Maria Patricia León Neira, Carola Hernández Hernández & Sofia Andrade Pardo
ABSTRACT
Currently, it is required to have curricular spaces for development and evaluation of the education through competencies. That is why the civil engineering curriculum of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana proposes that, in the last semesters students must develop a project in two courses that follow the PBL-PO methodology.
In this curriculum space, teams of students use the disciplinary and non-disciplinary learning, that were developed during the other courses of the curriculum, to conceptualize and design an infrastructure project that allows an approach from different areas of civil engineering.
The ambiguities between what was assessed in the course and what the student was intended to develop led to carry out a teaching design, in accordance with the constructive alignment proposed by Biggs (1999) The alignment had as inputs: the technical requirements of the design project, the outcomes of the previous courses, the opinions of the professors and previous interviews with students. As a result of this alignment, new rubrics were proposed.
At the end of the second semester of 2019, the coordinator collected the students' perspectives about the course through a survey. The students positively assessed the objectivity of the evaluation using these rubrics. As a critical aspect, the students expressed the importance of having the rubrics well in advance of the due date. They also expressed the need to adjust the terms of reference to what was requested in the evaluation. The training and consolidation of a group of teachers aligned with the methodology was the last good result.
KEYWORDS: PBL-PO, Capstone Project, Engineering, Constructive alignment, Evaluation TYPE OF CONTRIBUTION: Practice-based abstract
PRESENTATION FORMAT: Interactive poster presentation
The PO-PBL curriculum works with disciplinary content and competences; examples of competences include learning to learn, group work, define and delimit complex problems, use different resources and theories to propose a solution, and critical thinking (Hernandez, C., Ravn, O., & Valero, P.,2015). In this sense, it is
important for higher education pedagogy to improve its understanding of the learning process because this practice has shown an effective way of introducing and implementing an education suited to current social and economic demands.
Currently, it is required to have curricular spaces for development and evaluation of the education through competencies. That is why the civil engineering curriculum of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia) proposes that, in the last semesters students must develop a project in two courses that follow the PBL-PO methodology.
In this curriculum space, teams of 5 or 6 students use the disciplinary and non-disciplinary learning, that were developed during the other courses of the curriculum, to conceptualize and design an infrastructure project that allows an approach from different areas of civil engineering. For example, buildings, docks, roads, bridges, linear infrastructure works have been developed.
A professor, who functions as general coordinator of the course, presents the engineering requirements of the project. He/she is also responsible for coordinating expert professors in each area involved in the project.
Together with this team, it defines the tools for evaluating the course. The professors of each area of the project (preferably designers in the consultancy sector) meet weekly for 2 hours with the students, to review and guide the students' progress based on the requirements initially set.
This document shows the experience of the first capstone project course. The conceptualization and evaluation of design alternatives are carried out in this class. The teamwork challenge is that, each student has to conceptualize the solution of one of the engineering areas related to the problem, and then, the whole team has to put together the individual solutions in order to obtain the general solution to the engineering problem. The solution presented by each student must take into account the context constraints and the inter-restrictions posed by the other areas. Therefore, the solution problem must include all civil engineering areas, which means, teamwork, self-management skills development, assertive communication, autonomous learning, in addition to the necessary skills to show a technically supported solution to the problem. The course has been implemented since the second semester of 2015. The definition of the evaluation criteria has been the subject of intervention and has been evolving since this year. Initially, the grade was associated with the deliverables. The professor and an external pair evaluated the process. Still, the evaluation was associated with the deliverables, and the evaluation criteria were not defined in terms of rubrics. Each professor assessed with their own technical standards, which in many cases could differ from one professor to another. This led to the students being dissatisfied with the evaluation of the project.
However, the type of learning experience they found was enormously significant.
From the first semester of 2017, attempts were made to incorporate more elaborate evaluation criteria to generate an aligned evaluation. Figure 1 presents an example of the rubric developed in that first attempt that, as can be seen, still has as weakness the ambiguity of the criteria for evaluating complex processes of engineering design. It was limited to indicating the deliverables, and in this way, the evaluation carried out by the professor remained subjective. Deliverables were clarified for the student, but not conceptual elements that would be evaluated. There were confusions at the time of the evaluation, during the use of this rubric. How the rubric was written allows the student to present information that led him to be in two performances (e.g., High proficiency and Unsatisfactory) simultaneously.
Figure 1. Rubric example 2017.
Pavement area
Performance Indicator Description Highly proficient
It is presented the climatic characterization of the area of influence of the project with minimum histogram content of multi-year average rainfall.
Locate the courses that cross the road axis. Perform a complete geomorphological analysis to identify stability.
Satisfactory It presents the criteria shown in "High Proficience", not including some main requirements, being a partial design.
Developing It presents the criteria shown in "High Proficience", regardless of the main requirements:
Important deficiencies are identified
Unsatisfactory Poor design
The ambiguities between what was assessed in the course and what the student was intended to develop led to carry out a teaching design, in accordance with the constructive alignment proposed by Biggs (1999).
In this alignment, the competences that students develop in the project were clearly defined and professors were accompanied to design pedagogical strategies that make students engage with the learning activities proposed in a way that optimizes their opportunities to achieve desired skills.
The alignment had as inputs: the technical requirements of the design project, the outcomes of the previous courses, the opinions of the professors and previous interviews with students. As a result of this alignment, new rubrics were proposed (see example Figure 2). Those rubrics allow us to account for the degree to which the student develops a competence and guide the teaching process.
Figure 2. Rubric example after teaching design 2019.
Task High profiencient Developing Unsatisfactory
Analyze the primary Analyze the primary It presents the primary Presentation of primary information collected
in information of the information of the information of the field data and site visit. It must include the project collected in the project collected in the project collected in the
description of the visit, the analysis of the
surveys field and technically field without a
technical field with an analysis and the photographic record of the visit. support its relationship support of its based on wrong
technical with the project. relationship with the support or an analysis
is
project not done.
CONCLUSIONS ON THE INTERVENTION AND ASPECTS OF IMPROVEMENT IDENTIFIED
The development of the rubric associated with the building project is an essential advance for the course.
The rubric aligns the expected results in the project and the contributions of each of the engineering areas addressed.
At the end of the second semester of 2019, the coordinator collected the students' perspectives about the course through a survey; 47 of the 72 students who took the course answered it. This survey showed the inconveniences that were raised in the diagnosis. The students expressed that although the project was oriented to a conventional and straightforward structure, gave them context elements that they had not considered at other times in their career. And, positively assessed the objectivity of the evaluation using these rubrics. As a critical aspect, the students expressed the importance of having the rubrics well in advance of the due date. They also expressed the need to adjust the terms of reference to what was requested in the evaluation.
The professors' perspectives were collected in informal talking. They identified that the use of the rubric allowed the students to demonstrate the depth of their conceptual management in the different areas of the project. There is a significant result because the success of the project orientation is in these consultants outside the university.
Finally, the training and consolidation of a group of teachers aligned with the methodology was the last good result. These teachers can support future projects as area coordinators, guaranteeing alignment between the proposed activities, what the student is expected to develop, and how to measure it.
REFERENCES
Hernandez, C., Ravn, O., & Valero, P. (2015). The Aalborg University PO-PBL Model from a Socio-Cultural Learning Perspective. Journal of Problem Based Learning in Higher Education, 3(2), 16–36.
John Biggs (1999) What the Student Does: teaching for enhanced learning, Higher Education Research &
Development, 18:1, 57-75.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Maria Patricia Leon Neira, mpleon@javeriana.edu.co, Colombia, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (corresponding author)
Carola Hernández Hernández, c-hernan@uniandes.edu.co, Colombia, Universidad de los Andes (corresponding author)
Sofia Andrae Pardo, sofia.andrae@javeriana.edu.co, Colombia, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (corresponding author)