2nd International PBL Symposium 2009
FACILITATING STUDENTS’ LEARNING
TO ACQUIRE SPECIFIC COMPETENCIES: CASE STUDY OF WATER ENGINEERING COURSE AT CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA
UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA
FACILITATING STUDENTS’ LEARNING TO ACQUIRE SPECIFIC COMPETENCIES: CASE STUDY OF WATER ENGINEERING COURSE AT CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITAS INDONESIA Dwita S.K. Marsudiantoro, Herr Soeryantono, Siti Murniningsih, Toha Saleh, and Dwinanti R Marthanty Centre for Environmental & Water Engineering Research Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok 16424, Indonesia
ABSTRACT
The Water Engineering Course (WEC) at Civil Engineering Department (CED) Universitas Indonesia (UI) is a one of the required courses for CED students at UI. The expected learning outcomes from this course are specific competencies in designing environmental friendly water-related infrastructures in their urban environment, professionally. The student load of this subject is five (5) credit semester units. In order to explore more effective ways of promoting student-centred learning rather than just “lecturing”, WEC is designed as an integrated subject based on competencies in mathematics, physics, fluid mechanics, environmental science, (applied-) hydrology and hydraulics. A Hybrid collaborative (CL) and problem-based learning (PBL) approach is used, with self-directed tutor-less groups of five to six students. The class sizes are in the range of 70 to 120 with 3 instructors and 2 assistants. The students concurrently take 5 to 8 conventional “lecturing” courses and already have experiences in courses with similar approach. The multiple delivery method creates an environment where students are expected to learn to formulate and solve selected problems of importance to society. The decisions about student’s progress require multiple assessments on multiple occasions using multiple methods. A review after 4 years of implementation shows that the program which emphasizes active learning, gives the students a basis for lifelong development, professional responsibility, and service. The most challenging issues in education paradigm shifting are (i) Improvement of academic staff competence in facilitating students’ learning; (ii) Enhancing the library, computer infrastructure and other facilities; (iii) Adjustment of educational management, and (iv) encouraging students’ self-confidence in exploring as well as solving the real world problems.
KEYWORDS
facilitating students' learning, specific competencies, hybrid CL-PBL.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The vision of Civil Engineering Department is to become a centre of excellence for civil engineering science and technology that is environmentally conscious and globally competitive. The missions of the department are three-fold: first, to continuously improve the quality of its graduates to be scientifically knowledgeable, internationally recognized, and environmentally conscious; second, to provide intellectual contributions to the society through research and direct public involvement focusing on the development of civil engineering structure and infrastructure that promotes harmonious relationship between humans and environment; and third, to develop student’s respectable characters of leadership, professional attitudes, strong communication skills, and ethical behaviour. C-2004 Curriculum Since its establishment on 17 July 1964, the Department has periodically reviewed its curriculum. The review in 2002 resulted in a recommendation to adopt a new designed curriculum, which is called C-2004. A fundamental change was introduced in the C-2004, mainly due to the shifting paradigm in teaching-learning approach, specifically from teachercentred into student-centred, and the environmental consciousness in planning and design of infrastructure system, which will lead to sustainability of the environment. This consciousness in planning and design is generally coined as the green design concept, which is a design process in which environmental attributes are treated as design objectives, rather than as constraints. In accordance with the university’s policy to focus on student-centred approach, a group of compulsory subjects for first year students called Program Dasar Pendidikan Tinggi (Basic Education Program for Higher Education) was introduced. This program is a University-wide Program that aims to develop the students’ attitude and character as early as possible. At the end of this course, the students are expected to acquire intellectual skills, attitudes, values, communication skills, and computer skills that will enable them to succeed in their studies and become life-long learners. This course is designed and developed to be delivered in a student-centred approach using a combination of Collaborative Learning (CL), ProblemBased Learning (PBL) and Computer Mediated Learning (CML). At the Department level courses which emphasize student-centred learning are offered, among others are Introduction to Civil Engineering System (2nd semester), Water Engineering (5th semester), Sanitary Engineering (6th semester), and Urban Drainage/Storm-water Management (elective course, 8th semester), where students are working in an environment that promotes teamwork and integrity. This environment provides the students a basis for lifelong development, professional responsibility, and service.
WATER ENGINEERING COURSE
Water Engineering is designed to convey overviews of interdependency of water-related infrastructures and their environment, based on competencies in mathematics, physics, chemistry, fluid mechanics, environmental science, hydrology and hydraulics. The student load of this subject is five (5) credit semester units; meaning that the students have to work at least 15 hours per week, besides other concurrently 5 to 8 conventional “lecturing” courses. Since its development in Academic Year (AY) 2005/2006 up to the latest delivery in AY 2008/2009, the course was regularly and consistently evaluated and revised and/or modified. Following is the description of the latest version of the course. Learning Outcome Ultimate Learning Competencies Students will be able to report the hydrologic and hydraulics design of environmental conscious water-related infrastructures systematically, as well as to communicate it visually and verbally. Supporting Learning Competencies Students achieve the ultimate learning competencies after prevail the following supporting learning competencies as stated on the Table 1: Table 1 Supporting Learning Competencies COMPETENCIES A, B and C
D
E
F
G
DESCRIPTION Understand the interrelation between stormwater management and water availability in a one water resources management system: ‒ Summarize the philosophy of drainage and flood control. ‒ Summarize the philosophy of water availability and demand. ‒ Summarize the philosophy of water and water resources conservation. • Understand the elements and process of hydrologic cycle, the quantification of each element, and the system response due to the human intervention. • Apply the equations for design flood determination and water budget of the system. • Describe the driving-force of waterflows. • Apply the equations for determining the dimension of water-related infrastructures. Implement the water engineering principles into water-related infrastructures network system, through simulation of hydraulicsphenomena responses on water-course network using TR20 application. • Formulate the real-world water-induced problems and propose the solution/recommendation based on engineering considerations. • Submit the proposal as written document.
The learning competencies are then structured as illustrated on the following Figure 1:
Learning Outcome Ultimate Learning Competency
G
Supporting Learning Competencies
F D A
E B
C
Ice-Breaking
Figure 1. The Structure of Learning Competencies Teaching-Learning Strategy A Hybrid Collaborative and Problem-based Learning (CL/PBL) approach is used, with selfdirected tutor-less groups of five to six students. The class sizes are in the range of 63 to 120 with 3 instructors and 2 assistants. The students concurrently take 5 to 8 conventional “lecturing” courses and already have experiences in courses with similar approach, at least in two subjects namely PDPT (Program Dasar Pendidikan Tinggi, Basic Education Program for Higher Education) and ICES (Introduction to Civil Engineering System). Collaboration is considered effective in producing an output in response to a common goal or shared priority, since the synergy will produce output which is often greater than what any of the individuals could have produced when working alone. The important key to collaboration is the group report because any hidden agenda for any individual will be demolished. Moreover, the Problem-based Learning approaches is considered to be suitable in engineering discipline because it helps students develop skills and confidence for formulating problems they have never seen before as well as proposing the alternative solutions. The teaching-learning activities comprise lectures, discussions, laboratory works, field-survey, assignments and excursion. Assessment and Grading System The learning outcome assessment is summarized on the Table 2 as follows: Table 2 The Learning Outcome Assessment ASSESSMENT COMPONENTS Student achievement in particular competency
ASSESSMENT TOOLS
ASSESSMENT SCHEDULE
Paper Verbal Presentation Examination
At the end of particular competency Group discussion and presentation Mid term; Final term
ASSESSMENT COMPONENTS Student learning process in data collecting, information processing and knowledge acquiring
ASSESSMENT TOOLS
ASSESSMENT SCHEDULE
Instructors observation
Rolling discussion, during group interaction At the end of each session At the end of each session
Group Self-assessment Peer evaluation
The grading system is based on the assessment components as shown below: ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒
Paper Quizzes Midterm test Final Examination Presentation Individual contribution to the group
20 – 30% 10 – 20% 15 – 25% 20 – 30% 10% 10%
IMPLEMENTATION IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2005 UP TO 2008 Enrolled Students The enrolled students during the first three years were the students from Civil Engineering study program ranging from 63 to 73, while the students from Environmental Engineering study program started to join in the fourth year, hence the total students enrolled became 120. Students Performance Student performance as illustrated on Figure 2 shows interesting phenomena: ‒ the increasing tendency of students which competence level between 60.1 and 80.0% may indicate the increasing competence of the teaching team in handling the studentcentred class, although ‒ the flattening of students grade point distribution may indicate the difficulties in handling the CL/PBL in the context of large class
100%
100
91.79 92.26 93.00 85.80
80%
60.0%
84.9%
89.2%
60%
60
68.3%
80
AY 2005 (CE: 63)
AY 2006 (CE: 70)
AY 2007 (CE: 73)
AY 2008 (CE+EE: 120)
40%
40
20%
27.13 0%
20 1
20
AY 2008 (CE+EE)
39
58 AY 2007 (CE)
(a)
77 AY 2006 (CE)
96
115 AY 2005 (CE)
< 60.1 (%)
60.1-80.0 (%)
(b)
Figure 2. Students’ Grade Point (a) and Its Distribution (b)
> 80 (%)
EVALUATION AND FEEDBACK Students’ Opinion The Water Engineering team conducted two different models of evaluation and feedback, the first model was developed by the team in the year 2006, which consists of two sets of questionnaires: one concerning the students’ opinions on delivery methods and the other about students’ opinions on teaching-learning methods. Figure 3 represents the results. 80%
100%
Better working in group
5%
Reporting Presentations
60%
More interested in real world problems
10%
Off-class Activities
40%
Enjoyable
8%
Group Discussions
20%
Interesting
10%
Tutorials
Excursion
0%
9%
Lectures
Better understanding
15%
Gaining more knowledge
13%
More indepth
Midtest & Final Exam
16% Need more time
Individual Study
12%
Completely Agree
Agree
No Opinion
Disagree
Completely Disagree
Figure 3. Students’ Opinions In general the subject was interesting and enjoyable, since the correlation with the real-world problems was very clearly exposed. Group discussion and lectures were much more interesting in comparison with the individual study. The students also wished more organized tutorial and off-class activities. However, they would like to have less reporting and presentations works, because they needed much more times to digest all the materials. Exams were still their favourite, though the results sometimes were less predictable. They also commented that the program was immature, so that the learning process became less effective. Starting from the academic year 2007, the university has setup an online students’ satisfaction survey called EDOM, and the results of 2007-2008 survey indicated very clearly that there is a tendency that the larger class is more difficult to handle, as illustrated in Figure 4. 3.80
Course Content
Course Delivery Class Management Evaluation
3.55 3.17 2.87 3.22 2.90 3.08 2.88 3.32
Average Score
3.05 AY 2007/2008
AY 2008/2009
Figure 4. Results of Students’ Satisfaction Survey EDOM
Table 3 represents the complete EDOM results for academic year 2007 and 2008. Table 3 The EDOM Results NO
COMPONENTS
A. Course Content 1 Lesson plan is announced/given at the beginning of the course 2 There is information on Textbooks and references that are used 3 Materials other than textbooks and references (i.e. hand out/transparencies/power point slides) are provided 4 Assignments are relevant with course content and learning objectives B. Course Delivery 5 Course content is relevant with lesson plan 6 Course content was systematically and clearly delivered 7 There was continuity of the content delivered by each member of the teaching-team 8 The lecturers responded to students’ questions and comments comprehensively 9 Examples and illustrations were clear and concise 10 The lecturers encouraged students to participate actively in class (i.e. QA, discussion, exercise) 11 Participation in this class made me eager to study the subject further C. Class Management 12 Classes start and end on time 13 Conducive learning atmosphere 14 Utilized multi-media facilities (LCD/OHP/board/CD/video player) effectively 15 Open for suggestions in order to improve the quality of teaching-learning process 16 The lecturers were able to clarify difficult course topics D. Evaluation 17 The problem-sets (mid- and final exams) were in accordance with the scope of the content 18 Always returned students’ work (in a reasonable time) 19 Discussed assignments, quizzes and exams results Average Score TOTAL RESPONDENTS of ON-LINE SURVEY
AY 2007
AY 2008
3,80 3,80
3,55 3,79
3,72
3,36
3,80
3,56
3,88
3,49
3,17 3,20 3,13 3,27
2,87 2,95 2,91 2,86
3,12
2,87
3,19 3,16
2,90 2,82
3,09
2,78
3,22 3,31 3,16 3,28
2,90 2,91 2,78 2,92
3,13
2,95
3,23 3,08 3,23
2,96 2,88 2,92
2,97 3,05 3,32
2,91 2,80 3,05
73 out of 73
116 out of 120
The Teaching Team Opinion The most challenging issues in education paradigm shifting are (i) Improvement of teaching staff competence in facilitating students’ learning; (ii) Enhancing infrastructure and other teaching-learning facilities; (iii) Adjustment of educational management, and (iv) encouraging students’ self-confidence in exploring as well as solving the real world problems.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. 2. 3. 4.
Tinzmann, M.B. et.al., 1990. What Is the Collaborative Classroom? NCREL, Oak Brook. David Boud (ed.), 1985. Problem-based Learning in Education for the Professions. Central Printing Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Donald R. Woods, 1996. Problem-based Learning, Especially in the Context of Large Classes. McMaster University Bookstore, Hamilton ON Canada (downloaded from Web-sites). William, John R., Collaborative Learning Experience in a Freshman Materials Laboratory Exercise, Purdue University Programs at Kokomo,
[email protected], Fri Sep 29 13:35:28 PDT 1995.
