Evaluation of Engineering Teaching Effectiveness through Cheat-Sheet Data-Mining

This research paper describes the study of cheat-sheets and how Engineering Educators can utilize them to evaluate students’ ability to identify critical information. Effective teaching has different definitions, which make it a challenge to settle on a single definitive definition. Some of the common words or phrases characterizing an effective teacher are: interesting, helpful, approachable, makes subject interesting, being available, motivating students, setting high but achievable standards, presents material well, and stimulating interest in subject. As good as these attributes are, they may not always guarantee the desired learning outcome. For this reason, it is important to evaluate effective teaching in conjunction with students’ learning. Student learning is normally done by evaluating their performances in exams, quizzes, class discussions and other assignments. One area full of information but has received no attention is cheat-sheets prepared students in some exams. These sheets usually contain what students perceive as difficult course material to understand, memorize or pertinent to the exam. Since exams usually contain the core concept of the subjects taught, students prepare cheat-sheets to aid them to prove that they received and understood the core concept of the various subjects. From this study, we conclude that studying the structure and content of cheat-sheets may help engineering educators to gain invaluable knowledge of how students identify the core content of class material, hence, gaining an insight on how to propagate the main subject matter of the courses they teach.