Encouraging Innovative Pedagogy through Long-Term Faculty Development Teams

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

This engineering education research project seeks to extend the use of concept inventories as formative assessment in electrical engineering classes. The project brings together experts in this formative evaluation technique to create a "content-driven assessment guide" that will, in the second phase of the project, help other faculty adopt formative assessment into their classrooms. The assessment guide is a deliverable of the project and may serve to further spread this method of assessment in engineering programs. The project also will evaluate factors related to the adoption of formative assessment in engineering courses to provide insight into the factors related to adoption or non-adoption of proven assessment methods. The broader significance and importance of this project will be to create a network of faculty who have expertise in formative assessment using concept inventories across at least five universities. The content-driven assessment guide will be broadly disseminated using several electronic libraries to further stimulate use of concept inventories. The guide may serve to help adoption of concept inventories in other engineering disciplines.