2015-10-07 Meeting Notes

Date

Oct 07, 2015

Attendees

AY 2015-2016 Members: Jont Allen, Can Bayram, Mohamed Ali Belabbas, John Dallesasse, Arne Fliflet, Patricia Franke, Pavan Kumar Hanumolu, Kiruba Haran, Yih-Chun Hu, Nam Sung Kim, Erhan Kudeki (Ex-Officio), Rakesh Kumar, Stephen Levinson, Yi Lu, Jonathan Makela (Chair), Serge Minin, Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan, Maxim Raginsky, William Sanders (Ex-Officio), Christopher Schmitz, Jose Schutt-Aine, Paris Smaragdis, Lav Varshney, Shobha Vasudevan, Venugopal Veeravalli, Lara Waldrop, Hao Zhu

Discussion Items

Minutes

• The meeting was called to order at 2:05pm.
• Minutes from September 30, 2015 were approved.
• Makela gave a brief overview of ECE 398PL: Probability in Engineering Lab, stating that this was a course that was currently going through the process of obtaining a permanent number.  That approval process was at the college level.  The course proposal was approved.
• Makela brought up two additional charges to the curriculum committee stemming from the faculty retreat held in May 2015.
  • How to provide more flexibility in our curricula while maintaining the identity of the program.
  • ECE + X undergraduate options for degrees, especially recognizing entrepreneurship and ECE applications.
    • Varshney mentioned the similar CS + X options are being developed and offered in computer science.  He suggested that the curriculum committee should check in on how there were proceeding.
• Varshney summarized a discussion he and Makela had with Fouad Abd El Khalick (Associate Dean for Research & Research Education in the College of Education) regarding different instructional pedagogies, how they relate to traditional lectures, how they may or may not scale, and what sort of supports are required to implement them.
  • Traditional lectures are seen as a baseline.  Increasing engagement of the students can be achieved within the lecture framework through the use of clickers and dyad discussions.  Further increasing the engagement of students, but stepping outside the lecture framework, one gets to flipped classrooms and project based education.  Fouad expressed that there is a lot of excitement about flipped classrooms, but there is not yet significant evidence as to its efficacy.
  • It is important to align the teaching methods used with the learning objectives.
  • Typically, as the level of engagement goes up, scalability decreases.  There is also a large startup cost to bringing new methods of instruction to the student.  There needs to be support for developing materials/methods, but there must be memory so that, as courses repeat and new instructors offer them, we are not constantly reinventing the wheel.  This should be seen as an evolutionary process.
• A general discussion based on the report from Varshney ensued.
  • Allen asked how we improve the traditional lecture.  Makela responded that we should consider integrating the other instructional methodologies.  It need not be an either/or proposition.  A plurality of methods increases the likelihood of teaching and learning styles matching.
  • Minin mentioned that the taxonomy discussed was not necessarily complete, and other engagement methods exist.  Examples include think/pair/share and problem based learning.
  • Franke brought up the need for support in developing materials.  Allen reiterated this need.  It was suggested that a database of a variety of materials should be maintained/curated to allow for instructors to concentrate on content delivery and assessment of students, rather than on regenerating material each semester.  This would require support from the department to develop and maintain over time.  Minin provided a list of items that such a database might contain.
  • The committee discussed whether the current delivery mechanisms were appropriate or if different mechanisms should be explored.  The idea of lecture/recitation was brought up.  Minin stated that he thought most of the learning should come from faculty-led instruction, rather than TA-led instruction.  Makela countered that TA-led (and even peer-led) instruction can be effective if the TAs are properly trained and motivated.  Minin said that there is a problem with how long TAs stay on, making comprehensive training a difficult proposition.
  • Makela suggested that the department should work to identify a core of faculty that are focused on engagement of undergraduates at the 100-200 level and involve them in these courses.  We do not need to drastically change delivery methods or shrink class sizes, but should encourage the evolutionary development of materials that can be used by all faculty instructing these courses.
• The meeting was adjourned at 2:58pm.

Action Items