Enhancing the Outcomes of Weekly Readings: Completion, Depth and Criticality

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant Program

Grant recipient: Vivian Neal, School of Sustainable Energy Engineering

Project team: Sarah Garner, research assistant

Timeframe: June 2021 to May 2022

Funding: $5,192

Courses addressed:

• SEE 101W – Process, Form and Convention in Professional Genres
• SEE 896/897 – MASc/PhD Research Seminar (combined)

Final report: View Vivian Neal’s final report (PDF)

Description: I’d like to find out the best way to motivate students to do the readings. In particular, I’d like to know what pedagogical methods will result in students reading more thoroughly, more deeply, and with greater criticality. I want to identify what motivates students to spend more time with a reading, so they can identify the message in the reading, and summarize that message. Reflection is not a focus in engineering education, but it’s an important factor in deep learning. I believe that reading effectively is the foundation of good writing and effective research – which are the focuses of the two courses studied here. SEE is expecting to graduate change makers that will make the world more sustainable. If SEE faculty members know how to support students to think and reflect more critically, we will achieve this.

Questions addressed:

• How much of the assigned weekly readings do students do?
• How much do students gain when they actually complete most or all of the weekly readings and to what extent are they using deep reading methods or critical reading methods?
• What are students’ perceptions of the value of the readings?
• How do we design the reading assignment to increase the amount, depth and criticality of reading?

Knowledge sharing: We plan to make a presentation at the SFU Symposium on Teaching and Learning. We will share the final report with colleagues in SEE.

Keywords: Reading Engagement, Reading Motivation, Engineering Education, Depth of Reading, Critical Reading