Tag / research

by shannonchance

A Week in the Life of a Fulbright

This past week has been fairly typical of what I do as a Fulbright Scholar here in Ireland.  I thought you might be interested to see what a typical week is like, work-wise:

by shannonchance

PBL Credits in Águeda

Past projects made by students...

Projects that students made in past years at the engineering school in Agueda.

I misunderstood the credit allotment for projects at Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Águeda.  As it turns out, the project design courses carry credits in keeping with architecture design courses in the States.  Jose sent me this explanation:

Hi Shannon, 

Good to hear from you, and thanks for sharing your blogpost.
I am afraid, though, that you didn’t get the project dynamics right. Projects are awarded, on average, 6 ECTS, which is more than they get for each of the supporting courses (we call them that, too), which tend to have 3ECTS each. At the end of the semester, the groups of students have to write a report and there’s a public discussion of their work, before a panel that includes the project supervisor and, usually, an external member (from another HE institution or from industry). Students get individual grades for their project work. 
 
In fact, the number of credits associated with project work (exclusively, not including the supporting courses) in the program is roughly 30% of the total number of credits.
 
Cheers,
 
José
by shannonchance

My Interview about the Fulbright Inter-Country Lecturing Program

The Fulbright staff in Belgium interviewed me during my visit.  They asked me to describe some of my experiences with the program and explain how I got involved in it.

I hope the interview is helpful to other Fulbright scholars and to academics who would like to invite Fulbright scholars to speak at their institutions.

And, I hope my friends will enjoy hearing about what I was up to during my recent travels in Portugal and Belgium as well.

by shannonchance

American Students: Want to Become a Fulbright?

The Fulbright Student program is now taking applications!

Click here to get started on your application.

Amanda Bernhard explains why and how she became a Fulbright student.

My colleague Amanda Bernhard is in Ireland this year on the Fulbright Student program. She is studying Irish Language.

by shannonchance

Problem-Based Learning — Live in Setúbal

In Problem-Based Learning, participants work in groups to: explore a problem, determine what they need to know to understand the problem, identify sources they can use, formulate hypotheses, and begin designing responses to the “problem” they’ve been presented.

In the PBL workshop Bill Williams and I conducted in Setúbal, there were three teams working to address the “problem” of how to integrate PBL into one of the institutions’ engineering programs.

These photos show the groups working together.  Participants in this workshop included engineering students, engineering teachers, and members of the central administration.

The room set up worked pretty well…
…but would have been even better if the groups could have met in circles…
…instead of rows.
The rows works for groups of four, but not so well for five.
The participants here were highly engaged.
And they came up with some excellent ideas.
by shannonchance

Refining PBL in Setúbal, Portugal

Setubal logoI’ve been away from blogging to focus on my mini lecture tour.  I spent a week in Portugal and a week in Belgium visiting universities, meeting with students and educators, and sharing ideas about how to teach and learn effectively.

My first stop in Portugal was to an engineering program located a ferry ride from Lisbon.

My colleague Bill Williams teaches there. I had met Bill at the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) conference in Greece last September. Bill was born in Cork, Ireland. He teaches English to engineers, is working on a PhD, and does high-quality engineering education research. He helped coordinate my trip in a way that allowed me to visit five different campuses while I was in Portugal.  Bill seems to know everyone in Portugal who is doing research about how to educate engineers.

Bill hopes to get more people using active learning approaches in the classrooms at Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro – Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal so the two of us conducted a two-hour workshop on Project-Based and Problem-Based Learning.  Thirteen people came to learn about PBL, hear about methods in use at Dublin Institute of Technology and about research I’ve been doing at DIT, and work together to develop ideas for implementing PBL across one program at the institute in Setubal.

Bill and I hope those ideas will move from hypothetical to actual someday soon.

Today, I’m posting images that the institute’s photographer took of the event.  I have many more of the participants working in groups to explore the “problem” of how to implement PBL in Setubal.  I was thrilled to receive email from participants after the event via Bill — I was really impressed that they took time to say they enjoyed the workshop.

by shannonchance

International Lecture Tour

In less than two days, I fly out of Dublin for a two-week “lecture tour”.  I’m being sponsored though Fulbright Portugal next week and Fulbright Belgium the week after.  This is part of the larger Fulbright Inter-Country Lecturing program.

We have an exciting, action-packed schedule outlined.

In addition to speaking and learning about how other people teach architecture, engineering, and education, I’ve also got a heavy load of homework to carry along.

While I’m away, I’ll hopefully find time to write three conference abstracts, finalize and submit a funding proposal, and prepare for the class I’m co-teaching in May.

Wish me luck!

Lisbon

Lisbon (photo downloaded from Cunard Cruise line)

PORTUGAL 

Wednesday, April 10

Visit to Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro of the Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal.

Thursday, April 11

Round-table talk at Setubal Polytechnic Institute (IPS).

Friday, April 12

Presentation on Tools for Assessing Design Students’ Cognitive Development to Architecture PhD students at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). 

Monday, April 15

Presentation on The Use of Staff Learning Groups to Transform Engineering Education at the Dublin Institute of Technology to the Department of Education at the University of Aveiro and engineers from the Polytechnic School of Águeda.  I’ll also meet some of the students and teachers using Problem-Based Learning at the Polytechnic School in Aveiro and/or Águeda (25km away).

Tuesday, April 16

Meet with engineering teachers at the Universidade do Minho engineering campus in Guimarães.

Leuven

Leuven (photo downloaded from KU-Leuven website)

BELGIUM

Wednesday, April 17

Meet with the president of the European Society of Engineering Educators (SEFI), an engineering professor at Katholic University of Leuven who also directs KU-Leuven’s Teaching and Learning Department.

Thursday, April 18

Deliver a presentation 7-9 PM on Research Paradigms: Filtering What We See and Know to the architecture school (I will discuss major research paradigms and then provide examples of studies I’ve done that used methods aligned with positivism, interpretivism, constructivism, and critical realism.  Presentation includes examples of work I’ve done in Africa).

Monday, April 22

Presentation on Tools for Assessing Design Students’ Cognitive Development to members of the LESEC (the Teaching and Learning Department) at KU-Leuven.

Tuesday, April 23

Interview with Fulbright Belgium for use on their websites.

by shannonchance

Group-Based Learning in Action

I’m becoming a bigger and bigger believer in collaborative learning!  Last semester I did lot of research about how engineering professors (i.e., lecturers) here at Dublin Institute of Technology worked together to develop new ways of teaching electrical engineers.  I was amazed to discover how incredibly much they learned by working together.

Such impressive knowledge gain is the premise behind Project-Based Learning and other group-based learning formats.

Orla and Shannon in the throws of course planning.

Orla and Shannon in the throws of course planning.

My day today was filled with meetings about collaborative research and teaching projects.

With the help of five different tech guys, I got SPSS up and running so that I will be able to help analyze data on that Mike Murphy and I collected from engineering and engineering technology students. We asked them what they saw themselves doing in the future, how well prepared they feel to start work, and what kinds of things they’ve focused their efforts on over the past few years.

After lunch I met with Orla Hanratty of DIT’s Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre (LTTC) and introduced her to Brian Bowe. She’ll be co-teaching a course (i.e., module) with us in May.  We aim to increase the usage and visibility of Problem-Based Learning at DIT by teaching more teachers to use Problem-Based Learning in their own classrooms.

And now, tonight, I’ve been working on a proposal for funding with Ted Burke and Damon Berry.  It’s an opportunity that the college’s head of research, Marek Rebow, told me about yesterday and it has to be completed immediately.

I rallied the troops. Ted drafted some text. Then Damon and I were adding our own contributions to it using Google Docs.  It was so strange… Damon and me editing the same document at the same time.  It turned into a bit of an academic chat session.  We tossed ideas back and forth, discussing budget, objectives, and ways to improve what we’ve already got in place.

We’ll do more of that tomorrow, when the three of us meet to hash this out… and have some fun learning in the process.

RoboSlam website that we hope to tweak.
Ted Burke advising me on robot design at the recent RoboSlam.
Damon Berry and John McGrory learning together.
by shannonchance

How Professors Have Fun

My former dissertation advisor, Dr. Pamela Eddy, is here visiting me in Dublin this week.  She was a Fulbright to Ireland in 2009 and she helped me make valuable connections when I started applying for my own Fulbright experience here.

So far, we’ve spent a lot of time at our computers!  Although it’s her Spring Break, she’s answering emails, reviewing dissertations, and grading papers. Oh, and advising me!

She helped me prepare for the meeting I had today with DIT’s president, Prof. Brian Norton.  I’ve attached a photo of us working from my home yesterday.  She was still sitting the same seat when I Skyped her from my office on Kevin Street just now to “debrief” on the meeting.

We do stop for exercise, food, and meeting… but little else!

Shannon and Pam working. Notice our twin workstations!
Skype debrief…
…we thought it was fun!
by shannonchance

Shipping Out from Cobh

My cousin Roland Ouellette and his spouse Rebecca Allen located the ship log for our great grandmother’s 1911 voyage from Cobh, Ireland to Ellis Island.  Roland and Rebecca have been doing a lot of research on ancestry.com and growing our family tree.  Great sleuth work, cuz — I’m thrilled to have this document!

ship log

1911 ship log