Did you Learn Anything? An Exploration of Student Prior Knowledge and Course Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Este artículo trata sobre la importancia que tiene prestar la atención sobre el conocimiento previo de los estudiantes y cómo éste se adecúa a los objetivos de aprendizaje de las asignaturas. Este tema ha sido tratado por Bass en “The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: What’s the Problem?”, diciendo que ““I realized I didn’t know really if the better students in a course who demonstrated a real understanding of the material by the end of the semester were actually acquiring that understanding in my course, or were merely the percentage of students who entered the course with a high level of background and aptitude”. De hecho, es manifiesta la necesidad de que en asignaturas de diversas especialidades se realice un asesoramiento del conocimiento previo de los estudiantes, con el fin de poder identificar las estrategias más adecuadas para trabajar los aspectos en los que hay mayor déficit. Este artículo, por tanto, se basa en el estudio del aprendizaje, y por lo tanto hace uso de este tipo de filosofía para hacer un estudio comparativo de tres asignaturas de disciplinas distintas, explorando el problema del conocimiento previo, y cómo y cuánto mejora de cara al final de cada curso. Se basa en encuestas previas y posteriores, además de otros aspectos académicos. Haciendo uso de un espíritu colaborativo, este artículo facilita que otros profesores presente mayor importancia a qué exactamente deben saber los estudiantes para el final de curso, porqué los objetivos son importantes, y cómo facilitar que los estudiantes aprendan estos objetivos satisfactoriamente.

This paper addresses the importance of focusing on prior student knowledge and its relationship to course learning outcomes. Regarding this, Bass comments in the article “The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: What’s the Problem?” the following: “I realized I didn’t know really if the better students in a course who demonstrated a real understanding of the material by the end of the semester were actually acquiring that understanding in my course, or were merely the percentage of students who entered the course with a high level of background and aptitude” (3). Indeed, there is a need for professors across the curriculum in higher education to consider student prior knowledge in relation to course learning outcomes for the sake being able to emphasize specific learning outcomes and to help guide pedagogy. This paper, taking a scholarship of teaching and learning approach, focuses on three different courses and explores the problem of understanding student prior knowledge in relation to course learning outcomes and includes results pre and post student surveys, feedback from students, and final course grades. Overall, in a collaborative spirit, this paper seeks to help other professors refocus their attention on what they specifically want students to learn by the end of a course, why learning such objectives is important, and how to help students achieve these learning goals.