Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant Program

Grant recipient: Taco Niet, Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering

Project team: Trevor Barnes, research assistant

Timeframe: May 2021 to March 2022

Funding: $5,000

Course addressed: SEE 110 – Energy, Environment and Society

Final report: View Taco Niet's Final Report (PDF) >>

Description: For this project, I would like to find out if having students practice to competency on energy conversion and electrical energy concepts using the WeBWorK online homework platform can help set them up for success. Students coming into SEE 110 come from various educational backgrounds and have a variety of skills when it comes to basic energy literacy. Although all students have taken Physics 12, their recollection and ability to apply energy concepts, especially related to electrical energy, could often be improved. For example, some understand the concept of a kWh vs. a kW, while others struggle with this concept. Unfortunately, a lack of basic understanding can often snowball, and impact students as they proceed through the course and through their program.

Using the WeBWorK online homework platform allows for generation of random variables for student questions, for multi-part questions to be created, and for students to repeatedly attempt problems until they are successful. I want to see if having random question numbers enhances discussion amongst students about the concepts, rather than just the numbers/mechanics of solving a question. In addition, I hope that giving students multiple, competency-based assessment activities will reduce their stress and help them learn.  

Questions addressed: 

• Are students better able to complete more advanced energy assignments later in the course?
• Do the problems build competence?
  
• Do students feel empowered and less stressed when they have completed the WeBWorK problems?
• Do the random numbers in each question enhance student discussions?
  

Knowledge sharing: I intend to make the problems I create for this project open source and freely available for any other faculty at SFU, or elsewhere, to use. I plan to organize a discussion of the project at Faculty meetings, and to present findings at the Faculty of Applied Sciences’ The Teaching Talks. Finally, I believe that any program where energy literacy would be useful might benefit from this type of problem set.

Keywords: Energy Literacy, Energy System, Open-Source, STEM, Education, WeBWork