Use of Adaptive Questions and Electronic Pooling to Promote Mastery of Fundamental Thermal Science Concepts

Personal student response systems have been used in large classes which allows instructors to propose questions during a lecture and gain feedback on student understanding of the material. Electronic pooling is helpful in measuring the understanding of the fundamental concepts in challenging thermal science courses like thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid mechanics. Focused true/false and multiple choice questions have been used. Because the feedback is from all respondents and nearly instantaneous, it has been found that adaptive questions are a good way to focus instruction in the areas of students’ difficulties. An effective practice is to rephrase and repeat questions at the end of a lecture or the start of the next lecture. The technique of adaptive questioning is effective at addressing common persistent misunderstandings. Examples of the sequence of questions are described. Student feedback shows the use of frequent and persistent questions which focus on fundamental concepts are effective at improving student mastery of fundamental concepts.