38,834 research outputs found

    Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game

    Get PDF
    The aim of this study was to investigate the use of a newly developed design game called BLOCKS to stimulate awareness of ethical responsibilities amongst engineering students. The design game was played by seventeen teams of chemical engineering students, with each team having to arrange pieces of colored paper to produce two letters each. Before the end of the game, additional constraints were introduced to the teams such that they faced similar ambiguity in the technical facts that the engineers involved in the Challenger disaster had faced prior to the space shuttle launch. At this stage, the teams had to decide whether to continue with their original design or to develop alternative solutions. After the teams had made their decisions, a video of the Challenger explosion was shown followed by a post-game discussion. The students’ opinion on five Statements on ethics was tracked via a Five-Item Likert survey which was administered three times, before and after the ethical scenario was introduced, and after the video and post-game discussion. The results from this study indicated that the combination of the game and the real-life incident from the video had generally strengthened the students’ opinions of the Statements

    Development of interactive and remote learning instruments for engineering education

    Get PDF
    Many educators have argued for and against the use of remote aids in support of student learning. Some proponents argue that only remote laboratories should be used whereas others argue for the requirement for hands on experience with associated tactical, visual and auditory learning experiences. In this paper we present the methodology for developing a middle ground Virtual Instruments that can be used as a complement learning aid to the hands on laboratory and also if necessary, with added features, can be used as a remote version of the laboratory

    Code girl

    Get PDF
    Despite the growing importance of technology and computing, fewer than 1% of women in college today choose to major in computer science.[1] Educational programs and games created to interest girls in computing, such as Girls Who Code and Made With Code, have been successful in engaging girls with interactive and creative learning environments, but they are too advanced for young girls to bene t from. To address the lack of educational, computer science games designed speci cally for young girls, we developed a web-based application called Code Girl for girls age ve to eight to customize their own avatar using Blockly, an open-source visual coding editor developed by Google. Girls learn basic computer science and problem-solving skills by successfully using puzzle-piece like blocks to complete challenges that unlock new accessories for their avatar. In conducting user testing with a Girl Scouts ages six to eight, we assessed the complexity of the application and identi ed ways make Code Girl more user-friendly and intuitive. The overall feedback we received on Code Girl in user testing was positive, as a majority of the girls expressed an interest in playing the game again and playing more games designed to teach programming. Code Girl thus appeals to the general pastimes of young girls to interest them in computer science from an early age and hopefully inspires them to pursue computing as a career. Before being released to the public, a few improvements are necessary. The application must be made fully responsive, the page load time when deployed must be reduced, and additional challenges and accessories for the avatar should be incorporated, all of which will better reach and engage users in learning about computing, thereby educating and empowering them even more

    Human-centred design methods : developing scenarios for robot assisted play informed by user panels and field trials

    Get PDF
    Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright ElsevierThis article describes the user-centred development of play scenarios for robot assisted play, as part of the multidisciplinary IROMEC1 project that develops a novel robotic toy for children with special needs. The project investigates how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents, etc.). This article explains the developmental process of constructing relevant play scenarios for children with different special needs. Results are presented from consultation with panel of experts (therapists, teachers, parents) who advised on the play needs for the various target user groups and who helped investigate how robotic toys could be used as a play tool to assist in the children’s development. Examples from experimental investigations are provided which have informed the development of scenarios throughout the design process. We conclude by pointing out the potential benefit of this work to a variety of research projects and applications involving human–robot interactions.Peer reviewe

    Innovative learning in action (ILIA) issue four: New academics engaging with action research

    Get PDF
    This edition of ILIA showcases four papers which were originally submitted as action research projects on the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice and Research programme. Within the programme we offer an environment where participants can explore their unique teaching situations – not to produce all-encompassing approaches to Higher Education (HE) practice but to develop an ongoing dialogue about the act of teaching. In effect, there are no generalisable ‘best’ methods of teaching because they never work as well as ‘locally produced practice in action’ (Kincheloe, 2003:15). Thus rather than providing short term ‘survival kits’ the programme offers new HE teachers a ‘frame’ for examining their own and their colleagues’ teaching alongside questioning educational purpose and values in the pursuit of pedagogical improvement. This ‘frame’ is action research which Ebbutt (1985:156) describes as: 
The systematic study of attempts to change and improve educational practice by groups of participants by means of their own practical actions and by means of their own reflections upon the effects of their actions
 We promote ‘practitioner-research’ or ‘teacher-research’ as a way of facilitating professional development for new HE teachers, promoting change and giving a voice to their developing personal and professional knowledge. Teachers as researchers embark upon an action orientated, iterative and collaborative process to interrogate their own practices, question their own assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs in order to better understand, influence and enrich the context of their own situations. The action researcher assumes that practitioners are knowledgeable about their own teaching situations and the fact that they are ‘in-situ’ and not at ‘arms length’ as the value-neutral, ‘scientific’ researcher is often claimed to be, does not invalidate their knowledge. Thus, practitioners are capable of analysing their own actions within a ‘reflective practitioner’ modus operandi. Action research is on-going in conception and well suited to examining the ever-changing and increasingly complex HE practice environment. Findings from action research are always subject to revision since it intrinsically acknowledges the need to constantly revisit widely diverse teaching situations and scenarios across everyday HE practice. Teaching is not predictable and constant, it always occurs in a contemporary microcosm of uncertainty. Action research provides an analytical framework for new HE teachers to begin to engage with this unpredictability on a continuing basis, that is its purpose and also its perennial challenge. The papers presented here describe how four relatively new HE teachers have begun to address the challenge of improving their practice within their locally based settings utilising the action research ‘paradigm’

    The virtual playground: an educational virtual reality environment for evaluating interactivity and conceptual learning

    Get PDF
    The research presented in this paper aims at investigating user interaction in immersive virtual learning environments (VLEs), focusing on the role and the effect of interactivity on conceptual learning. The goal has been to examine if the learning of young users improves through interacting in (i.e. exploring, reacting to, and acting upon) an immersive virtual environment (VE) compared to non interactive or non-immersive environments. Empirical work was carried out with more than 55 primary school students between the ages of 8 and 12, in different between-group experiments: an exploratory study, a pilot study, and a large-scale experiment. The latter was conducted in a virtual environment designed to simulate a playground. In this ‘Virtual Playground’, each participant was asked to complete a set of tasks designed to address arithmetical ‘fractions’ problems. Three different conditions, two experimental virtual reality (VR) conditions and a non-VR condition, that varied the levels of activity and interactivity, were designed to evaluate how children accomplish the various tasks. Pre-tests, post-tests, interviews, video, audio, and log files were collected for each participant, and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. This paper presents a selection of case studies extracted from the qualitative analysis, which illustrate the variety of approaches taken by children in the VEs in response to visual cues and system feedback. Results suggest that the fully interactive VE aided children in problem solving but did not provide as strong evidence of conceptual change as expected; rather, it was the passive VR environment, where activity was guided by a virtual robot, that seemed to support student reflection and recall, leading to indications of conceptual change

    Spartan Daily, March 16, 2001

    Get PDF
    Volume 116, Issue 36https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9672/thumbnail.jp

    Spartan Daily, March 16, 2001

    Get PDF
    Volume 116, Issue 36https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9672/thumbnail.jp

    Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 34 Number 3, Spring 1992

    Get PDF
    12 - EAST L.A. STORY Jesuit-run Dolores Mission Alternative School is a last chance for East L.A.\u27s troubled teen-agers, many of whom are members of violent Latino gangs. By Rene Romo \u2786 20 - ONE IS TOO MANY TWO ARE NOT ENOUGH A personal account of one woman\u27s struggle with alcohol addiction. By Lisa Agrimonti \u2787 24 - UP CLOSE: WITOLD KRASSOWSKI After five years in the Polish Underground Army during WW II, the founder of SCU\u27s Sociology Department came to America and discovered teaching. His 40-year commitment to students has never waivered. By Christine Spielberger \u2769 28 - WORKING WITHOUT A NET Millions of middle-class Americans now face a health care crisis once solely the plague of the poor. By Julie Sly \u2782 32 - AN ADDRESS ABROAD Spectacular changes during the past year have already transformed much of this recent account of teaching in Ukraine from current events to history. By Charles Phipps, SJ.https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/sc_mag/1049/thumbnail.jp
    • 

    corecore