Using Kolb’s Learning Cycle to Improve Student Sustainability Knowledge

Mary Katherine Watson, Joshua Pelkey, Caroline Noyes and Michael O. Rodgers
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Mary Katherine Watson: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29409, USA
Joshua Pelkey: VMware, Atlanta, GA 30338, USA
Caroline Noyes: The University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70718, USA
Michael O. Rodgers: The Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: Engineers are increasingly called upon to develop and implement innovative solutions that serve a growing population, while simultaneously exploiting fewer resources and minimizing environmental impacts. As such, improvements in undergraduate curricula are needed to train students to operate under a sustainable development paradigm. A learning-cycle-based sustainability module was adapted and implemented in a cornerstone design course within a civil engineering program at a large, research-intensive institution in the United States. One cornerstone cohort participated in a peer-lecture version of the module, while the second cohort participated in a peer-discussion version. Concept maps, scored using three different methods, were used to measure changes in students’ sustainability knowledge. A self-report survey was used to measure changes in students’ perceptions of their sustainability knowledge and skills. Students in both the peer-lecture and peer-discussion cohorts demonstrated improved sustainability knowledge networks and confidences after participation in the module. However, peer-lecture students showed greater improvements in knowledge connectedness (a feature of expert-like knowledge) than peer-discussion students. Regardless of cohort, cornerstone students demonstrated greater gains in knowledge and confidence than did a cohort of capstone students who participated in an earlier implementation of the module. Future implementations may be most impactful if the peer-discussion format is integrated into early design courses.

Keywords: sustainable design; Kolb’s learning cycle; civil engineering; concept maps (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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