Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities

Model-Eliciting-Activities (MEAs) are open ended engineering problems set in realistic contexts, which requires teams of students to create a mathematical model for solving a client’s problem. At the beginning of each MEA, students are required to answer three questions: Q1) “Who is the client?”, Q...

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Main Authors:	Wan Salim, Wan Wardatul Amani, Diefes-Dux, Heidi
Format:	Conference or Workshop Item
Language:	English
Published:	American Society of Engineering Education 2010
Subjects:	L Education (General)
Online Access:	http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/1/44342_Graduate%20teaching%20assistants%E2%80%99%20assessment.pdf

id	iium-44342
recordtype	eprints
spelling	iium-443422017-09-15T05:25:25Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/ Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities Wan Salim, Wan Wardatul Amani Diefes-Dux, Heidi L Education (General) Model-Eliciting-Activities (MEAs) are open ended engineering problems set in realistic contexts, which requires teams of students to create a mathematical model for solving a client’s problem. At the beginning of each MEA, students are required to answer three questions: Q1) “Who is the client?”, Q2) “In one of two sentences, what does the client need?” and Q3) “Describe at least two issues that need to be considered when developing a solution for the client”. These questions are designed to guide students’ problem formulation. As graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for assessing these student responses, it is anticipated that GTAs contribute to students’ ability to formulate problems. However, a cursory review of GTAs assessment of student work indicated that some GTAs struggle to properly assess students’ responses. To guide future GTA professional development with MEAs, and problem formulation in particular, this paper seeks to explore these questions in more detail: “How are the GTAs’ assessing students’ responses to the MEA individual questions?” and “Do students’ ability to answer these questions improve across the three MEAs implemented in a single semester?” Three distinct MEAs were implemented in a required first-year engineering problem-solving course in Fall 2007. Open coding and content analysis of ~500 (out of ~1500) student responses per MEA was performed to establish an expert assessment of the student responses. The expert assessment of the student responses were used to evaluate the GTAs assessments. Results verify that the GTAs’ assessments of student responses were very weak. It is clear that GTA professional development with problem formulation is needed. Recommendations for such professional development are put forth. American Society of Engineering Education 2010-06-20 Conference or Workshop Item NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/1/44342_Graduate%20teaching%20assistants%E2%80%99%20assessment.pdf Wan Salim, Wan Wardatul Amani and Diefes-Dux, Heidi (2010) Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities. In: American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) International Conference, 20th-23rd June 2010, Louisville, Kentucky. (Unpublished) https://peer.asee.org/graduate-teaching-assistants-assessment-of-students-problem-formulation-within-model-eliciting-activities
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	International Islamic University Malaysia
building	IIUM Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
topic	L Education (General)
spellingShingle	L Education (General) Wan Salim, Wan Wardatul Amani Diefes-Dux, Heidi Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities
description	Model-Eliciting-Activities (MEAs) are open ended engineering problems set in realistic contexts, which requires teams of students to create a mathematical model for solving a client’s problem. At the beginning of each MEA, students are required to answer three questions: Q1) “Who is the client?”, Q2) “In one of two sentences, what does the client need?” and Q3) “Describe at least two issues that need to be considered when developing a solution for the client”. These questions are designed to guide students’ problem formulation. As graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for assessing these student responses, it is anticipated that GTAs contribute to students’ ability to formulate problems. However, a cursory review of GTAs assessment of student work indicated that some GTAs struggle to properly assess students’ responses. To guide future GTA professional development with MEAs, and problem formulation in particular, this paper seeks to explore these questions in more detail: “How are the GTAs’ assessing students’ responses to the MEA individual questions?” and “Do students’ ability to answer these questions improve across the three MEAs implemented in a single semester?” Three distinct MEAs were implemented in a required first-year engineering problem-solving course in Fall 2007. Open coding and content analysis of ~500 (out of ~1500) student responses per MEA was performed to establish an expert assessment of the student responses. The expert assessment of the student responses were used to evaluate the GTAs assessments. Results verify that the GTAs’ assessments of student responses were very weak. It is clear that GTA professional development with problem formulation is needed. Recommendations for such professional development are put forth.
format	Conference or Workshop Item
author	Wan Salim, Wan Wardatul Amani Diefes-Dux, Heidi
author_facet	Wan Salim, Wan Wardatul Amani Diefes-Dux, Heidi
author_sort	Wan Salim, Wan Wardatul Amani
title	Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities
title_short	Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities
title_full	Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities
title_fullStr	Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities
title_full_unstemmed	Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities
title_sort	graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities
publisher	American Society of Engineering Education
publishDate	2010
url	http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/44342/1/44342_Graduate%20teaching%20assistants%E2%80%99%20assessment.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T21:03:04Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T21:03:04Z
_version_	1777410752630489088

Graduate teaching assistants’ assessment of students’ problem formulation within model-eliciting activities

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