Textile Teaching & Learning Initiative

The following series of Annual Reports submitted to NTC summarize the work performed for this initiative.

This report summarizes an assessment of current instructional approaches and performance assessments used with various textile courses. The primary question of interest is, what are the current strengths and weaknesses of our instructional approaches? The report considers the learning styles and temperaments of students, plus the attributes that the textile industries value in future employees. Our current instructional approach has been modified to include chapter-reading assignments that promote active learning in our introductory textile course. In addition, data on the learning styles and temperaments of students in various textile degree programs have been collected. These data will be analyzed as part of our evaluation of current instructional approaches. The data will be used in selection of additional teaching strategies.

This report evaluates the effectiveness of several instructional methods including chapter reading, formatted discussions, learning aids, and group projects. The methods selected are targeted to improve higher order cognitive skill development in an introductory textile course. The report refers to a trial industry survey. Inputs from this trial have been used to develop the final survey form that has been distributed (October 2001 report) to NTC industry partners. Results from this survey are being used to demonstrate how various instructional methods augment skills that are important in the workplace (to be published in the October 2002 report).

This report includes results of the survey of NTC industry partners. The respondents have rated their level of satisfaction with various workplace skills, ranked the skills considered critical, and identified trade-offs they would be willing to make to enhance development of these competencies in an academic environment. Industry survey results are being incorporated into our evaluation of instructional methods. The project is identifying the ways in which chapter reading, formatted discussions, learning aids, group projects, and other instructional methods increase learning of workplace skills. These findings are being incorporated into a web-based resource for instructors in the textile fields.