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Scalable apprenticeships: reconnecting students through technology

Published:30 June 2008Publication History
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Abstract

Today's students are typically over scheduled and hyper-connected, yet increasingly disconnected with their education. The classroom into which they step for core science, technology and engineering subjects is often removed from both the practice of the disciplines being taught and the technology tools which pervade other aspects of their life. A significant challenge is to reconnect the excitement and discovery that drew faculty into their disciplines back to the learning environments of STEM and CSE students they teach. Peer Instruction (inserting discussion and formative assessment into lecture) and project-based learning are two promising attempts at recapturing the process of science and engineering in introductory coursers.

Recent experiments in freshman project-based seminars such as nanoscale engineering and a major redesign of the introductory Course 6 (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) at MIT are exploring ways to bring apprenticeship back to both small and large classes. Through Python-based tutoring tools, layered mentoring that includes just-in-time "guest laboratory assistants" to achieve 1:4 instructor-student ratios in large courses, and careful attention to learning space design new strategies for scaled apprenticeships are being forged.

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      • Published in

        cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
        ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 40, Issue 3
        ITiCSE '08
        September 2008
        362 pages
        ISSN:0097-8418
        DOI:10.1145/1597849
        Issue’s Table of Contents
        • cover image ACM Conferences
          ITiCSE '08: Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
          June 2008
          394 pages
          ISBN:9781605580784
          DOI:10.1145/1384271

        Copyright © 2008 ACM

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        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        • Published: 30 June 2008

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