Integrating Online Discussions into Engineering Curriculum to Endorse Interdisciplinary Viewpoints, Promote Authentic Learning, and Improve Information Literacy

Engineering is very much an applied discipline where math and science concepts, skills, and tools can be used to design products or processes with new and/or increased value. Research suggests active learning is an effective method for teaching and learning in the engineering classroom. Moreover, students continue to express increased satisfaction when taught using this experiential pedagogical approach. One approach to active learning gaining traction in the engineering classroom is the use of online discussions. The purpose of this paper is to offer a structured approach for engineering educators to develop online discussion prompts aimed to prepare engineering students for entering the workforce; this structure approach includes an intentional and purposeful focus on three core elements: (1) interdisciplinary viewpoints, (2) real-world and authentic experiences, and (3) information literacy applications. A mixed methods analysis provides evidence towards student exposure and awareness to the three core elements of interdisciplinary viewpoints, real world and authentic experiences, and information literacy applications. In addition, students reported a positive experience participating in online discussions, and improvements in student perception changes related to blended learning and self-regulated learning

Helping first year engineering students Get Set for success in their studies

The increasing diversity of the student population in higher education gives rise to issues relating to the ability to engage all students in productive and fulfilling learning experiences. With diversity comes an acknowledgement of the variety of learning spaces occupied by incoming students, and the need to ensure that those spaces become places of learning. The strategy proposed in this study to transform space into place is an online pre-test of first year engineering students, the Get Set quiz. This quiz enables commencing engineering students to self-test their readiness to study their chosen courses by measuring and providing individualised feedback on a number of cognitive and non-cognitive factors shown to be significant predictors of academic success. The best time for such self-assessment is prior to the commencement of their studies. Get Set helps set the scene for establishing place, by giving students the confidence that they have made an informed career choice, and/or by linking them with appropriate support mechanisms if necessary. Students are directed to support both on campus and online to help develop an individual study plan to address any knowledge and skills gaps. This proactive approach to independent learning improves students' self-awareness and helps them self-reflect on their approaches to learning, better preparing them for their studies

Teaching and learning first-year engineering mathematics over a distance: A critical view over two consecutive years

This article reports on the empirical results and practical aspects concerning the teaching and learning of first-year engineering mathematics at a distance. The investigation over two consecutive years (2020 and 2021) is meant to yield prospects and contribute to the development of suitable pedagogies for online mathematics teaching and learning for engineering students in South Africa in the future. In 2020, lecturers were faced with a “sudden” shift from face-to-face to online teaching and the focus was to save the academic year and leave no student behind; in 2021 the situation was unchanged. Lecturers had to consider key aspects (such as the module structure, teaching theory and practice, and perspectives on “what can work”) in the transition and continuation from face-toface to fully online and developing a suitable teaching and learning approach. Approximately 1000 first-year engineering students at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, were exposed to the newly developed online teaching and learning approach in both years. The approach includes the following key elements: an evaluation of prior knowledge by a diagnostic test; an investigation of students’ attitudes towards mathematics by means of the SATM questionnaire; weekly virtual lecture and tutorial sessions; weekly homework tasks; additional online resources; discussion forums between all role players (students, tutors and lecturers); online tutor support; the use of e-textbooks and online assessments via the university learning management system and an external platform (such as WeBWorK). Both years followed a similar approach, although slight changes were implemented in 2021. Descriptive statistics from key elements were used to monitor the students’ involvement and progress in both years. Results show the teaching and learning approach is effective but has room for improvement. Particularly, the results encourage addressing the needs of the students and lecturers when implementing pedagogical aspects in learning mathematics at a distance

The impact of online learning: mechanical engineering education perspectives

An emerging issue in both the mechanical engineering field and almost all other study disciplines is online learning. Many universities have changed their teaching strategies and are investing heavily in the online presentation of coursework without much investment dealing with lecturers. The migration from a traditional learning technique to online learning has grown rapidly over time. However, the problem is whether all students are ready for the transition from traditional face to face learning to online learning. This research explores the impact of an online learning approach within the mechanical engineering context. The focus of this study was to identify the improvement in the satisfaction, performance and self-confidence of the mechanical students in learning the Mechanical Engineering Design module using the online method. There are four stages involved in this research work. The first stage was problem discovery involving review of related literature and a preliminary study conducted to investigate the student experiences and teacher perceptions on the existing learning techniques for the mechanical design process. This preliminary study also aimed to identify the difficulties and problems faced by students that have resulted in the suggestion of a learning approach using computer technology. The second stage involved the designing and developing of a new prototype web-based learning system. A System Development Life Cycle model (SDLC) was applied comprising four phases of a concept, design, coding and testing. The third stage was the implementation and data collection. A main study was conducted with 160 mechanical engineering students from three different levels of study at one of the universities in Brunei Darussalam. Finally, the fourth stage was data analysis using SPSS statistical software. Based on the main findings, a significant difference was found between the experienced and inexperienced students in terms of their learning satisfaction in using online learning. Significant differences were also identified in terms of time taken between the experienced and inexperienced students when using traditional and online techniques of learning to solve the simple task. Additionally, the findings also indicated that there were significant differences among the experienced and inexperienced students in terms of marks performance in solving complex tasks using the online web-based learning system. The study has shown that the online learning approach is expected to be useful as an additional learning tool to the existing traditional learning technique, particularly in the context of engineering education

Design and Implementation of Online Learning Environments

This thesis describes a systematic approach in the design and implementation of online learning environments. This approach incorporates the principles of human learning as well as the best practices in software engineering. This thesis implements a conceptual model for the design, and it describes how software elements can be developed to comply with the model. In the context of this research two online environments are developed and analyzed. The end product of this approach is a robust and reusable software architecture, a framework for design, and an effective and engaging model suited to online learning environments

Design and Implementation of Online Learning Environments

This thesis describes a systematic approach in the design and implementation of online learning environments. This approach incorporates the principles of human learning as well as the best practices in software engineering. This thesis implements a conceptual model for the design, and it describes how software elements can be developed to comply with the model. In the context of this research two online environments are developed and analyzed. The end product of this approach is a robust and reusable software architecture, a framework for design, and an effective and engaging model suited to online learning environments

Design and Implementation of Online Learning Environments

This thesis describes a systematic approach in the design and implementation of online learning environments. This approach incorporates the principles of human learning as well as the best practices in software engineering. This thesis implements a conceptual model for the design, and it describes how software elements can be developed to comply with the model. In the context of this research two online environments are developed and analyzed. The end product of this approach is a robust and reusable software architecture, a framework for design, and an effective and engaging model suited to online learning environments

Narrative-driven immersion and students perceptions in an online software programming course

iLRN 2021. Online and in Virtual Reality (17 May - 10 June, 2021)Learning software programming is challenging for software engineering students. In this paper, students’ engagement in learning software engineering programming is considered under the SimProgramming approach using the OC2-RD2 narrative technique to create an immersive learning context. The objectives of this paper are twofold: presenting a narrative-driven immersive learning approach to introduce software engineering concepts and coding techniques to online undergraduate students; and analyzing the students’ feedback on this approach. Thematic analysis of the metacognitive tasks was performed on the students’ fortnightly reflections about their learning progress. Content analysis was based on interest categories, students’ perceptions, metacognitive challenges, narratives, examples and aspects to be kept or to be improved. Data from the content analysis were organized into categories, subcategories, indicators, and recording units and their categorization was peer-reviewed. The narratives were considered by the students as interesting, appealing, akin to professional reality and promoting interaction. Most students thought the approach was helpful for learning software programming.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Learning a Neural Semantic Parser from User Feedback

We present an approach to rapidly and easily build natural language interfaces to databases for new domains, whose performance improves over time based on user feedback, and requires minimal intervention. To achieve this, we adapt neural sequence models to map utterances directly to SQL with its full expressivity, bypassing any intermediate meaning representations. These models are immediately deployed online to solicit feedback from real users to flag incorrect queries. Finally, the popularity of SQL facilitates gathering annotations for incorrect predictions using the crowd, which is directly used to improve our models. This complete feedback loop, without intermediate representations or database specific engineering, opens up new ways of building high quality semantic parsers. Experiments suggest that this approach can be deployed quickly for any new target domain, as we show by learning a semantic parser for an online academic database from scratch.Comment: Accepted at ACL 201