Evaluation of Effectiveness of Just-in-Time Teaching and Peer Instruction Methods in Civil Engineering Courses

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of just-in-time-teaching and peer instruction methods in a typical required junior level civil engineering geotechnical course sequence. These methods are compared with more traditional methods including computational problem sets, pre-class reading assignments, and publishing of lesson objectives. The analysis presented uses data from 8 different course offerings over a four year period and includes data from 296 individual student assessments. These 8 course offerings were taught by 3 different instructors. Students report computational problem sets are the most valuable learning tools of those assessed. Additionally, just-in-time-teaching and peer instruction were perceived by the students to be the next most valuable learning tools. Importantly, student perceived just-in-time-teaching kept them onschedule and resulted in less cramming as compared with other courses taken at the same time. Background In the 1990’s undergraduate science programs, physics programs in particular, began to develop active learning techniques to supplement or replace traditional lecture methods. Two of the more effective methods developed were just-in-time-teaching (JiTT) and peer instruction. These active learning techniques have proven to be effective methods and have steadily been deployed in undergraduate classrooms over the past 15 years. While not limited to use in the physical sciences, these techniques have seen much wider use in science classrooms than in engineering classrooms. The results of a national survey of faculty using peer instruction show 94% of users from the natural sciences and only 3% from engineering. While there is some published scholarly work describing JiTT or peer instruction implementation in engineering programs, the majority of the published assessment work for JiTT and peer instruction comes from natural sciences programs. The author has been using JiTT and peer instruction methods in civil engineering courses since the fall of 2006 and has collected four years of assessment data on the effectiveness of these active learning methods in introductory courses in geotechnical engineering. This paper presents the results of this four-year assessment and briefly describes the implementation of JiTT and peer instruction in civil engineering classes. Overview of JiTT JiTT is a learning technique that takes advantage of web-based communications to enhance active learning in the classroom. The concept is to provide instructors immediate feedback on the students’ level of understanding of a course topic soon before class. The instructor then has the opportunity to modify lesson content immediately before class in response to the data from students. JiTT involves providing pre-class exercises, sometimes called warm-ups, which students respond to via the web. The pre-class assignments are carefully designed to address learning objectives of a specific lesson and are composed of questions where the correct answer is not obvious and several enticing false paths are available to students. A typical question from a pre-class assignment is shown in Figure 1. P ge 22651.2 The students complete reading assignments and respond to the pre-class assignment the evening before class via the web. A few hours before the class, the instructor is able review the students responses, determine level of understanding of the particular learning objectives for the upcoming lesson, and adjust the classroom activities to respond to the students’ current state of understanding. Student responses are easily incorporated into active learning components of the class. JiTT can complement and enhance interactive classroom learning strategies and provides feedback and support to both weak and strong students. Figure a) below shows a footing carrying a structural load, F. Figure b) below shows an embankment covering a large area. Both loadings are placed on the same soil and both loadings apply the same vertical stress at the ground surface. Will the settlement induced by these two loadings be the same? If not, which will be higher and why? Figure 1: Typical question from a JiTT pre-class assignment Courses used for assessment The assessment was performed in a two course series comprising an introduction to geotechnical engineering. The courses were taught over two 10-week quarter terms. The first course in the sequence is a 2-unit course and the second is a 3-unit course, for a total of 5-units in the quarter system or approximately 3.3 units in the semester system. Enrollment in individual class sections ranged from approximately 30 to 45 students. The courses were required for all civil engineering majors and generally taken in the junior year. The courses are intended to be taught as a seamless sequence, but there was no control over the flow of students from one course to the next. Some students may have a one to two quarter break between the two courses. Additionally some students may have started the sequence in a nonJiTT based class and moved to a JiTT based class in the second course, others students may have had a JiTT based class for both courses. A preliminary review of data from each course indicates no statistical significance in mean values of data collected (at a 90% confidence level). A total of 8 different course offerings taught by 3 different instructors were included in the assessment. The instructors were all experienced civil engineering faculty with 7 to 20 years of teaching experience in this subject area. Six of the sections were taught by the author and the Clay