James Cawthorne

Cawthorne Jr., James E. Ph.D., Purdue University, August 2016. Thematic Analysis Of Influencers On Continuing Professional Learning Of Tenure-Track Engineering Faculty As Assistant Professors At An RU/VH Institution. Major Professor: Dr. Ruth Streveler. “Although the need for lifelong learning of professionals is stressed through university education, the patent differences between learning as a student, within a controlled framework focusing on accessible outcomes, and learning as a professional have not been clarified” (Webster-Wright, 2009, p. 708). Assistant professors are entry level professionals in academia who been prepared through their extensive education process to be lifelong learners and yet it is unknown how these assistant professors are engaging, or being engaged by others, in continuing their professional learning (CPL) for short-term and long-term success in academia as a career. This study aimed to understand who and/or what influenced tenure-track engineering fac...

The Vanderbilt-Northwestern-Texas-Harvard/MIT (VaNTH) Engineering Research Center, started in 1999, has focused on improving bioengineering education through the applications of learning science, learning technology, and assessment and evaluation within the domain of bioengineering. The work led to the development of novel approaches to instruction based upon the “How People Learn” (HPL) framework using the technology of the STAR Legacy Cycle. Graduate students worked with faculty within VaNTH to use the “How People Learn” framework elements to develop teaching modules that produced greater learning with understanding about bioengineering than traditional strategies. This paper discusses results of the exploratory quantitative survey on the impact of the VaNTH experience on participating graduate students. The results evaluate whether participants’ familiarity with the HPL framework changes with participation in the VaNTH ERC. Furthermore, self-reports about their participation in t...

This paper describes the redesign of a course, Principles of Entrepreneurship (Principles), using education models to align the content, assessment, and pedagogy decisions for the course. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to align “what we want the student to know” (course objectives) with “how can students demonstrate they understand it” (assessment) by selecting an approach to “how can I best teach the class” (pedagogy) that allows the student to be successful. The education models of Wiggins and McTighe for understanding content, Pelligrino’s assessment triangles, and Perkins’s learning experiences provides a means for grounding course design decisions in educational literature and research, as opposed to relying on one’s instinct. Wiggins and McTighe have defined a hierarchical model for identifying what learning outcomes should be the objectives of a student learning experience, and therefore allowing instructors to differentiate between enduring understandings and other objectives for the course. Pelligrino’s assessment triangle approach integrates the desired student outcomes with the student learning activities (Perkins) by asking the course designer to think through appropriate assessment activities considering what cognitive theory, or other learning theory, the student should be engaging. Finally, Perkins’s seven types of learning experiences provides a range of pedagogical-oriented opportunities for conducting the classroom learning experience that best aligns with the identified student learning objective and assessment activity. This paper demonstrates the process of course alignment among content selection, assessment and pedagogy using an introduction to an entrepreneurship course as the example.