Study on the use of a combination of IPython Notebook and an industry‐standard package in educating a CFD course

It is common that industry‐standard packages are used in teaching professional engineering courses in final‐year undergraduate and postgraduate levels. To improve the competency of students in using such professional packages, it is important that students develop a good understanding of theoretical/fundamental concepts used on the packages. However, it is always a challenge to teach theoretical/fundamental concepts in the computational‐related courses. The teaching of such subjects can be improved by the use of advanced open‐source web applications. The present research proposes an approach based upon the combination of Jupyter Notebook and an industry‐standard package to teach an applied, computationally related course. We investigate the use of backward design and a novel tool called IPython (Jupyter) Notebook to redesign a postgraduate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) course. IPython Notebook is used to design a series of integrated lecture slides and tutorial tasks, and also one of the assignments for the blended‐learning‐based, semester‐run, CFD course. The tool allows the implementation of backward curriculum design and a learn‐by‐doing approach in redesigning the course. The materials produced were used on the first part of the course which contributed 40% towards the course's final mark and delivered the fundamental concepts of CFD over the first half of the semester. The remaining 60% of the mark was based on a final project from the materials taught on using an industry‐standard CFD package in solving complex CFD problems during the second half of the semester. It was shown that the Ipython environment is a very useful tool which provides learning‐by‐doing practices allowing students to have a coherent integrated lecture, tutorial, and assignment material in a highly interactive way. It improved (a) students' engagement in teaching complex theoretical concepts, (b) students satisfaction of the course and (c) students performance in working with the industry‐standard package over the second half of the semester

A Virtual Community of Practice to Introduce Evidence-based Pedagogy in Chemical, Materials, and Biological Engineering Courses

This paper describes a model for a virtual community of practice (VCP) to support faculty efforts to adopt research-based instructional strategies in Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering courses. The VCP was built on published recommendations for successful faculty development programs. The VCP program began with a 10 week virtual training period for five pairs of VCP leaders, during which they acquired the skills and knowledge needed to lead the faculty VCP. The faculty VCPs focused on one of five technical disciplines and were led by a pair of leaders having expertise in a specific technical focus area as well as in engineering pedagogy. Workshops were held using Internet conferencing software: the first 8 weekly workshops provided training in research-based pedagogy, and the second 8 biweekly workshops supported faculty efforts to implement chosen strategies in their courses. The participants were full-time faculty members with a range of teaching experience and pedagogical expertise, ranging from novice to expert. Improvement was measured via pre/post survey in the areas of familiarity and use of research-based pedagogy, as well as in perceived student motivation. The second part of the paper focuses on the translation of faculty participant experiences from the VCP into the classroom as they implemented a variety of instructional methods in their courses. We describe their approaches and preliminary results using different instructional methods such as flipping the classroom, using game-based pedagogy, promoting positive interdependence in cooperative-learning teams, peer instruction, small group discussion, Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), and using Bloom’s Taxonomy to structure a course

The UCL Integrated Engineering Programme

In 2014, the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences introduced the Integrated Engineering Programme – a revision of eight existing degree programmes across a range of engineering disciplines. Centered on a thread of authentic project-based activities, the programme aimed to enhance the students’ understanding of key theoretical concepts and heighten the development of key professional skills. This paper provides an outline of the rationale for the various project-based activities implemented, details their key features and described the impact these activities have had on the students’ development of key skills

LTC Newsletter

Fall 2006https://ecommons.udayton.edu/ltc_newsletter/1003/thumbnail.jp

College of Engineering

Cornell University Courses of Study Vol. 94 2002/200

Engineering handbook

1996 handbook for the faculty of Engineerin

Integrated technologies instructional method to enhance bilingual undergraduate engineering students

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonMathematics permeates almost every aspect of human life and it is a skill much needed by the increasingly complex technological world. It is necessary that this essential skill must be properly developed among students to prepare them for future academic and professional careers. An assessment of the research-based instructional strategies blending with old traditional methods with the modern technological development is a must. Due to the complexity of mathematics learning and the varied learning styles of learners, an integration of appropriate multiple instructional strategies into mathematics education will positively impact mathematical achievement of students. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of the use of Integrated Technologies Instructional Method (ITIM) as a supplement to the traditional lecture method on mathematics achievement of the Integral Calculus students at the College of Engineering, University of Ha'il, Saudi Arabia. The ITIM includes the four instructional strategies such as the use of the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, the collaborative learning, the bilingual support and the study support. Different types of academic supports have been used to examine their effects on students achievement in mathematics. Mathematics, the bedrock of science and engineering, is considered a very important indicator of a student's academic success in professional higher education. Undergraduate engineering students' low achievement in the first year mathematics is an issue demands much attention. The study was undertaken to address students' weak background in mathematics and particularly their high failure rates in this particular course. A total of 218 undergraduate engineering students, comprising of both the experimental and the control groups, were involved in this experimental design study. The control group was taught by the traditional lecture method whereas the experimental group was exposed to the ITIM as a supplement to the traditional lecture method. Apart from the effects of the use of ITIM, students' performance in the previous courses (covariates) such as mathematics, computer, and the English language were compared with their final grades of the Integral Calculus course. The final grades of students were taken as the dependent variable and the ITIM and students' scores in the previous courses as the independent variables. It has been noticed from the literature review that the application of only one instructional strategy does not address the needs of the diverse learning styles of students. A mixed mode method, quantitative and qualitative, was used to collect and analyse data. The quantitative data instruments included students' final exam grades and the student questionnaires. Interviews with students were used as qualitative tools of data collection. An independent t-test, ANOVA, univariate analysis and the stepwise multiple regression analysis were performed to determine the overall statistical significance. The study concluded that there was a statistically significant difference in the performance of the experimental group of students' in terms of their end-of-course grades compared to that of the control group. The regression model revealed significance of covariates on the dependent variable. However, no significant relationship was found between the mathematics achievement and attitudes towards the use of ITIM. The study was an attempt to demonstrate the suitability of the instructional strategies on the bilingual Arab undergraduate engineering students; however, they can probably be applicable to other bilingual students

Engineering handbook

2004 handbook for the faculty of Engineerin

Engineering handbook

2004 handbook for the faculty of Engineerin