, where the student answers the problem, 2) the
instructor question creation interface, where the instructor enters the
problem, and 3) the instructor review mode, where the instructor reviews the
existing solutions (Figure 5 shows a mockup). To add questions, the instructor
simply types the question, uploads an image, draws the answer, and types in the
numerical answers. The drawn answer is then compared to the student’s answer
for correction. Because the student needs to know where he or she is wrong,
Mechanix performs sophisticated analysis on the student’s solution in an
attempt to determine where the student has gone wrong. In the case of creative
design mode, no solution is drawn, instead only constraints are specified, and
Mechanix then uses these constraints to grade the student’s solution. Two types
of feedback are given, that of a simple dropdown box, and that of a complete
checklist for them to follow. We provide two types of feedback so that the
instructor can provide more feedback on initial problems and less later,
scaffolding the feedback.
Interest/Applicability to K12 Teachers:
We have
presented the Mechanix project to over 300 K-12 teachers and over 2000 high
school students thus far. There has been
enormous interest from K12 teachers to include the Mechanix software as part of
their curriculum. Presentations to K12
teachers include: 2014 TAMU Teachers’
Summit Workshop: Mechanix Hands-On Workshop, 2014 WIPTTE (Workshop on the Impact of Pen and Touch Technology on
Education) Mechanix You-Try-It, ASEE 2012: FIE 2012 Mechanix Workshop, TAMU
Teaching with Technology Conference 2014, TAMU Assessment Conference 2011, Duke
TIP High School Program, TAMU
Recruiting (Aggieland Saturday, etc.),
and TAMU 2014 CSE High School Contest on Tablet Computing.
Mechanix
& Applicable TEKS Standards
§112.39. Physics (c) Knowledge and
skills.
(4)
Science concepts.
(E) develop and interpret free-body force diagrams
§111.35. Mathematics – Precalculus (c)
Knowledge and skills.
(6) The student uses vectors to model physical situations.
The student is expected to:
(A)
use the concept of vectors to model situations defined by magnitude and
direction;
(B)
analyze and solve vector problems generated by real-life situations.
What will Teachers Do During the RET?
The
teachers will participate in the work required to achieve the following
research objectives from that project:
1)
To
provide instructors with a software tool where instructors can create their own
custom questions that are automatically evaluated. This will allow for more
open-ended questions instead of multiple-choice questions to be used on exams
and quizzes in large classes.
2)
To
scale Mechanix up to multiple sections and multiple schools. Mechanix has been
implemented at TAMU and LeTourneau on first year engineering students, this RET
would give the opportunity to also test the software at a high school level.
3)
To
develop and refine the instructor interface that includes (1) An easy way to
add problems, (2) automatic grading and student assignment and (3) review
collation of student performance to aid in teaching. The RET teachers will
provide feedback and assist with general design of the instructor interface
4)
To
measure the generalizability of the student learning effects observed with
Mechanix at TAMU to other institutions, specifically high school classes.
5)
To
create a database of questions for use by a wide variety of instructors.
The
teachers will gain research experience through the completion of the following
tasks:
1)
Evaluate
and help design improvements to the instructor and student sides of the interface
2)
Design
a course plan using Mechanix in their classroom that aligns with their
curriculum needs for the following year.
3)
Create
problems and assignments for use in their classroom and add these to the
Mechanix problem database.
4)
Evaluate
Mechanix in their classroom and analyze the data along with a graduate student.
5)
Write
a research paper describing their experience in the classroom.
In
addition to participating in the research activities in the Sketch Recognition
Laboratory, the RET teacher will participate in the professional development
activities associated with the E3 program. This includes sessions to aid the
teacher in preparing an engineering-related inquiry-based project for
implementation in the high school STEM classroom.
Transfer of New Knowledge to
the Classroom
The
teacher will develop a classroom activity based on his/her research experiences
in the laboratory. The classroom project will be implemented in the teacher’s
high school classroom during the subsequent academic year. The teacher will be
required to submit a final report to the E3 team which will outline best
practices and lessons learned with their classroom implementation. The PI’s
research in Mechanix would become part of the outreach and dissemination.
RET Program for the Dwight Look College of
Engineering (COE) at TAMU
The
teacher(s) will participate in professional development activities of the E3
program in addition to working with the research team. Historically, the E3
activities have included engineering research, educational discussion sessions
to facilitate transfer of research into the public high school classroom,
industry field trips, leading edge engineering discussions, and teacher
presentations.
The TAMU
Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E3) RET program brings high school
science and mathematics teachers to the university campus for a summer
residential experience where the teachers are mentored by engineering faculty.
The teachers learn about engineering research, gain heightened awareness of
engineering career opportunities for their students, and develop an engineering
project for classroom implementation. The E3 program has been an integral
component of the College of Engineering’s outreach plan, which has the
overarching goal to increase the pool of undergraduate engineering applicants
into the College, as well as to build a network to recruit partner teachers.
Based on
past E3 participant responses to online post-program surveys, indicators of E3
program impact on the teachers include (1) Increased awareness of engineering
careers; (2) Improved knowledge of engineering as an academic discipline; (3)
Better able to promote the field of engineering to their students, and (4)
Better understanding of attributes assets needed for engineering (e.g.,
creativity, team player, problem solver, desire to contribute to society).
Sustained
Follow-Up
Typically,
the E3 teachers are invited to participate in the annual Teacher Summit hosted
by the TAMU Colleges of Engineering and Science. This professional development
opportunity has been hosted since 2008, and has been very well received by
attending teachers. In addition, an annual E3 Workshop has been hosted
immediately after the Summit concludes. This half-day workshop allows the E3
teachers to reconnect with each other and to stay engaged with TAMU College of
Engineering. PI Hammond presented Mechanix on January 31, 2014 at the TAMU
Teacher’s Summit Workshop. ): Through four sequential 1-hour sessions, 120 K-12
STEM teachers were introduced to the Mechanix system and each solved 6 problems
through the system. Numerous instructors requested to participate in the
Mechanix program and wished for help in integrating Mechanix into their
curriculum (which is what provoked this RET submission). Participating teachers
could also help present at future Mechanix presentation and hands-on
interactive sessions.
Application Process:
Teachers
should apply through the E3 website: http://easa.tamu.edu/e3/app-teacher.htm
More information about the E3
program can be found here: http://easa.tamu.edu/e3/info.htm
Please note your interest in this project somewhere on the application.
Applications are due April 1, 2015.
Any teacher supported under RET
should be a US citizen or a permanent resident; all teachers considered for RET
support will meet this eligibility requirement. STEM teachers from high schools with high
achieving, majority minority students who are predominately first-generation
college and economically disadvantaged are particularly encouraged to apply.
Timing and Funding:
TAMU
Onsite E3 2-week session: June 17- July 1
($3,000)
TAMU
Onsite SRL-Extended 2-week session June 7th - July 4rd
($6,000)
Additional
$1,000 stipend for follow up activities during academic year.
Supplies
include a Tablet PC for use in the classroom implementation.
Additionally,
a limited amount of funds will be available to support presentation at national
conference.
No comments:
Post a Comment