Thermo in the Time of COVID-19: Using Improvisation to Foster Discussion and Translating the Experience to Online Learni
- PDF / 485,008 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 593.972 x 792 pts Page_size
- 95 Downloads / 150 Views
Biomedical Engineering Education ( 2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-020-00022-z
Teaching Tips - Special Issue (COVID)
Thermo in the Time of COVID-19: Using Improvisation to Foster Discussion and Translating the Experience to Online Learning ERIN LAVIK Department of Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering, UMBC, Baltimore, Piscataway Territories, MD 21250, USA (Received 21 June 2020; accepted 23 August 2020)
Abstract—This paper covers teaching a graduate thermodynamics class as a seminar and using improvisational activities to foster community and discussion. The paper includes the experience of piloting improvisational activities online to help foster community for an entirely virtual version of the thermodynamics seminar class. Improvisational activities were found to help foster discussion in a thermodynamics seminar class, and some of these improvisational activities can be translated online in ways that may help to foster connection and community across the curriculum including online. Keywords—Thermodynamics, Papers, Journal club, Discussion, Analysis of prior work, Community.
CHALLENGE STATEMENT In 2019, I taught Thermodynamics for first year master’s and PhD students in our program. Historically, the class was lecture based with problem sets and exams. One of the goals of the class is to help students apply thermodynamic concepts to their research and their future careers. One of the things I have observed in the oral qualifying exam is that some students struggle to make connections between their classes, their research, and the application of concepts in new forums. Furthermore, many first year students find it extremely challenging to speak in front of colleagues about topics and ask questions. Because I wanted to make more connections between the concepts and Address correspondence to Erin Lavik, Department of Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering, UMBC, Baltimore, Piscataway Territories, MD 21250, USA. Electronic mail: [email protected]
research topics and projects the graduate students are interested in pursuing, I moved to a seminar model with presentation and discussion of recent papers with a strong thermodynamic focus. However, it may not be surprising to hear that simply moving to a seminar structure did not trigger deep and meaningful conversations about thermodynamics. What did help trigger these conversations was doing improvisational exercises at the start of class. The impact was so strong that I carried it into my other classes. With the class being online this Fall, can we have meaningful conversations, dig into concepts, and build a community? The answer, I believe, is yes, and improvisation, I believe, is an important part of that answer, albeit it with a re-envisioning of the practice.
NOVEL INITIATIVE Implementing Improv in a Thermo Class Papers were selected at the beginning of the semester for the major topics covered in the class. During the first class, students were asked to provide suggestions for topics they would like to see covered. The topics and
Data Loading...
