Tackling an First-year Engineering Threshold Concept

Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a Design Science : Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology   Retrieved from http://UQL.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=957058

Cowan, J. (2004). Education for high level capabilities. Beyond alignment to integration? : University of Aveiro and netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development.

In ENGG1100 a topic that is often challenging or troublesome for students to grasp would be mass balancing. It requires students to be able to identify that a system contains multiple different components that can move independently of one and another and you can study each and any of these by itself to learn more about the system. Additionally when the system contains multiple operational units, there is an level of thinking required which is to see that each system can be studied individually and you can break any larger system down into smaller parts.

It's an unusual way of thinking and not one that you'd ever use growing up in an average household. I suppose one way of dealing with it would be try a scaffolded approach and to fade that scaffold away over a few weeks. Perhaps this could be achieved by using cooking as a base example since it is more applicable to students' past conceptions. For this approach I would need to (Laurillard, 2012):

• Break down complex tasks and get the learner to complete them using actions that are currently in their repetoire.
• Provide opportunities to test their actions.
• Provide feedback that allows them to further develop their actions.

 After reading Cowan (2004) book chapter it definitely affected my design. He puts the reflective practice into perspective (see my other post) and I can see how I could possibly apply it in such a way that the students won't find the reflective exercise trivial like in past classes. I also think I need to re-evaluate the learning outcomes of mass balance teaching in first year as there is so much to teach with so little time. What do I really want to get across?