Special session: Model eliciting activities - Instructor perspectives

As part of a larger NSF-funded project to develop Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) in engineering courses (MEDIA), the authors of this paper have piloted selected MEAs in their courses. This paper will describe their experiences within the context of available student learning data. An MEA is designed to present student teams with a realistic, thought provoking scenario that requires the development of a generalized mathematical model. A well-designed MEA is built around a main concept that the instructor wants students either to discover and/or better understand. Data from these experiments can be used to determine the value added for students completing MEAs compared with other types of problem-solving activities including problem-based learning exercises. Using an MEA also causes documented, positive change in the faculty members themselves.