Award Winning paper for Innovating Technologies in Education presented at the 7° Congreso de Innovación Educativa, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey, NL, December 2012. Contact:
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Context Based Learning: learning through understanding Sergio William Sedas Gersey, PhD Tecnológico de Monterrey; Monterrey, NL México
Abstract
Universities have been successful at generating and teaching knowledge however something is still missing as graduates and companies find them selves having to invest many years and dollars to develop the understanding and experience needed to transfer and apply knowledge in the real world. This led the exploration and development of Context Based Learning a model that emphasizes early teaching through understanding. Teaching through understanding is done by constantly and repeatedly expanding the awareness and perception of the student´s reality to build meaning through an incremental iterative model that involves motivation, past experience, active exploration, rehearsal, chunking, and challenge. In this paper we will lay out cognitive foundations that support context based learning. We also describe two test programs that have been developed and their early successes and discuss a preliminary application of Context Based Learning in an advanced engineering course.
Introduction
The meaning of knowing has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it. (H.A.Simon, 1996) Universities have been successful at generating and teaching knowledge. However something is still missing as graduates and companies find them selves having to invest many years and dollars to develop the understanding and expertise needed to transfer and apply knowledge in the real world. The main problem is that education continues to evolve around the practice of memorization: teaching and testing knowledge as facts, formulas and equations. Granted that these facts are important for thinking and problem solving, however research shows that a mere list of disconnected facts does not constitute “usable knowledge”. An expert´s ability to transfer and apply this knowledge requires that it be organized and connected around important concepts, that it has meaning, and that it is understood in a way that it can be applied in different contexts. (National Research Council, 2000). Bradsford & Stein (Bransford & Stein, 1993) illustrate this with the following example. When studying about veins and arteries, students may be expected and tested on their ability to remember that arteries are thicker than veins, more elastic, and carry blood from the heart; veins carry blood back to the heart. But simply knowing these properties does not give them enough understanding to design an artificial artery. A person that is attempting to design an artificial artery would also have to understand its function, its operation and the reason behind its properties. The heart pumps blood in spurts. Arteries are elastic which allows them to expand to accommodate the increase in pressure present in each spurt of blood. This elasticity also helps
to keep blood flowing in the right direction as once the spurt of blood passes, the pressure decreases and the arteries close thus preventing the blood from flowing backward. A person that fully understands this behavior is in a better position to design an artificial artery than someone that just knows the basic properties of veins and arteries The challenge is how to generate this kind of intrinsic knowledge and expertise? And what has to change in our current educational model so that it can be done? In 2007, we began experimenting with Context Based Learning: an educational model that emphasizes learning through understanding. Based on this model, we launched two extracurricular activities that enhance learning and early student engagement. In this program high school students were able to integrate mechatronics components and design and build complex mechatronic systems such as robots that climb stairs in as little as three weeks. This laid the foundation for an ongoing program in which more than 1,000 students have voluntarily participated. College students, graduates of these programs, have participated in undergraduate research activities, launched companies, and consistently appeared in the list of the most excelling students in the school of engineering. In this paper we will lay out cognitive foundations that support Context Based Learning. We also describe the two test programs and their early successes. We then describe the application of Context Based Learning in an advanced Industrial Robotics Course. Finally, we end with a discussion on how to incorporate Context Based Learning in a conventional and non-‐conventional curriculum.
How the Brain Learns
The key principles behind Context Based Learning have to do with how our brain works, what drives us, and how we learn. We learn best when we make sense of new information, when we can relate it to past experience, and when it has meaning. (Sousa, 2011) (National Research Council, 2000) (Cobb, 1994) (Maquire, Frith, & Morris, 1999). We create significant learning and experience through deep rehearsal. (Coyle, 2009) We learn more when we are challenged and engaged. We learn more when we are intrinsically motivated, when we believe, and when we have a directed dream.
The brain as a system In order to be considered for retention, new learning has to make sense and have meaning. (Maquire, Frith, & Morris, 1999). Our brain is a parallel system that continually interacts with the physical and social worlds outside. These systems regulate our body, protect us from perceived threats, and help us learn.
We receive an overwhelming amount of input from our senses and other systems in our body. This input is first analyzed and filtered for threats and relevancy. Anything perceived as a threat or important for our survival immediately demands our attention and may in fact cause our brain shut down other parts of our mind and body1. Then, the sensory information is then compared against stored experiences to determine its relevancy or familiarity. If it is deemed relevant or familiar, it is processed, if not it is simply released and forgotten. This affects our ability to learn and remember. We can remember the phone number to the barbershop for a few seconds, the material we crammed for an exam for a few days, and important and significant experiences for a lifetime2. (Sousa, 2011) (National Research Council, 2000)
Significant past experiences can help in the construction of new knowledge. People construct new knowledge and understandings based on what they already know and believe (Cobb, 1994). New information that is deemed important and relevant is analyzed and synthesized to obtain generalities. It is then compared and combined with past experience to create new meaning. This new information, experience and meaning are then consolidated and stored as a sequence of patterns in long-‐term memory. Because information, meaning, and experience are stored as a sequence of patterns, recalling just one piece of a pattern can activate the whole. For example listening to a song can evoke thoughts, memories and feelings of a past event. Similarly, just the mention of a name can evoke feelings of happiness or anger.
Mylene Skills, knowledge and experience are built over time and require intentional adversity and engagement. (Coyle, 2009) In our brain we have trillions of neurons that are interconnected. These interconnections store and facilitate learning and recall. Information between these connections is transmitted as electrical signals. Mylene, a substance in the brain, is used to fortify these connections and improve the rate of transmission. It is deposited when exposed to prolonged stages of intentional adversity and challenge. For example, a musician that rehearses for hours a segment that is known by him does not produce an increase in mylene deposits. However, the same musician rehearsing and finally succeeding over a difficult segment experiences high deposits of Mylene. Something similar occurs when a student is intentionally engaged in a challenge and reaches the highest level he or she can pass. By continue to engage into the problem they will strengthen the
1 This is important in education as too much stress causes our students to shut down. This has been the experience of bright students deeply concerned about their grades that suddenly shut down during an exam and are therefore unable to remember, express or demonstrate what they know.
2 This fact is important in education, as it implies that in order to maintain the attention of our students we
must continuously change stimulus, challenge and engage them.
connections that develop the knowledge, skills and ability to beat it. Once this happens, the
challenge seems simple and the skill becomes permanent over time. This seems to suggest that intentional deep rehearsal of a difficult and challenging problem helps in developing significant learning. Our challenge as educators is how to create a problem that is both challenging and engaging for our students.
The environment In order to learn, a student must feel challenged, safe and capable. Things need to be interesting to be considered for more than a few seconds. After that they are simply forgotten as they are replaced with new thoughts. They must make sense in order to create meaning. And, they need to be rehearsed over and over again in a challenging environment to construct and reinforce the connections that store not only knowledge but also understanding. (Coyle, 2009) If the student does not feel challenged or if he believes that he is incapable of succeeding, his limbic system will easily move his center of attention to something else. If the task is too overwhelming he will fight (react aggressively), flee (divert his attention into other activities) or simply freeze (not know where to start). In either case he or she will loose engagement and concentration. If the student believes that there is much at risk, he will avoid the challenge, unless he is driven by strong motivation. Beliefs may also limit the student´s ability to learn. If the student believes he or she is not good at something, or senses a wide gap between what he believes he is able to do and the task, and believes that he or she is not capable of completing the task, he will avoid the challenge. (Seligman, 2006) Techniques in positive psychology may offer us a solution. Acknowledge efforts and celebrate success. Create the dream, the why, and keep it alive. Focus on the dream and the why over the how. Celebrate failure as the new barrier to win over. Chunk it down – divide the problem into smaller steps. Get into action – any action is better than stalling.
Context Based Learning
Context Based Learning is a model that emphasizes teaching through understanding. Teaching through understanding is done by constantly and repeatedly expanding the awareness and perception of the student´s reality to build meaning through an incremental iterative model that involves motivation, past experience, active exploration, hands-‐on experimentation, rehearsal, chunking, and challenge.
Our belief is that once we help a student gain understanding, meaning and sense of complex subjects, we can easily teach the abstractions in the form of symbols, formulas and equations normally taught in school and these will be understood and remembered. This is contrary to the traditional approach in which students are subjected to prolonged exposure to the abstractions that model and represent the features we want them to learn. For a visual example of context based learning please view the following TEDx Conference (Sedas-‐ Gersey, 2012). Teaching with Context Based Learning When teaching a traditional pneumatics course we would draw a rectangle on the board, a horizontal “T”, and two arrows one pointing up and one pointing down. Next we would write the formula F=p * A. The rectangle represents a pneumatic cylinder, F is Force, p is air pressure and A is Area of the cylinder. We would then spend all semester long teaching you how to find F, p and A. Two or three years later, you would be required to use a cylinder to design a mechanism to open the door to a bus, to raise a car, or bring down the safety harness in an amusement ride.
Context Based Learning takes a different approach. We start with something you are familiar with – say a toy blowgun made by a straw and some pieces of paper. We would start playing and you would learn three things a) you can move things with air; b) if the paper hits you it hurts (you just discovered F); and c) if you want to hit someone harder – you blow harder (you just discovered p).
We would then extend this example to show you how instead of moving a piece of paper, you can move a piece of clay with a rod connected onto it. When you blow on one end of the straw you move the clay and the rod so that it extend itself out of the straw. When you blow on the other end of the straw you make the clay and the rod return and return inside the straw. (Sedas-‐Gersey, 2012). Once you grasp this concept, we would lead you to see and visualize examples in which by connecting the end of this sliding rod you can open the door to a bus, or open and close a drawer in IKEA, or stop a part on an assembly line. We would then ask you to use that cylinder to design mechanism that can lower the safety bar on a roller coaster ride.
The novelty of Context Based Learning is its emphasis on understanding. It does not oppose other well-‐known methods. Rather it is inclusive. In Context Based Learning, we incorporate exercises using collaborative learning, challenge based learning, case based learning, problem based learning, and project based learning in an iterative, hands-‐on, incremental approach. NOLIMITS and I Bet You Can´t (A que no puedes) It is 2007 and we created NOLIMITS and “I bet you can´t”, two extracurricular programs that would involve high school and first year undergraduate students in this new experience. (Hernández B. , 2010) (Jaramillo, 2011). Our goal was to: • Apply Context Based Learning • Create a safe environment and a sense of belonging • Create Desire and Intentional Adversity • Develop Hands On Experience • Create a good relationship to failure by pushing yourself to your limits of understanding • Cause Deep Practice (Rehearsal) • Create experiences that will serve as base for future study The teaching principles we used are: 1. Focus on understanding 2. Use a Constructivist approach 3. Iterate topics and elements 4. Have a clear goal in mind 5. Create clarity by giving the punch line early on 6. Constantly celebrate successes NOLIMITS is a 15-‐week extracurricular activity led by students. Students teach high school and first year college students basics of mechatronics that include digital electronics, microcontroller programming, gears, sensors, power, switches, transistors, integrated circuits and operational
amplifiers. All of these are topics that they will cover in their first three years of their undergraduate program. At the end of this 15-‐week program, students are required to design and build interesting and challenging projects.
From the beginning we spark motivation by letting them know that when they finish, they will be prepared to join research centers and embark on interesting activities. We share success stories from students that have gone through the program before them such as ADAR, a student that created a company that now operates in nine countries, Guillermo, a student that led the design and build of a robot at NASA to explore the Icecaps of Greenland. And we set out a challenge. For many years, our challenge was to form a team of high-‐performance engineers that would put on the gloves and compete against MIT. The course is divided into different learning objectives the sum of which covers all of the content in the course. Our teaching method however is different. In each class we first let them see what they are going to do and help them understand the reasoning and meaning behind what they are doing. We invert the process. They first do, then we discuss, then we extrapolate and transfer to other examples. At the end of the 15 weeks, students are required to design and build a project. Sometimes, the project is pre-‐defined and geared toward a college level contest. I Bet you can´t That same year, we created a challenge that would help students generate experience which they would take on to advanced courses and also serve to break barriers of limiting beliefs. The first year we challenged students to design and build a mobile robot that could autonomously climb and negotiate up four flights of stairs. The students did it. The second year we challenged them to design and build a mobile robot that could navigate between two buildings, traverse a field of huge tree pots, find two that were randomly selected and water them with ½ liters of water during 30 seconds each. And they did it.
Successes Prior to NOLIMITS, mechatronics students had limited access and limited interest in extracurricular academic activities. Since NOLIMITS, students that have participated in the program have consistently excelled. They involve themselves in early research, industrial and entrepreneurial activities and they start study groups and organizations. Graduates of NOLIMTS have competed internationally, have started internships at NASA, opened up an international business, and have consistently been named in the 10 outstanding students of the school of engineering mechatronic program (Nava, 2011; Bodero, 2010) (Parra, 2010) (CNN Expansión, 2012), (Hernández J. , 2012). The two programs -‐ NOLIMITS and “I bet you can´t” have been adopted as ongoing capstone activities in the School of Engineering at Tecnológico de Monterrey. Over 1,000 students have participated and it has inspired the creation of similar programs in other states and disciplines. The students themselves have extended NOLIMITS to a full year program. Driven by student interest, the Department of Mechatronics at Tecnológico de Monterrey has implemented extracurricular machine shop courses, which increase the abilities of our students. In summer of 2009, we designed a course around NOLIMITS for the Johns Hopkins University`s Center for Talented Youth summer program at Tec de Monterrey. (SNC Portal Informativo, 2009) In only three weeks, high school students learned electronics, how to program a microcontroller and an industrial robot. Their final project was to design and build a robot that could autonomously climb a flight of stairs. Interestingly, by themselves, they were able to analyze their mechanisms and infer things such as spring back and gear ratios and use this knowledge to improve their robot design thus proving transfer.
The benefits of NOLIMITS and I bet you can´t From this experience, we can identify a number of important benefits derived from an early development program: Early student engagement Intrinsic Motivation Increased self confidence A strong and positive relationship to failure Accelerated learning Accumulated experiences to latch on to Increased confidence and ability to design, build and test their designs Higher involvement in research activity Higher involvement in industrial activities Ability to understand higher and deeper concepts We also noticed that students that participated in the NOLIMITS programs and beyond have: An increased feeling of significance An Increased sense of community An Increased sense of purpose Increased self-‐confidence An Increased sense of challenge An Increased growth An Increased self sought opportunities
Context Based Learning in an Industrial Robotics Course The industrial robotics course is offered to students in their final year. By this time, students must have the knowledge and understanding to be able to design and implement industrial automation systems. Preliminary results seem to indicate that this is not so. 60 senior mechatronic students were shown a video of a manufacturing automation system and asked to reverse engineer it. They were then asked to go to a real cell where they could explore and look at the components and reverse engineer it. In both cases they were found lacking. Although the group had basic knowledge of components, formulas and equations, they were unable to use this information to select and connect real to world components. Furthermore they did not understand how to piece everything together. This seriously limited their ability to design and implement an automation system from scratch. In this course I set the goal to help the students to develop a level of understanding that would enable them to successfully transfer their knowledge and design a real world-‐engineering problem. Following POL, students were asked to look for and identify a real and challenging industrial manufacturing problem to be developed throughout the course. Their solution would include analysis; mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, and hydraulic design; modeling; and simulation. As part of the process they would have to generate concepts and identify and solve important issues that could cause failure. And they would have to constantly interact with their clients. Some of the problems they brought include: the design of a system to pack tomatoes into clam shells; a flexible system to cut and punch a variety of sheet metal parts; redesign to reduce cycle time in a robot welding manufacturing cell by 20%; integrate of a new laser cutting head to manufacture automotive frames; eliminate downtime in a part punching operation; etc.
I organized the course around some of the Context Based Principles described above. By taking on a real problem that they hand picked, they created intentional adversity, significance and desire. By running multiple examples of reverse engineering, discussing it in the class and in groups, and providing constant feedback, we created experiences that they could build on. I created a safe environment by allowing them to err. Students were encouraged to submit their hand-‐ins and assignments as many times as they wanted to improve their grade and to meet with me frequently to discuss it and give them feedback. Every week students presented their projects. They first celebrated successes and recognized what is new and good. We then addressed problems and showstoppers. This allowed them to face adversity without fear of failure, organize their ideas, and receive prompt feedback. We also discussed non-‐technical issues that had to do with their teams and their customer. This gave them awareness on human motivation and human communication. I chunked their project down into small tasks and deliverables. This reduced fear. Each week, students had to address one part of the problem and the sum of these deliverables produced their final report. Each time they complete a task, students are able to see their progress thus realizing that they were closer to the end. By the end of the semester, students completed every one of the projects and presented designs, simulations and models to their customer.
Conclusions and Further Work
Our role as educators is to teach students to solve real world problems. They are not going to be able to do this if all they have is knowledge and some skills. They require understanding and the ability to transfer into new and different problems. Understanding requires a different way of teaching. One that constantly creates experiences they can build upon. One that engages the student and invites them to push the limits of their own knowledge and once they do, moves them to go on. We can do it. This might require us to change the way we teach. Move from repetition to rehearsal. Move from knowledge and skills to understanding, knowledge, skills and dexterity. It might cause us to change our curricula. Move away from a linear view of education to a more constructivist, iterative, and integrated view. Create a line of extracurricular academic activities. More importantly, we need to trust our students. Students are able to handle the challenge. Let us challenge them. Let us be there for them. And they will always rise up to our expectations.
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