2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 343: Outcomes from Metacognition Support in a Fluid Mechanics Flipped Classroom

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

This article reports on a three-year, NSF-supported study on the use of direct, embedded instruction in planning, monitoring, and evaluating one’s problem-solving in an undergraduate fluid mechanics course in conjunction with weekly reflection on this activity. The self-regulatory skills of planning, monitoring, and evaluation of one’s work can be promoted through systematic reflection to support metacognition and self-directed, lifelong learning. Students were prompted weekly to reflect on their in-class problem-solving, classroom and exam preparation, performance, learning, and other aspects of their coursework in a flipped engineering course at a large university in the southeastern U.S. To enable a comparative assessment, a flipped classroom without the metacognitive-skills instruction and repeated reflection was also implemented as a non-experimental cohort.
The comparison of these cohorts was accomplished using a two-part final exam with multiple choice and free response portions. In addition, the weekly reflections were coded by two analysts using an emergent content analysis to assess the presence of self-regulatory, metacognitive behaviors in support of problem solving. Results from the project with respect to direct knowledge outcomes, self-regulatory behaviors evident in the weekly reflections, and student perspectives on the weekly reflection will be discussed. Our results provide some evidence for the potential betterment of course performance with intentional metacognition support.

Authors

Dr. Renee M Clark University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Renee Clark is Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering, Data Engineer for the Swanson School, and Director of Assessment for the Engineering Education Research Center (EERC). She uses data analytics to study techniques and approaches in engineering education, with a focus on active learning techniques and the professional formation of engineers. Current NSF-funded research includes the use of adaptive learning in the flipped classroom and systematic reflection and metacognitive activities in the mechanical engineering classroom. Dr. Clark teaches Statistical Testing for industrial engineering undergraduates. She also serves as Associate Editor for Advances in Engineering Education. She has 30 years of experience as an engineer and IT analyst in industry and academia. She completed her post-doctoral studies in engineering education at the University of Pittsburgh.
Prof. Autar Kaw http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3976-6375 University of South Florida [biography]

Autar Kaw is a mechanical engineering professor at the University of South Florida. Recognized with the 2012 U.S. Professor of the Year Award (doctoral and research universities) from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Kaw's scholarly pursuits include engineering education research, adaptive, blended, and flipped learning, open courseware development, composite materials mechanics, and examining the future of higher education. His research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Florida Department of Transportation, and Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Supported by the National Science Foundation, Kaw has led a national collaboration to develop, implement, refine, and assess online resources for open courseware in Numerical Methods (http://nm.MathForCollege.com). These resources gather over 1 million page views annually and 1.6 million YouTube lecture views, attracting more than 90,000 visitors to the "numerical methods guy" blog. This work also evaluates how flipped, blended, and adaptive environments effectively help engineering students learn content, hone group-working skills, and perceive their learning contexts. Kaw has published more than 130 peer-reviewed technical papers, and his opinion pieces have been featured in the Tampa Bay Times, the Tampa Tribune, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Dr. Rasim Guldiken University of South Florida [biography]

Dr. Rasim Guldiken is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the College of Engineering and a Professor of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of South Florida (USF). Dr. Guldiken has been recognized with multiple awards and honors, including the 2022 ASME Fellow, 2022 USF Faculty Outstanding Research Achievement Award, 2022 USF Academic Excellence Award, 2019 and 2012 USF University-Wide Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Awards, 2018 USF Outstanding Graduate Faculty Mentor Honorable Mention and 2014 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Ralph Teetor Educational Award.

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