Problem-Based Learning That Fits: Transforming SCATE’s Approach into Your Own Program

South Carolina Advanced Technological Education (SC ATE) has been helping educators implement Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in classrooms for years. But often schools can take the SC ATE curriculum and transform it into their own unique approach. That’s what Phil Regalbuto, instructor in Electronics Engineering Technology at Trident Technological College in Charleston has been doing for some time.

Shifting from Standard Solutions to Custom SolutionsOriginally, SC ATE’s Problem-Based Learning approach formed the core of Engineering Technology Foundations (EGR 140), a course that introduces students to fundamental concepts of electrical, mechanical, and other systems related to engineering technology, along with a healthy dose of workplace readiness skills. But the original projects have changed over the years.

For instance, when making presentations for workplace readiness, students are no longer offered PowerPoint as an option. “When EGR 104 was created, Power-Point was new and exciting, but what we have seen over the years is death by PowerPoint,” Regalbuto explains. “By forcing them out of the PowerPoint mold, we’ve forced them into doing some really creative things,” including brochures, flyers, websites, and even videos.

Other SC ATE components have been dropped in favor of new projects. Regalbuto has dropped the original mechanical project in favor of building trebuchets. “We got money from our foundation, and bought some kits, like a heavy-duty erector set.” After a series of mechanical labs about different forces and levers, the students build their trebuchets and compete against each other for accuracy.

The final project is building a break room, which often brings out real craftsmanship. “I’ve had people make models of the break room detailed to where they’re putting in LED lighting.”

Spreading Problem-Based Learning to Other Courses

One benefit of exploring the SC ATE database is that problem-based projects do not need to remain in the courses for which they were originally designed. For instance, Regalbuto now uses the problem-based approach in Introduction to Engineering (EGR 270), which covers the application of computers in engineering, including programming.

“I give them a Lego Mindstorms robot. It’s created,” explains Regalbuto, “but their project is to get it through a maze.” The robot is required to travel all the way down and back through the maze. Failing to get the robot down to the end of the maze means failing the project, reaching the remote end is a “C”, and returning

up the maze results in minimal “A.” For a perfect score, the robot must return to the starting box. “At the end of the semester, I have to kick them out of the lab, because they want to get that 100, and I won’t let them unless they stop it in the starting box. I have three or four out of about 40 every semester who manage to do it.”

Problem-Based Learning and the Evolving Educational Experience

Experience with project-based learning opens up new inroads for students and

instructors alike. One of Regalbuto’s many hats is Lead instructor for the Mechanical

and Electrical Engineering programs’ senior project, in which students have to design

and build an instructor-approved project. Their projects have ranged from automatic

dog washers to solar pool heaters to roller coasters. Two students bounced a laser off a window and amplified the signal so that they could hear what was going on in the room.

How many of these projects are found in the SC ATE database? None of them!

“These are all original,” explains Regalbuto. “We’ve taken the idea of project-based learning and turned it into a capstone course in which they choose the project. When you give them these kinds of things, they tend to go the extra mile. You don’t really have to push them.”

“We’ve just added Mechanical Engineering students to the senior project in the last four years. Some projects have an electrical and a mechanical component. We have two people working in a team on it. They start off in the EGR 104 courses and projects and finish with the senior project class.”

Lessons Learned Along the Way

Here are some things that Regalbuto has noted about PBL:

• Students really like project-based learning. Regalbuto notes that students “want to be creative, and they don’t get much opportunity to do that in some other courses.”

• Giving direction is key. While you shouldn’t do the project for them, you can give students concrete information at the beginning and encourage them along the way to bring out their own creativity.

• Expect some apprehension in the beginning. When students first encounter project-based learning, they may be hesitant. “A lot of them, at the beginning of the course, are asking ‘How can I get an A?’ or ‘Is this going to be on the test?’” The apprehension will pass.

• Mix up your teams. Much of problem-based learning involves teamwork. Regalbuto

says results are much better when you mix them up.

• Expect greater results in the end. Students take learning more seriously when the project is their own instead of something they are forced to do.

Phil Regalbuto is an Instructor in Electronics Engineering Technology and Engineering Transfer

at Trident Technical College in Charleston, South Carolina. He came to Trident Tech in August 1990, and was one of the faculty on the original ATE grant in the late 90s. Prior to coming to TridentTech, he worked in industry for 14 years.

Developing New Curricula around SC ATE’s Project-Based Learning

How can you maximize the success of a new curriculum? By building in an effective teaching strategy.

That’s what Wayne Community College (WCC), located in Goldsboro, North Carolina, is doing. Following the lead of innovative Industrial Systems Instructor Angela Wall, WCC has chosen to develop, test, and implement a project-based learning curriculum based upon the tremendous student success at both Wayne Community College and the South Carolina Advanced Technology Education (SC ATE) Center at Florence-Darlington Technical College (FDTC).

The Plan for the New Curriculum

The new Wayne Community College Sustainability Technology curriculum is designed to prepare technicians for environmental, construction, alternative energy, and manufacturing industries where key emphasis is placed on energy production and waste reduction. The program provides excellent local employment opportunities. Internships enable students to gain work experience, connect with local industry leaders for future career opportunities, and “earn while they learn.”

A major component of this new Sustainability Technology curriculum is the project-based learning (PBL) method pioneered by the SC ATE Center at FDTC. This is a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary approach to instruction in which students have the opportunity to participate and practice their skills in math, language/communications, science and technology. The curriculum emphasizes soft skills such as teamwork and problem solving, while also making general education content relevant.

Angela Wall is the tireless WCC champion who is building upon successful efforts of the project-based learning (PBL) pilot that has been conducted through the WCC/SC ATE Center partnership over the past four years, expanding it to include the new Sustainability Technology program. WCC will use SC ATE-developed Technology Gateway scenarios for electricity, mechanics, fluid power, optics, and engineering/technician career exploration, and the SC ATE Center will enhance its collection of challenging scenarios in the Technology Gateway with WCC’s Sustainability Technology problems. The new, relevant PBL industry-based scenarios will engage students in learning and raise awareness and excitement about career possibilities in the emerging energy-related fields.

Beginning with Success

Wayne Community College first introduced PBL using SC ATE’s Technology Gateway (TG) materials and methods in a fall 2007 pilot. The project-based learning EGR 110 Introduction to Engineering Technology class had a success rate of 81%, compared to a 75% success rate for the non-PBL section of the same class. 63% of the PBL EGR 110 students earned an “A.” Students reacted positively to the team-based approach, were more engaged, and had more pride in and satisfaction with their work than in traditional classes.

While all the PBL course results were positive, the developmental math results were particularly astounding. Students in the first PBL semester course achieved a 92% success rate for MAT 070 Introduction to Algebra, compared to the previous 5-year average of 57.4% in traditional classes. The success rate for the fall 2007 project-based learning MAT 070 cohort was 18% higher than the average success rate of traditional classes for the same semester. The average final exam score was more than six points higher (almost one letter grade) than the average of traditional classes for the same semester. Based on the success of the EGR project-based learning courses, the college is continuing to use the PBL community model and has expanded the implementation of PBL into other courses such as MNT 165 Mechanical Industrial Systems and ELC 131 DC/AC Circuit Analysis.

Building Excitement

To attract students to technician education programs, the college works closely with Wayne County Public Schools to offer a variety of academies and technology classes for high school students. Recently, Angela Wall, who had already offered Camp Kill-A-Watt for high school students, mentored a Goldsboro High School student in organizing a middle school alternative energy camp. As a result 16 middle school students attended Camp-Kill-A-Watt for one week in July 2010. The camp offered practical instruction and hands-on experiments in alternative energy production, including wind, solar, fuel cell, temperature differential engines and biofuel technologies. Guest speakers included engineers from Progress Energy. One student stated, “Last year my mom made me come [to camp], but this year I begged to come.” Area employers are also excited about project-based learning. One employer remarked that a student in the pilot PBL course had always been a good employee, but after taking the course he became a leader. Word of the technicians’ success spread, and now three industry employers (Mt. Olive Pickle, Smithfield Packing, and AAR Cargo Systems) want to hire a total of 15 students to intern with their companies.

You Too Can Build on SC ATE’s Program

The SC ATE Center is known as a leader in technician education and for innovative work on the educational “pipeline” that helps  ensure that high school students are ready for and interested in pursuing technology careers and that first-year engineering  technology students are retained and successful in associate degree programs. As a result graduation rates have increased from 12% to as much as 50%, time-to-graduation has been reduced from an average of 3.6 years to 2.2 years for an associate degree, and diversity (primarily African American participation and success) has increased from 14% to as much as 50%. SC ATE has successful models that stand ready to help your project, too.

The Write Stuff for Group Work

Using Wikis in Writing Teams for Problem-Based Learning

Do you think your students will never write anything as a team? Maybe they don’t have the right tool. That’s why Mark Rooze has brought wikis into his English 260 – Advanced Technical Writing classes at Florence-Darlington Technical College (FDTC). Using Problem-Based Learning (PBL) techniques, his students are turning out significant projects and stretching their own writing capabilities. Rooze had previously used PBL techniques when he taught service learning projects in Technical Writing at Clemson University, but he hadn’t tried PBL at the technical college level. Then he attended a South Carolina Advanced Technological Education (SC ATE) mini-conference on training technicians with team projects, and Elaine Craft and Tressa Gardner challenged him to give the techniques a try.

Rooze decided that his students would write proposals as a team. To make the project more realistic, he would write a Request for Proposals to which they would respond. And to cap off the project, they would not only turn in the written proposal but also do a team PowerPoint presentation. “My previous experience told me that what I needed was wiki software,” says Rooze. “Just like Wikipedia, multiple people can work on one piece of writing. The problem was, with my limited time, how to choose which software was right for our class.” Then Rooze hit on an idea: why not let the students themselves research the various software solutions? Answering that question became the students’ proposal assignment for the first two semesters. “Students who were still uncomfortable with Microsoft Office researched more about software than they knew existed.”

In the end, Rooze chose PmWiki for his installation – a choice that may not fit everyone. “My first computer was a TRS-80 Model III that my dad bought in 1980. I built chips for Texas Instruments, and my brother works for Apple today, so my family has been in home computing since the beginning.” Rooze had to draw on his experience to set up the program and the website. “But there are other solutions out there, including hosted solutions that require no programming expertise. So any instructor can do this.” 

Service Learning Asserts Itself

But Florence-Darlington Technical College was already facing other technology challenges. FDTC had just changed its Learning Management System to Desire2Learn, and the faculty was very happy with the change. But in those days, Desire2Learn didn’t have student help files. So Rooze and his class set out on a service learning project. The client: the students themselves. “It seemed a natural fit,” Rooze says. “The students already wrote instruction sets. Why not write Desire2Learn help files on a wiki instead?” Rooze altered part of the PmWiki site to look like the FDTC site, and the students wrote the instructions. “I told them that if they made a mistake, six thousand people would know.” The class raised its standards to meet the challenge. Though Rooze knows about some grammar errors, no one else has ever mentioned them.

Writing Proposals

The time came for Rooze to test his original idea: writing proposals on the wiki. Could students do it? Would they do it the way he envisioned? “The answer is, yes and no,” Rooze admits. Rooze always gives the students an introductory assignment on using wiki software, and students soon become comfortable with it. “That’s part of the design; wikis were meant to be quick and easy.” But do they really collaborate on writing? “Not as much as I would like,” Rooze says. “What they do very well is contribute their own part. They get the teamwork aspect. But I want them to edit each other’s work pretty heavily, and they have qualms about doing that. Still, compared to peer-editing in our normal classrooms, it’s a great improvement.” Other teachers have been far more enthused. Some of Rooze’s students brought their RFP to their engineering instructors for help. “The reaction was, ‘Wow! You’re doing this here at Tech? I might have seen this as a senior project at the university, but not before.’ So now the engineering technology department is fully on board.”

Spreading the Flame

South Carolina Advanced Technological Education (SC ATE) has also given Rooze a chance to influence other technical writing teachers. He attended SC ATE’s 2011 Instructional Leadership Institute in Flat Rock, NC. “Other writing teachers were skeptical that Problem-Based Learning could work in their classrooms. But I had a chance to share some of my projects. By the time they left, they said that they were not only convinced that PBL could work, but they had a lot of ideas about how to implement it.”

Continuing Development 

Rooze continues to develop Requests for Proposals for the students to respond to. So far, he has an IT RFP to install office computers, a civil engineering RFP to redesign a bad traffic intersection, and an electrical engineering RFP to install downtown sidewalk lighting. All of them are based on real RFPs that Rooze found on the internet. “Redesigning the traffic intersection has been the most successful one, but I think the most fun was the downtown sidewalk lighting, because we took the specs straight off the renovation plan for downtown Florence, SC.”

Lessons Learned

Rooze has some suggestions for those who want to try similar projects.

• Consider a hosted software solution. Setting up PmWiki required a lot of out-of-class time and special skills that some instructors may not have. Sites like Google Sites or Wikispaces. com offer free wikis that still give students the experience of writing collaboratively on a wiki, but with far lower instructor workload.

• Put on your cheerleader uniform. Do you remember the fear you felt the first time you wrote a proposal? You students feel it too. They will need lots of encouragement. Be prepared to give it to them. • Keep the scale of the assignments appropriate. When Rooze wrote the IT RFP, it was for a 200-person office. He believed that since the students all used computers, they could identify with the assignment. But the large scale of the project increased the number and types of components. “Fortunately, I had an IT-savvy student in class, and he could explain it. So I made him a ‘consultant’ to all the other groups. It worked – but I’m rewriting the RFP for a 20-person office. It simplifies everything.”

• Convert more of your lecture time to project time. “What is important in the classroom is not what the instructor does but what the students do.” Move away from the podium and over their shoulders more often. Less lecture and more guidance.

Mark Rooze teaches Technical Writing, English, and Religion at Florence-Darlington Technical College in Florence, SC. Prior to coming to FDTC, he taught at Tri-County Technical College and Clemson University.

Problem-Based Learning for Life: Engaging High School Students using the SC ATE Approach

“Yesterday when we were starting the careers project, the students were looking up salary information on the computer. They kept seeing all these internships and asking, ‘Mr. Bell, where do I find out about internships?’ And I kept telling them, ‘That’s what tomorrow is all about.’

 That level of career interest is not something most people expect from students who are not bound for a four-year college or university. But it is something that South Florence High School science and physics teacher Andrew Bell sees all the time.We caught up with Bell as he was taking high school juniors and seniors to meet with representatives from South Carolina Advanced Technological Education (SC ATE) on a tour of the Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SiMT) at Florence-Darlington Technical College.

SiMT boasts a modern, state-of-art rapid-prototyping facility – the kind of facility that sparks the imagination of students considering careers as technicians. Also sparking students’ imagination was Progress Energy Power Careers Coordinator Lee McCollum, who discussed career and internship possibilities with the students.

Engaging High School Students with Problem-Based Learning

“I’ve always been geared more towards the project stuff,” says Bell, who wanted to use toothpick bridges and mousetrap cars and roller coasters in class. “I wasn’t one of these  ‘Here’s the math, here’s your assignment’ people. I was more like, ‘Here’s the math, and here’s how it fits the real world.”

That made SC ATE’s Technology Gateway curriculum and Bell a good match. “I went to the first Instructional Leadership Institute (ILI) several years ago. It was impressive to see this program already mapped out, along with how to actually teach it.”

Nurturing Problem-Based Learning

Growing the problem-based learning program at South Florence High School has taken time and patience. The first year, local officials were supportive, but other obstacles intervened. After some time, however, Bell was able to introduce PBL concepts into the curriculum. And it seemed to work well with the students.

Bell started with freshmen and sophomores in Physical Science. “Some things lined up really well with simple machines and electronics.” Now, some three years later, the program has spread to Conceptual Physics, a course that does not count as a lab science for a four-year college, but it does count as a science for graduation. That allows Bell the freedom to run the course almost fully as a problem-based class.

Besides the technical careers project and simple machines unit, Bell will also use the vehicle safety systems project that was developed at last year’s Instructional Leadership Institute. “They develop a new safety system for vehicles, and we test it with eggs simulating the human body. And if they crack during the first test, they have to go back and start again. Then they have a second test, and a third. And if they fail, they have to go back to square one.” The models are relatively small, the size of a mousetrap car. Students can try things like using egg cartons or a foam deployment system. That way they can see whether foam is as good as a seatbelt or an airbag, or if foam is better. Or they might come up with their own idea and see whether it can work.

Eventually, Bell hopes to build an entire PBL teaching team. “Three years ago, [math teacher Shawn] Fischer attended the Instructional Leadership Institute. Then last year we had [English teacher Kevin] Smith attend. So now we do have a math, an English, and a science person.” The goal is to emulate college-level problem-based learning with STEM components in a high school environment to better prepare students for further training and successful careers as technicians.

Lessons Learned

Bell has learned a few lessons about problem-based learning.

• Problem-based learning pushes students to learn more deeply. “It was always kind of fun to see them come in imagining that it was going to be easy. When they would actually get into it, they would say ‘This is a lot harder.’ But the students enjoyed working in pairs and teams, and it ultimately forced them to learn more than they thought they could.

• Problem-based learning creates better communicators. From the beginning, Bell’s students haven’t just created projects, they have presented projects. They have purged ums and ahs from their

vocabulary and developed a professional bearing. Written progress reports and lab reports are the essence of the curriculum, not an add-on.

• Problem-based learning creates team players. From the beginning, Bell has his students act and work together as a team. “Each person has a part and reports back, which is also very good for keeping the students accountable to one another as well as to me.”

• Problem-based learning makes students more ready for the workplace. At the end of a project, students have to evaluate each other’s contribution. “It helps, I think, for the real world, too,” says Bell, because students learn what real-world employers are looking for.

Thomas Andrew Bell is a science teacher at South Florence High School in Florence, South Carolina.