Research Projects

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Platform for Investigating Concept Networks on the Instrumentality of Knowledge (PICNIK)

PI Matthew Verleger

This engineering education research project seeks to develop a concept network for engineering and a platform for helping students identify how concepts are connected across a curriculum. The goal is to better understand and improve how students value the concepts being taught throughout their education.

By data mining course materials (i.e., textbooks, course notes, syllabi, video transcripts, websites, etc.), a concept network can be developed for that course. With each additional resource, the network connectedness become more fully representative. By mapping materials from courses throughout a curriculum, and then overlaying the resulting map on a degree plan of study, students will be able to better identify and value how concepts being taught today are connected and used throughout the rest of their education. For instructors, curricular redesign becomes significantly easier, as they will be able to more fully contextualize how other courses depend on their material.