‘Learning by doing’: a teaching method for active learning in scientific graduate education

Abstract

This article describes an active learning method for the teaching of physical sciences and mathematics to engineers. After defining the challenges involved in the training of engineers, we shall describe the answers provided by our method, ‘learning by doing’ (named ‘Apprentissage Par l’Action’ in French), by introducing four key points: real-life simulation, the management of non-success, the result requirement and the different roles of the teachers. An assessment of this experience is carried out which emphasizes the factors paramount in the success of this pedagogical innovation. Similarities between our experience and other well-known methods such as problem-based learning, problem solving and, more generally, the concept of learning by doing coined by John Dewey in his philosophy of education, are mentioned.

Keywords:

• Active learning
• ‘Learning by doing’
• Scientific graduate education
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Multidisciplinary approach
• Professionalization of engineers

Notes

The translation from French into English for the expression ‘apprentissage par l’action’ would be ‘learning by doing’; but this translation could be ambiguous after the formalization in the early 20th century of ‘learning by doing’ by John Dewey as a key concept of his philosophy. The expression ‘learning by doing’ is still used by Dewey’s continuators. For example, psychologists such as Jerome Bruner or Jean Piaget developed Dewey’s intuitions from their observations of a child’s behaviour in front of learning challenges in complete theories of learning. Our experience is far from being so elaborated. Therefore, we chose not to use the translation in the text. As an outlook of this article, we shall argue that ‘learning by doing’ seems to be a good translation of ‘apprentissage par l’action’ because of similarities of our method with Dewey’s thinking about learning sciences and technologies.

The Zap! method was developed by CALTECH and is part of the wider hands-on methods common in the USA at all levels of teaching of experimental sciences. In France, the movement inspired ‘La Main à la Pâte’ method (literally meaning ‘getting down to it’ method) for primary teaching. Please see Germinet (1997) for the relationship between US and French methods and the implication of certain researchers in the development of this active learning methods. See Pine et al. (1996) for the ZAP! method. See Rauch (2001) on the APA method in sciences and the publications cited in this article. See Education Development Centre (2003) for examples of hands-on teaching.

For details and other examples of real-life simulations used in ‘APA-mathematics’, see http://www.ale2002.dtv.dk/presentations/Ludovic%20Bot.pdf.

http://home.earthlink.net/∼dougary/ITEC_800/final_project/dewey.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/∼dougary/ITEC_800/final_project/dewey.htm and http://home.earthlink.net/∼dougary/ITEC_800/final_project/constructivism.htm; italics are added to show similarities with APA.