Flipped Classroom Research: From “Black Box” to “White Box” Evaluation

The flipped (or inverted) classroom model has gained increasing interest among university teachers in recent years. In the flipped classroom approach, students are encouraged to watch short video lectures as preparation for class, and classroom time is dedicated to more active forms of learning. In this editorial, we provide a thumbnail sketch of the origins and concept of the flipped classroom followed by a summary of the contributions to this special issue, which highlight the importance of considering a range of individual as well as contextual factors when implementing and evaluating the flipped classroom approach. Based on this observation, we propose and briefly discuss realist evaluation as a promising approach to evaluating educational interventions and for advancing our theoretical understanding of the flipped classroom. We argue that realist evaluation provides an analytical framework for posing the next generation of questions about the flipped classroom and we encourage scholars to address the questions: “How or why does the flipped classroom work, for whom, and in what circumstances?

Emergency Remote Teaching during the Covid-19 crisis at Chalmers – how did it go?

This talk addresses the quick transition to online teaching that has been evaluated for LP4 2020 courses and from the teachers’ perspective. We present preliminary findings as input for teachers, deputy heads and program directors to stimulate a discussion of experiences gathered during study period 4 including the identification of critical areas for interventions

Using Challenge Episodes to Identify Social Regulation in Collaborative Groupwork

In recent years, researchers have shown increased interest in the question of how groups regulate their collaborative work and how this in turn affects their learning experience. There is a lack of empirical studies that explore social regulation in student group work. This study in progress attempts to identify instances of social regulation of learning in group work through examining challenges that students experience throughout interdisciplinary group projects. Building on existing conceptual work, we target different dimensions of social regulation – Planning, Monitoring/Performance and Evaluation. Data is collected from four courses within Tracks – a ten-year educational initiative, aiming to respond to the changing educational needs of future engineers. Within Tracks, students meet and learn collaboratively across programme boundaries and take on relevant challenges with a basis in real-world problems together. Students were asked to self-report in form of reflective writings about challenges and coping strategies. First results indicate that groups employed different forms of social regulation though their affiliation with different study programs made it difficult to schedule collaborative, synchronous meetings. Our findings further highlight the role of motivation in collaborative group work and stimulate a discussion about ‘desirable challenges’ that act as catalysts for learning in group work

Chatbots and other AI for learning: A survey of use and views among university students in Sweden

HIGHLIGHTS - 5,894 students from across Swedish universities were surveyed about their use of and attitudes towards AI for learning purposes, both about chatbots (such ChatGPT) and other AI language tools (such as Grammarly). - 1,707 survey respondents offered individual comments, adding thoughts and reflections about the effective and ethical use of AI in higher education. - Overall, most students are positive towards the use of chatbots and other AI-language tools in education; many claim that AI makes them more effective as learners. - Almost all the respondents are familiar with ChatGPT (but typically not with other chatbots); more than a third use ChatGPT regularly. Students’ knowledge and usage of other AI-language tools, particularly language translation tools, is widespread. - More than half of the respondents express concern about the impact of chatbots in future education; concerns about other types of AI-language tools are much less pronounced. - More than sixty percent believe that the use of chatbots during examination is cheating; this is not the case for other AI-language tools. However, a majority of students is against the prohibition of AI in education settings. - Most students do not know if their educational institutions have rules or guidelines regarding the responsible use of AI; one in four explicitly says that their institution lack such rules or guidelines

Learning Mechatronics Using Digital Live Labs

Practical skills training in laboratories are important elements and learning outcomes in engineering education, where leaners, through exploration, experimentation and reflection engage in inquiry-based learning that stimulate the acquisition of deep conceptual domain knowledge and inquiry skills. Traditional lab environments are very costly to maintain, partly unsafe and often require proximity of instructors and/or students that is in conflict with the Covid-19-driven need for physical/social distancing. In this paper, we describe and evaluate a course in logic control that used online labs both in pure online and in hybrid format. Students reported very high satisfaction with all three formats and achieved similar learning performances. However, qualitative analyses indicate that student learning is deeper and more authentic in the on-campus and hybrid formats compared to the pure online format. Teacher reflections show an overall positive impression of online labs. In conclusion, we recommend the hybrid format as it combines the benefits of online and physical labs, i.e., the flexibility of online laboratory work and realism of hands-on physical laboratory work

Learning Mechatronics Using Digital Live Labs

Practical skills training in laboratories are important elements and learning outcomes in engineering education, where leaners, through exploration, experimentation and reflection engage in inquiry-based learning that stimulate the acquisition of deep conceptual domain knowledge and inquiry skills. Traditional lab environments are very costly to maintain, partly unsafe and often require proximity of instructors and/or students that is in conflict with the Covid-19-driven need for physical/social distancing. In this paper, we describe and evaluate a course in logic control that used online labs both in pure online and in hybrid format. Students reported very high satisfaction with all three formats and achieved similar learning performances. However, qualitative analyses indicate that student learning is deeper and more authentic in the on-campus and hybrid formats compared to the pure online format. Teacher reflections show an overall positive impression of online labs. In conclusion, we recommend the hybrid format as it combines the benefits of online and physical labs, i.e., the flexibility of online laboratory work and realism of hands-on physical laboratory work

Designing Collaborative Learning Activities in a Physics Course

The short paper describes and evaluates a collaborative learning activity that was implemented in four physics classes in different university programs. The activity consisted of two assignments for groups of four to seven, where students find a common set of solutions to a given number of problems. After a short introduction of collaborative learning and the related literature, we present the setup of the activity and particularly address some of the pitfalls of group work, how we tried to overcome them and our experience gained. Based on student passing rates, the course evaluations and our own observations we conclude that the group assignment provided a powerful learning experience with positive effects on the student performance, attitudes and interpersonal relationships

Tracking social regulation of learning in interdisciplinary group work

Recent years have seen a growing interest in how student groups regulate their learning when taking part in collaborative and interdisciplinary project-courses that are increasingly becoming popular in Engineering Education programs. While there is a rich research landscape on self-regulated learning, more empirical studies are needed on social regulation of peer-learning in collaborative group work. This study addresses this gap by conducting a narrative comparative case study to document shared regulation in three student groups from three project-based courses. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with members from those interdisciplinary groups working on real world challenges. The interviews were analysed for regulation episodes and synthesised into narratives representing key aspects of the groups regulative behaviours. The results are expected to highlight numerous instances of social regulation of learning within the various groups’ at different stages of the project. Preliminary results presented here demonstrate challenges faced by a group when attempting to socially regulate their learning, underlining the importance of scaffolding for collaborative learning. Findings from the full study will highlight the important role that social regulation processes play in group learning and add to the current understanding of the interplay between different modes of social regulation in groups

Considering the Community of Inquiry Framework in Online Engineering Education

This Research Full Paper presents a semi-systematic literature review of the application of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework in online engineering education. In a generally undertheorized field, the CoI framework has gained considerable attention as a theoretical and methodological means to understand and facilitate learning experiences in online learning environments. However, despite excellent contributions in both these areas, there is a concern about the effect of the disciplinary context and there are calls for more studies investigating disciplinary differences and blended learning environments. We observe that no study to date has tried to summarize and synthesize CoI’s application in engineering education, making informed judgments about its potential for educational research and practice in this particular context difficult. This review aims to contribute to closing this gap. Based on the reviewed articles, we conclude that CoI is a promising framework not only as an evaluation tool for online and blended learning environments in engineering education, but also for the design of online engineering courses that want to build their learning design on a collaborative constructivist view of learning. Due to the relatively limited number of CoI-based studies in online engineering education, we conclude that more research of CoI is needed in the field, especially in specific learning contexts. Compared to the richness of the general literature on CoI and in other fields, the utilization of CoI in engineering education is still very new and appears to still be in a junior state. We suggest several directions for improvement and further research both in order to foster CoI’s theoretical development as well as to provide practical guidance for the design of engineering specific learning environments based on reliable and valid research

Metacognitive illusion or self-regulated learning? Assessing engineering students’ learning strategies against the backdrop of recent advances in cognitive science

Knowing how students approach learning in higher education contexts is key to promote learning strategies that are effective in the long run. Previous research has concluded that students often use ineffective learning strategies but believe them to be effective—a phenomenon known as metacognitive illusion. In a bid to broaden the perspective on students’ use of learning strategies, this study draws on the notion of self-regulated learning as a theoretical lens. A questionnaire, comprising both open-ended and closed-ended questions, was developed to gather data from 416 engineering students. The questionnaire was geared towards (1) mapping what learning strategies students use in a real-world setting, in real courses, (2) probing their metacognitive awareness of the effectiveness of various learning strategies and (3) investigating why students choose certain learning strategies. We also compared which learning strategies the engineering students chose across programs and types of courses. The findings reveal a complex picture of why students sometimes use seemingly ineffective learning strategies, and we conclude that this is not always due to metacognitive illusion. It is instead often linked to attempts to regulate behaviour, motivation and/or learning context, sometimes in response to the context. This study adds to the current HE research investigating students’ abilities to reflect on, assess and take control of their learning in an effective way, confirming that students need explicit guidance