How can technology
enhance student learning?
Complete Learning Cycles
Environments in which students develop models, collect data, and
evaluate alternative designs help them develop vital skills needed
by practicing engineers. Student learning improves when students
actively participate in knowledge construction and in assessment
of their own learning. In one well-researched learning model, the
Kolb Learning Cycle4,5, learners pass through four stages: active
experimentation, concrete experience, reflective observation, and
abstract conceptualization. Technology allows instructors to integrate
all four stages of the Kolb Learning Cycle into classroom learning
experiences. Foundation Coalition partners have dramatically restructured
learning environments to enable students to take advantage of the
capabilities and availability of enabling, yet inexpensive technology.
Faculty members have combined modern technology and interactive
instructional methods to create learning environments in which students,
often in small groups, actively explore concepts, models, and designs.
Broader Problem Solving Approaches Are
Today, problem solving using powerful tools permits approaches beyond
those traditionally selected because they minimize computational
effort. Computationally intensive approaches allow students to focus
on fundamentals of the entire problem, e.g., writing an entire set
of simultaneous equations, instead of using a special purpose technique
to reduce the problem to a single equation in one unknown. In addition,
technology can facilitate a faster and more complete analysis of
design alternatives by providing ways to rapidly create models or
prototypes of proposed designs and to then simulate them in realistic
More Time to Focus on Conceptual Understanding
Engineering educators know that time in undergraduate engineering
curricula is a precious commodity. Students can save time by using
computers to do problems requiring a page of algebraic manipulations
or laboratory experiments that require repetitious measurements
to obtain a graph. Then, they can invest the time to improve conceptual
understanding, to pose and formulate design options, and to evaluate
the quality and reasonableness of solutions and experimental data.
Students use technology for learning activities both in and out
of class. For example, students who have learned powerful software
tools can perform routine tasks in much less time; therefore, they
can focus on more important capabilities such as design, problem
posing, problem definition, problem formulation, problem solving,
visualization, communication, and team development.
How might you incorporate
How might technology
expand the set of learning outcomes that can be achieved?
- Instructors can build on the knowledge that students bring into
class. It is not always necessary to introduce new software applications
or experimental equipment. At times, you can extend what students
have already learned.
- Courses can introduce new technologies within the context of
- Programs can coordinate the use of technology across the entire
curriculum, including courses offered by colleges beyond engineering.
During the first two years, establish a foundation upon which
to build in the junior and senior years.
- Departments can design learning environments in which faculty
can increase their knowledge of using technology throughout the
learning experience of the students.
- Colleges can construct an infrastructure in which students routinely
use technology as easily as they do homework using pencil and
paper. Take advantage of the experience of other institutions
in classroom design. Many students have computers in their rooms.
Consider building technology kits with which students conduct
experiments or prepare designs outside the classroom.
- Students can, with more realistic problems and time to focus
on conceptual understanding, practice higher-level thinking skills,
e.g., evaluation, synthesis, analysis, and the development of
deeper understanding. With powerful tools, they can actually design
or optimize a structure, mechanism, circuit or process using realistic
models and constraints. For example, students can design a control
system to satisfy a set of specifications instead of analyzing
the stability as a function of a single convenient parameter.
- Students can develop the ability and confidence to learn new
software applications on their own. By learning to use various
software packages as tools, they develop intuitive, internal models
of these packages that will allow them to learn new applications
more rapidly and with less support. Thus, faculty can build experiences
that simultaneously increase a student's knowledge of technology
and their capabilities for self-directed learning.
References for further information
- Wells, M., Hestenes, D. & Swackhamer, G., "A modeling
method for high school physics instruction," Am. J. Phys.
63: 606-619, 1995.
- Wilson, J. and W. Jennings, "Studio Courses: How Information
Technology is Changing the Way We Teach, On Campus and Off,"
Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 88, no. 1, January 2000, pp. 72-80.
- Kiaer L., D. Mutchler, and J. Froyd, "Laptop Computers
and the Integrated First-Year Curriculum at Rose-Hulman Institute
of Technology", CACM, 41(1), Jan. 1988, pp. 45-49.
- Kolb, D.A., Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source
of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
- Harb, J., S. Durrant, and R. Terry, "Use of the Kolb Learning
Cycle and the 4MAT System in Engineering Education," J. Eng.
Ed., 83(2), April 1993, pp. 70-77.
- Chen, J., M. Ellis, J. Lockhart, S. Hamoush, C. Brawner and
J. Tront, "Technology in Engineering Education: What Do the
Faculty Know and Want?" J. Eng. Ed. 89(3), July 2000, pp.
2001 Foundation Coalition. All rights reserved. Last modified