CyberInfrastructure-TEAM Implementation Project: The Signal Processing Education Network

Project Start Date: 
2010

 

As external evaluator for the project, Collaborative Research: CI-TEAM Implementation Project — The Signal Processing Education Network, ISKME formatively and summatively evaluated the project’s efforts to support a network of teachers, students and practitioners who collaboratively explored dynamic Signal Processing (SP) content as they worked to model real world science and engineering behaviors and inquiry-based teaching and learning practices.

 

 

 

Our Role: 

ISKME aimed to inform the project by examining how teachers and learners use, adapt, create, and evaluate SP resources and draw upon other network members in the process. Also assessed were the project’s impact on teaching and learning and its implications for scaling the SP Education Network model to other contexts, subjects and disciplines. The research goals were manifold. First, it sought to shed light on how the Signal Processing Education Network model is aligned to new teaching and learning practices for participating faculty and students. It also sought to inform the ways in which the SP Education Network model contributes to the engineering discipline, and conversely, what engineering as a discipline contributes to the model. Finally, the research attempted to provide insights into the ways that knowledge sharing occurs, types of knowledge shared, and the role of knowledge sharing in enhancing teaching and learning practices.

 

Data collection included interviews with project leaders, a baseline survey of faculty to assess extant teaching practices and perceptions, a baseline survey of existing SP content and its use, surveys of faculty and student participants to asses changes in teaching and learning perceptions and practices, analysis of artifacts on the SPEN and DSP community sites, and use analysis of activity on associated project sites. Data collection also included grades and enrollment and retention data for students to provide indications of the impact of the project on student learning, achievement and persistence.

 

Image Attribution: 
Image Credits: Image Licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en hazure http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazure/1370983253/
Research Questions: 
  • How and the extent to which the project’s Signal Processing content is created, shared, reused and evaluated by teachers, students, and other network community members.

  • The extent to which new teaching and learning practices are inspired and implemented as a result of participation in the Signal Processing Education Network.

  • The perceived impact of the Signal Processing Education Network and associated content, tools and processes on the role of teachers and learners, and on teaching and learning practices generally.

  • The successes and challenges of engaging in the Signal Processing Education Network, and the supports that best facilitate engagement by participants.

  • How the project’s education network model benefits engineering as a discipline, and how it might be scaled to other subjects and disciplines.

 

Service Areas: