Immersion Wort Chiller Optimization: Project-Based Learning in Undergraduate Heat Transfer

Project-Based Learning (PjBL) has been adopted as a highly effective teaching-learning style worldwide in the last few decades in the engineering educational community. Major benefits for students who participated in Project-Based Learning include achieving higher level of motivation, greater depth of understanding of basic concepts, increased creativity, improved teamwork skills and interpersonal communication skills. In this paper we reported a fun example project that can be used in undergraduate heat transfer class for Project-Based Learning: Optimization of an immersion wort chiller for a small-scale home beer brewing process. Students were self-grouped with three to five students in each group. Each group was then provided with a 10-foot-long copper tube of diameter 3/8 inch to design and optimize an immersion wort chiller that can cool a bucket of hot water as fast as possible. Preliminary evaluation of learning experience enhancement was performed by conducting a survey among the students at the end of the semester. The purpose of the survey was to identify what they had learned in such a project, and whether or not the project improved their learning experiences. Positive feedback and outcomes were observed.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Learning by teaching efficiently enhances learning outcomes in molecular biology of the cell course

To evaluate the impact of active learning approaches in a basic molecular and cell biology course for undergraduate students, we assessed the effect of learning by teaching and peer review on the learning outcomes. A literature seminar activity with peer review and feedback was organized as a compulsory activity for all students, covering about 25% of the course content. The remaining 75% of the course was delivered as classical lectures. The students collaborated in groups to present the content of a review article complemented with a research article. For each group of students, an opponent group was assigned to challenge the presenting group by questions and contribute to the evaluation of the presentation together with the teacher. Based on the feedback survey, the students reacted positively to this active learning exercise, and they strongly recommended keeping it in the future editions of the course. The students\u27 exam scores strongly indicated that the learning outcomes from the learning by teaching part of the course were consistently higher than from the classical lecture part of the course. Further optimization of the active learning part of the course is outlined based on student feedback

Model Sekolah Adiwiyata Melalui Program Asistensi Mengajar Berbasis Pembelajaran Experiential

The study aims to get descriptions of (1) collaboration between teachers and students; (2) the development of Adiwiyata school model; and (3) optimizing Adiwiyata schools through a teaching assistance program based on experiential learning. This study used a qualitative descriptive method with a survey and development research design. The data sources of this research were the residents of SMP 12 Malang and students of the teaching assistance program at the Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Brawijaya. The key instrument of this research was the researcher, assisted by using a questionnaire instrument and observation and interview guidelines. Data analysis was carried out through the stages of (1) data review, (2) data category and classification, (3) data reduction and codification, and (4) drawing conclusions. The research showed (1) students and teacher collaboration in an experiential learning-based teaching assistance program was the students manage the learning in the Concrete Experience and Active Experimentation stages while the teacher manages the learning in the Reflective Observation and Abstract Conceptualization stages; (2) the development of the Adiwiyata school model through the experiential learning-based teaching assistance program was carried out by reviewing the school's vision, mission, and goals, developing a learning plan using the experiential learning method, and developing an environment-based learning arena; and (3) optimization of Adiwiyata schools through experiential learning-based teaching assistance programs was carried out through habituation with a participatory approach

Quantifying Changes in Creativity: Findings from an Engineering Course on the Design of Complex and Origami Structures

Engineering educators have increasingly sought strategies for integrating the arts into their curricula. The primary objective of this integration varies, but one common objective is to improve students’ creative thinking skills. In this paper, we sought to quantify changes in student creativity that resulted from participation in a mechanical engineering course targeted at integrating engineering, technology, and the arts. The course was team taught by instructors from mechanical engineering and art. The art instructor introduced origami principles and techniques as a means for students to optimize engineering structures. Through a course project, engineering student teams interacted with art students to perform structural analysis on an origami-based art installation, which was the capstone project of the art instructor’s undergraduate origami course. Three engineering student teams extended this course project to collaborate with the art students in the final design and physical installation. To evaluate changes in student creativity, we used two instruments: a revised version of the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA) and the Innovative Behavior Scales. Initially, the survey contained 12 constructs, but three were removed due to poor internal consistency reliability: Extrinsic Motivation; Intrinsic Motivation; and Tolerance of Ambiguity. The nine remaining constructs used for comparison herein included: • Originality: Confidence in developing original, innovative ideas • Ideation: Confidence in generating many ideas • Risk Taking: Adventurous; Brave • Openness of Process: Engaging various potentialities and resisting closure • Iterative Processing: Willingness to iterate on one’s solution • Questioning: Tendency to ask lots of questions • Experimenting/exploring: Tendency to physically or mentally take things apart • Idea networking: Tendency to engage with diverse others in communicative acts • Observing: Tendency to observe the surrounding world By conducting a series of paired t-tests to ascertain if pre and post-course responses were significantly different on the above constructs, we found five significant changes. In order of significance, these included Idea Networking; Questioning; Observing; Originality; and Ideation. To help explain these findings, and to identify how this course may be improved in subsequent offerings, the discussion includes the triangulation of these findings in light of teaching observations, responses from a mid-semester student focus group session, and informal faculty reflections. We close with questions that we and others ought to address as we strive to integrate engineering, technology, and the arts. We hope that these findings and discussion will guide other scholars and instructors as they explore the impact of art on engineering design learning, and as they seek to evaluate student creativity resulting from courses with similar aims

IEEE Access special section editorial: Artificial intelligence enabled networking

With today’s computer networks becoming increasingly dynamic, heterogeneous, and complex, there is great interest in deploying artificial intelligence (AI) based techniques for optimization and management of computer networks. AI techniques—that subsume multidisciplinary techniques from machine learning, optimization theory, game theory, control theory, and meta-heuristics—have long been applied to optimize computer networks in many diverse settings. Such an approach is gaining increased traction with the emergence of novel networking paradigms that promise to simplify network management (e.g., cloud computing, network functions virtualization, and software-defined networking) and provide intelligent services (e.g., future 5G mobile networks). Looking ahead, greater integration of AI into networking architectures can help develop a future vision of cognitive networks that will show network-wide intelligent behavior to solve problems of network heterogeneity, performance, and quality of service (QoS)

Operational Research in Education

Operational Research (OR) techniques have been applied, from the early stages of the discipline, to a wide variety of issues in education. At the government level, these include questions of what resources should be allocated to education as a whole and how these should be divided amongst the individual sectors of education and the institutions within the sectors. Another pertinent issue concerns the efficient operation of institutions, how to measure it, and whether resource allocation can be used to incentivise efficiency savings. Local governments, as well as being concerned with issues of resource allocation, may also need to make decisions regarding, for example, the creation and location of new institutions or closure of existing ones, as well as the day-to-day logistics of getting pupils to schools. Issues of concern for managers within schools and colleges include allocating the budgets, scheduling lessons and the assignment of students to courses. This survey provides an overview of the diverse problems faced by government, managers and consumers of education, and the OR techniques which have typically been applied in an effort to improve operations and provide solutions