Work in progress: Update 2012 on the iCollaborate MSE project

The overall objectives of the research performed in the iCollaborate Materials Science and Engineering [MSE] project are to measure if improvements in student learning outcomes, student engagement, and successful course completion rates are possible if the structure in a basic materials engineering course is transformed from primarily deductive practice to an Information Communication Technology (ICT) enabled inductive teaching and learning environment. There are two overarching components of our project. The first component required the transformation of the course structure from deductive practice to inductive practice. This element is supported by research results in STEM education and educational theory based on cognitive and social constructivism. The second component is the ICT support as there is an additional research base that supports connections between ICT enhanced collaborative learning, distributed cognition, and enhanced student outcomes. We propose that ICT support combined with immersion in an inductive teaching and learning environment will improve student outcomes more than either singular component case. The capabilities of the iPod Touch allowed us to build applications (apps) that utilize different multi-media formats. Eight different MSE apps have been built so far. The apps facilitate and support daily collaborative learning opportunities that target specific student learning objectives that are known to be challenging. Bi-weekly in-class, low-stakes quizzes help the students evaluate how well they are building their own knowledge base. Three kinds of data sets will be used to evaluate our research. Data set one is from deductive practice. Data set two is with inductive practice. The third data set, which we are now collecting, is similar to data set two, but with ICT support. This work-in-progress paper will describe the project, its theoretical base, the apps, experiences with the deployment of the devices, and focus group findings. The National Science Foundation is supporting the project (NSF CCLI #0941012).