Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SF7-O011 Invited Talk
SCIENTIST BY DESIGN: AN ENABLING PEDAGOGY TO FOSTER
CRITICAL THINKING AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
M. W. Cole 1
1 Central New Mecico College, MSE, United States.
The fundamental goal of college-level science educators, mentors and research
advisors is to enhance student learning while at the same time develop and foster
the learner’s skills in critical thinking, inquiry and creativity. Considering the physical
sciences & engineering disciplines, inclusive of materials science, the technical
literature presents a full spectrum of classroom-based pedagogical approaches to
achieve this aspiration, to include, lecture-partner discussion learning, active and
cooperative learning, learning communities, inquiry and problem-based learning,
team projects and flipped classrooms. Such methods to enhance the students’
involvement in their learning brings excitement and novelty to the student and
science classroom, respectively. Recent evidence-based studies have
demonstrated the positive attributes of these active-collaborative pedagogical
methods on student success, namely enhanced learning, heightened institutional
student retention, improved critical thinking, enriched inquiry-based thinking and
intrinsic motivation to gain new knowledge and “formulate” the next science
questions. Although the active-collaborative teaching methodology has been wellreceived
and widely implemented within the undergraduate science & engineerin g
curriculum, assessment methods remain less evolved. Traditional testing methods
are primarily used to gauge student progress toward learning goals and are not
utilized as a learning instrument, hence learning is not emphasized during exams.
This presentation will focus on a beneficial alternative to traditional exams, namely
“Meta-Exams”. Meta-exams are an integrative-pedagogical approach which
extends beyond the traditional assessment of the students’ science core
competency and/or knowledge gain into the realm of collaborative learning. We will
discuss our evidence-based research with respect to the Meta-Exam pedagogy,
describe how to develop the Meta-Exams, provide insight on implementation, and
examine our statistically significant results which demonstrate that learning can
take place during exams if the exams are conducted in such a manner to foster
learning rather than solely focusing on recall of material or concepts learned in
preparation for traditional science and engineering exams.
Keywords: Meta-Exam, Collaborative learning, Assessment
Presenting authors email: melanie.willcole@gmail.com