Three professors are being recognized for the active learning strategies they apply in their classrooms to improve students’ critical thinking and real-world problem solving skills.

Associate Professor of English Tony Baker, Chemical Engineering Professor Joseph Biernacki and Associate Professor of Basic Engineering Ken Hunter have been selected as the first recipients of our QEP Award for Excellence in Innovative Instruction.

“Our Quality Enhancement Plan is designed to improve students’ critical thinking and real-world problem solving skills using active learning strategies, and this award is one way to compensate the instructors on our campus who are already doing that,” says QEP director Ada Haynes.

Each award winner, in addition to receiving $1,000, had to be willing to pass along information about replicating his particular innovative learning activities to instructors in other disciplines.

“That way, instructors in other disciplines can create their own strategies based on the examples of the award winners,” Haynes says.

The strategy for which Baker is being recognized is his organization each April since 2003 of the Festival of Student Writing, which gives first-year English composition students a broader opportunity to communicate with others about ideas important to them.

“Calling the event a festival reinforces the idea that communication is not only a vital skill but can also be an occasion for celebration, which in turn helps students gain a sense of empowerment not usually available in the conventional classroom setting,” says Kurt Eisen, chairperson of the English department, who nominated Baker for the distinction.

Baker agrees, saying, “The festival promotes critical thinking and active learning by fostering student engagement.”

It requires students to work through such questions as: How should I attract the audience’s attention? What format is most appropriate for my project in the festival’s context? How might audience members respond to my composition?

“While such questions should be considered in any writing situation, the festival provides a live — and lively — venue that dramatically amplifies their importance,” he says.

A central feature of Biernacki’s unique approach to course activities involves a six-week team skills and critical thinking workshop, led by Pedro Arce, who coaches students through essential elements of teamwork, team selection, critical thinking and the taxonomy of learning.

“The projects that are assigned are situations that allow students to use a mathematical analysis within a real-world situation to better understand the reasoning behind the education,” says Melissa Boner, a student who nominated Biernacki for the award.

Biernacki’s approach involves integrating a traditional laboratory and lecture class into one, with the intended purpose of teaching students to view real-world outcomes as the result of physical processes that have mathematical descriptions.

“While one might argue that this has always been the goal, the fact is that the traditional approach fails to produce the desired outcome,” he says.

“Historically, we request that students work in teams, yet offer little or no instruction. We want critical thinking as an outcome, but never offer instruction. We hope that students learn at a higher level, but do not inform students about learning,” he continues.

“In this new offering, I am attempting to cultivate in my students a way of being that fuses theory and real-world observations,” Biernacki says.

Ken Hunter’s basic engineering course, unlike many at other institutions, provides students an opportunity to see the connection between math and science courses and their chosen field of engineering by presenting a design challenge to student teams who must work together to build prototypes that meet specific design criteria.

The current design challenge, for instance, is an underwater remotely operated vehicle, while the design challenges of previous years have include urban search and rescue robots, hazardous material robots, recyclable material sorters and vehicle launched bridges.

“Most engineering programs of study contain very little engineering in the freshman year,” Hunter says. “Research has determined this to be a contributing factor for students deciding to drop out of engineering.

“The students see little connection between the math and science courses they are taking and their chosen field of engineering,” he continues, “but this activity is an attempt to add significant engineering experience to their freshman year.”

The project requires students to work in a team environment, communicate effectively with team members and with the instructor, make formal decisions, manage project resources, work within time and budget constraints, research and collect relevant design materials, brainstorm to generate potential design solutions, analyze design issues through application of math and science, build a working prototype, assess their design with respect to the given design criteria and assess the performance of their teammates.

Baker, Biernacki and Hunter all say they are willing to present workshops to give other instructors information about developing similar techniques in their own courses.