Twiducate Post

A) The primary result of the study presented was to conclude that higher level reflection was impacted by two sources, High Level Prompts and High Level Observation. Interestingly, the quality of peer reviews did not impact levels of student reflection. In terms of what this means in relation to online learning, It seems that students tend to reflect and respond at higher levels when the questioning performed by the teacher is set up in such a way that the questions prompt students into higher levels of thought such as analysis and synthesis. By providing guidance to student thoughts, they then can understand where their thoughts should lead them and thus think on a higher level. Additionally, by seeing high level examples to reflect upon, students gain a better understanding of the breadth and depth of reflection expected in the activity. Finally, in asynchronous discussion it seems that not as much credit is given to student feedback, most likely because by its very nature asynchronous discussions do not create a rapid back and forth dialogue. Thus, individuals are not as concerned with the feedback from their peers. I believe this also happens because people are typically more concerned about the content of their primary or "Main" posts rather than responding to their peer's remarks. Additionally, peer remarks often tend to be vague or unsubstantial and thus do not merit a deeper level of thought. Coupled with the lack of a face to face environment and the intimacy such an environment creates, there is little respect for peer feedback.

B) One of the primary goals of robotics (and engineering as a whole) is to problem solve. Often problems and their solutions arise from experiences within our lives or that we may indirectly experience. For example, when my dogs go out in the morning to use the bathroom, their paws get wet from the dew. In order to keep them from tracking water into the house, I have to wipe their paws off every morning. When I am in a hurry to get ready, this becomes time consuming and irritating (not to mention I am lazy about this). To alleviate this problem, I could come up with a paw drying solution such as a mat to dry my dogs feet better. In order to get my students thinking about how to solve problems and have them develop their own solutions, I would ask them to take mental (or written) notes of things that bother them on a daily basis in their lives. Once they have reflected on these irritations, I would then ask them to choose one and develop a solution for this problem. They could then describe or explain their problem and solution as well as its pros and cons (requiring more reflection) and then could ask them to use the design principles they learned in class to create a model or prototype of their solution. If they are unable to prototype, I could have them find another creative way of pitching their idea to the class. In line with the observations made by Chen, Wei, Wu, and Uden, I could then provide examples for them of past classes that had high-level, successful solutions.