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Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn
“I love the research,” he said. “I get paid to think!” All truths told, Montfort, now in the second year of his PhD program, never thought he would be working on a PhD. Enjoying the research environment, he originally decided to stay on after his bachelor’s degree for a one-year engineering master’s, but when his main project fell through, he decided to stay on a bit longer – just for a two-year master’s in engineering. “I contacted Shane Brown about doing research with him and he asked me if I had an interest in teaching,” Montfort said. “I said no, but it’s grown on me since then.” The rest as they may say is history, and Montfort, interested in the research, decided to continue on for a PhD. “At first I thought it was a nice project, nice town and a great advisor, but I ended up learning so much from Shane that it almost seemed irresponsible not to stick with it,” he said. The research Brown and Montfort are working on might seem more like social science than what many engineers are accustomed to, but the end product may be one of the most important to come out of the department and the college: well-prepared, knowledgeable and work-ready graduates. “We’re looking into how to best develop a deeper understanding of the material for undergraduates,” he said. “If you look at student’s conceptual understanding, there’s a low level of that in many students who graduate and we want to figure out how to address conceptual understanding in a four-year degree.” Brown and Montfort are examining a different approach to teaching engineering – and learning engineering. Students come to any learning situation with preconceived notions of how things work. These ideas are not only incorrect, but are very resistant to change in traditional lecture based learning environments. With the understanding that students have to do the majority of the work involved in the learning process, Montfort says they aim to put students in situations of cognitive dissonance, where students must first recognize their own misconceptions and understand the need to work through and address their misconceptions, arming them with the tools necessary to succeed. One of the ways they are approaching this is to add four to five peer tutors to mentor two times per month during engineering mechanics lectures. Students in these courses work on active learning problems during lecture and the peer tutors help the students solve the problems. Since peer tutors are closer in age and academic development, they can more closely relate to the students preconceptions and issues related to the problem. This they say helps to evoke their previous understandings of the questions at hand and being able to talk through the equation with a peer not only puts students at ease, but it forces a deeper understanding of the material beyond a typical plug and chug scenario. When he’s not on campus, you will most likely see Montfort with his wife and son. “I try to be home half the time if you include weekends for him,” he said. “Having a son has made life become really clear to what’s important and luckily Shane understands balancing family and work since he also has a two-year old.” So what’s next for Montfort and his family? “It’s my wife’s turn to pick a place, so after this it’s her turn to pick our next location,” he said. |
