Distinguished Seminar Series 2021 | Professor Allison Godwin

The Evolution of a Materials and Energy Balance Course: Designing for Student Motivation and Success
Abstract
This talk describes an ongoing project focused on curricular and pedagogical changes in a second-year materials and energy balances course at Purdue University, CHE 20500: Chemical Engineering Calculations. In this work, we have focused on ways to not only improve students’ academic performance but also their motivation. Motivation is essential for individuals to find energy, mobilize effort, and persist toward a particular goal. This psychological factor is important for student learning and engagement in university classrooms and has been linked to student success and persistence in STEM degrees.
CHE 20500 is the first required course in chemical engineering, and, as such, it is a gateway course to degree attainment. The rate at which students receive marks of “Ds” and “Fs” and withdraw (i.e., receive a “W”) from the course is important for student academic success and progression through the chemical engineering degree program. Together, these course outcomes encompass an important course metric, the “DFW rate.” Before course redesign, the historic DFW rate ranged between 25% and 35%, and the average class grade point average (GPA, on a 4.0 scale) was 2.3 ± 0.3.
This redesign project started in Spring 2018. We collected baseline data on student motivation and academic success. The first changes were made in Spring 2019, with changes to the course timing (from meeting four times per week to two times per week), more team-based learning in the classroom, and an emphasis on introducing course concepts before class through online videos. These changes substantially decreased the DFW rate to 16%, and this effect persisted in subsequent course offerings. Students also had increased motivation, which positively predicted higher academic success. In Fall 2020, we collected data on how the COVID-19 global pandemic and switch to online learning affected students. We found lower motivation and higher stress levels were related to differences in performance, especially for women. Ongoing efforts include the development of course resources to support student learning. Lessons learned from these efforts can provide ways to consider not only the curricular content of courses but also how implementation can support student outcomes, particularly motivation.
Speaker biography
Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education and of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. She is also the Workforce Development Director for CISTAR, the Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. Her research focuses how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belongingness and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning to understand engineering students’ identity development. She has won several awards for her research including the 2017 the IEEE Frontiers in Education Benjamin J. Dasher Award and the 2020 American Society of Engineering Education Educational Research and Methods Division Best Diversity Paper Award. In the classroom, Dr. Godwin has also been honored with awards for teaching including being invited as a participant in to the 2016 National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium and being awarded the 2018 Purdue University College of Engineering Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award.