Methodologies to attain Graduate Attributes at Class Level

Abstract

Traditional teaching methodologies cover only 4 Graduate Attributes (GAs). These are GA1, GA2, GA3 and GA4. Remaining 8 Graduate Attributes will be accomplished with the new methods. In this work, activities based on active, cooperative, inductive, project, and emotional based learning methodologies are proposed. Proposed activities are designed by considering cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains of the blooms taxonomy. These activities are implemented at class level. In detail procedure to implement these methodologies in each course is presented. Hence, each course is mapped with more number Graduate Attributes. These methodologies include activities like the interactive sessions, group based assignments, case based assignments, and mini project in every course. Graduate Attributes like modern tool usage, individual/team work, communication, ethics, project management, and lifelong learning are better mapped with these new methodologies. Further, evaluation methods also proposed in this work. Experiments are performed on two classes of 60 students each. One class is taught by traditional teaching methods. Second class is taught by the proposed methodologies at course level. Performance of students in higher order thinking and lower order thinking is also assessed. Experimental results indicate that higher order thinking among students is improved. Hence, critical thinking is improved. Further, each course is mapped to 12 Graduate Attributes. Hence, possibility of attaining more Graduate Attributes is improved. Practice of proposed methodologies at class level improves the student�s attendance.