This engineering education research project will implement service learning in an early construction engineering course at the University of North Carolina- Charlotte. The project seeks to engage students and contextualize learning using active/collaborative pedagogies. Students will partner with Habitat for Humanity as part of an existing course in the degree program; learning gains will be assessed by an external evaluator.
The broader significance and importance of this project, if successful, will be to build partnerships between the PI's institution and community-based charitable organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. Students in construction engineering will be exposed to a diverse group of volunteers, which may broaden their perspective. The project plans to disseminate their service learning model to partner schools.
Introduction In fall 2010, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte was awarded a grant of $149,999 from National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Initiation Grants in Engineering Education (RIGEE) to transform a conventional civil engineering course and to engage students in an off-campus construction experience to keenly supplement classroom instruction and personal experience with real, hands-on tasks. Specifically, the project established the conditions to compel students to be responsible for their own learning in the classroom and to demonstrate the utility of integrating service-learning into a targeted freshman engineering course in Construction Management and Civil Engineering Technology (CM/CIET) program. This research deployed three important project components: (1) adaptation and translation of a successful research result for new instructional strategies, (2) demonstration of student-learning improvement based on an active, service-learning approach, and (3) dissemination of the project results to create a synergistic environment where best practices in teaching similar courses are shared. Addressing these project components led to accomplishing the following objectives: • Increase student learning • Increase student engagement • Enhance faculty-student interaction • Improve student cooperation • Promote active learning • Improve student performance of course learning objectives To accomplish research objectives listed above, this research developed, implemented, and validated two significant research components – new instructional strategies using lecture modules and service-learning approach using Habitat for Humanity project participations. Implementing New Instructional Strategies – Evolving the Classroom Paradigm Inside the Classroom This project developed, adapted, and tested classroom materials, in the form of lecture modules, for a freshman course. Guided by recent findings and developing pedagogical research, this project focused on an active learning, team-based approach to education. In each module, students were moved out of the traditional setting involving passive listening to lectures given from platforms by learned professors. On the contrary, students worked in teams to complete worksheets that guide them through the process of learning, actively engaging them in processing information, as well as routinely utilizing and developing important skills such as teamwork, communication, and critical thinking. Bridging the Learning Material, Teaching Strategies, and Service Learning – Getting Experience Outside the Classroom This project formally deployed students to local job-sites where students received hands-on experience while participating in a housing construction program, Habitat for Humanity. Students received direct experience actually building a residential facility potentially involving a wide range of technical trades, including wall framing, exterior siding, roofing, and interior finishes involving sheetrock and installation of windows, doors, and molding. Major Outcomes and Findings The project successfully implemented active-learning, student-focused educational protocols coupled with the routine deployment of student teams to Habitat for Humanity construction job sites as a service-learning medium. Inside the classroom, students were engaged and were compelled to take responsibility for their own learning. Outside the classroom, Habitat for Humanity served as a gateway to hands-on opportunities for students with little or no experience in construction. Beyond the education of students, the project merit and impact extended outward to many targets. Intellectual Merit This project integrated research into education and building bridges for tomorrow. An active-based, student-focused methodology was validated as a successful means for student achievement, engagement, and mastery of learning objectives and project outcomes. Further, when classroom instruction is augmented with an out-of-class experience that provides a defining hands-on experience, the classroom experience itself also evolved into a new aura of reality and relativity. Synergistically, students emerging from this project became more confident and better prepared for follow-on courses in the curriculum. In conclusion, this project testified to a high level of intellectual merit with a relatively small investment of time and money. Broader Impacts The significance of this project extends to the university as well as to the community – both academic and civil. The most significant result of this project deals with enhanced student learning resulting from the transformation of these freshman level courses from a passive mechanism of lectures to an active-learning environment where the students played a key role in mastering course objectives. Further, the Habitat operation provided the students a tremendous opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of materials, methods, techniques, and procedures employed to produce a constructed facility. Engaging in charitable endeavors such as Habitat for Humanity also benefited the university by demonstrating its commitment to the surrounding community. As part of the dissemination effort, project information and results of the study along with the educational materials developed were shared during a workshop offered by the project team to ten (10) faculty members from seven (7) surrounding area universities and colleges. During the workshop, instructional methods, module worksheets and evaluation tools were demonstrated and provided to attendees for utilization and adaptation at their respective institutions. By integrating other members of the academic community, a successful partnering program demonstrated the portability of the pedagogy. Partnering clearly supported dialogue, brainstorming, and collaboration on future innovations.
