Tsang Article Review

Posted by Winnie Melda on November 30th, 2018

USE ASSESSMENT TO DEVELOP SERVICE-LEARNING REFLECTION COURSE MATERIALS

The author comprehensively compares and contrasts the effectiveness of equipping engineering learners between two design projects that are service-learning design projects and traditional engineering design projects. Service-learning approach gets perceived as an experiential education from where engineering learners get offered the context by community service to learn as well as develop. The method requires engineering students to combine effort with other team members who have a different socio-economic background and a small understanding of engineering and technology so as to communicate effectively with a diverse audience. The practitioners of service-learning design projects believe that learning and development is a product of experience and reflective component explicitly created for that specific purpose. The main purpose of reflection in service-learning approach is promoting learning of the larger social concerns behind the requirements responding to student’s service. It includes the social, cultural, economic, and political contexts of the concerns getting addressed. The reflection should also include opportunities for those involved to get feedback from peers, program learners and persons getting served. Community-based design projects mainly emphasize on engineering design and the reflection component is absent or occurs by happenstance instead of deliberately getting structured. This aspect gets attributed to the training of engineering and technology faculty as well as the unavailability, of course, materials for reflection in engineering and technology. Therefore, course materials on the reflective component of service learning approach get required for the community-based approach in engaging students in examining the societal factors of engineering and technology.

Differences exist between the traditional design project and the service-learning design project. First, the clients and sponsors of traditional design project are industry, engineering, organization and faculty, whereas in service-learning design project are community groups and K-12 schools. The interaction in the traditional method involves engineers, engineering faculty, and students, whereas the service-learning approach it involves different people from various socio-economic classes including those with little engineering and technology knowledge. Traditional design project entails analysis of mostly engineering topics, whereas the service learning entails analysis and synthesis of both engineering and non-engineering topics.

The paper applies the reflection rubric proposed by Barbara olds to as the tool to re-evaluate the reflection course materials. The reflection rubric gets applied to evaluate and document the steps of student development as highlighted by King and Kitchener “Reflective Judgment (RJ) Model.” The reflection rubric got applied in assessing the four sets of critical thinking that are divergent thinking, evaluative thinking, convergent thinking as well as cognitive memory. In evaluative thinking, the reflection rubric outlines a learner's progress from supervision dependant to evaluate presented information, to using evidence to support beliefs and need for research, to dealing with limitations and o attaining goals. In Divergent thinking, the reflection rubric documents a student’s progress from an inability to interpret information to organize information into a plan for pursuing objectives and to prioritize information for self-evaluation in goals attained. In convergent thinking, the reflective rubric documents the progress from an inability to interpret information to analyzing information from separate viewpoints to assessing method of reaching goals and to analyzing on a goal achievement enhancement plan. In cognitive memory, the reflection rubric progress from depending on external validation to identifying goal achievement to determining goal achievement and to determining measures of goal achievement. 

The reflection assignments are then proposed. Journal writing is a standard form of assignment for the reflection element of service learning. The assessment then gets applied for revising and re-examining on the reflective rubric of the reflection assignments. The reflection assignments proposed belonged to K 12, community partners and Habitat for Humanity service-learning design projects. The reflection rubric then got used to assess student’s performance. The engineering students tend to establish evaluative Thinking skills if requested to compare and contrast, before and after completing the service learning projects, their community need understanding and community partners’ impressions. The reflective rubric assesses and documents the student’s progress from pre-reflective also pre-evaluative thinking phase to Quasi-reflective thinking phase and the reflective thinking phase. The pre-reflective also known as pre-evaluative thinking stage in the service-learning design projects entails reply on unexamined before impressions of community partners and interactions that have no influence whatsoever on students before impressions. The Quasi-reflective also known as Quasi-evaluative thinking stage requires the use of present information as evidence for prior impressions but acknowledging the incompleteness of previous impressions of community partners since it is a service-learning project. The reflective also known as evaluative thinking stage entails the use of present information as evidence for prior impressions and as a basis for correction since it is a service-learning project.

Service-learning design projects get found to compliment the traditional engineering design projects in the training of a complete engineering undergraduate. This aspect is because engineers require more than technical skills alone tone to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Most of the difficulties in the society that require an engineer’s intervention for a solution need the use vast interaction and communication with individuals and professionals of diverse, social, cultural and economic backgrounds. Hence, an engineer is required to have a quality education to appreciate the impact of engineering and technology on societal and global context. This responsibility of preparing engineering students to meet these challenges belongs to reflection assignments in a service-learning design project.

The paper is well organized and planned, from the commencement where it describes the objective. The aim of the reflection materials is allowing learners to explore societal factors of engineering and technology. It then broadly explains the use of reflection rubric model and the reflective judgment model in developing a service learning reflection course materials. The mode of operation of the reflection rubric and the reflective judgment model are equally important. They are thus adequately explained in the context describing their origin, use, mode of operation and expected results. The description of the models is sufficient. Reflection assignments also get described as they get used for three community partners namely K-12 schools, habitat for humanity and grassroots environmental organizations. The undertaking of the entire assignment is systematic and described in length. The description of findings is also similar as it gets expressed in length. The documentation concludes on comparing the traditional design project and the service-learning design project, and describing why it is important in the training of more competent engineering students equipped to handle societal problems. The context provides adequate supportive evidence to beliefs and observations that are in the paper. Examples are used where necessary, such as the proposed reflection assignments in the paper. The outline of the context, the development and the use of supportive evidence in the paper are credible.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in college research papers if you need a similar paper you can place your order for order research paper.