Page 7 - Abstract_Content_Development_15_Page
P. 7
2016 ASEE Rocky Mountain Section Conference
The final concept consists of hands-on projects to verify and validate the student understanding
of concepts, analysis, design and building of their proposed solutions. Students need to do
projects or lab experiments that is either a software simulation such as Matlab or laboratory
experiment using myDAQ hardware with supporting instrumentation software as part of the
course. CTU adopted National Instrument’s myDAQ as a learning tool to provide the hands-on
experience in several engineering courses, including the ‘Introduction to Engineering’ which
worked well based on student comments. Discussion boards can be used for students to
collaborate on lab experiments and to address comment 6 of Table 1. Students should have the
ability to start chat sessions among themselves with the Learning Management System to
document their collaboration. In place of a written lab or research report for selected projects or
lab experiments, each student is tasked to record a 5-to-10 minute video on selected projects or
lab experiments whether performed in a group or individual setting. Chat sessions can be used
to address student questions on the labs as well. Students can submit their lab questions on
another discussion board the day before the chat session takes place. The instructor can use the
information to prepare the chat session. Further details about applying this online flip classroom
for ‘Introduction to Engineering’ can be found on another paper5.
On a precautionary note, using the online flipped classroom approach, students are viewing
videos and reading course content on their own time outside the chat sessions. Consequently, the
instructor needs to be careful of the student workload when assigning homework. The intention
of the synchronous chat sessions, is to perform several worked-out homework problems and
address student questions about the assigned homework, laboratory experiment or other student-
centered activities and questions arising from the multimedia content.
As depicted in Figure 2, the results of CTU’s online flipped classroom philosophy uses a
combination of synchronous chat sessions and asynchronous tools (discussion boards and
emails). This combination of e-learning approaches offers self-motivated learners who need
more faculty interaction and the asynchronous approach are for those students who are also self-
motivated and time-constrained with the realities of daily life.6,7 Although the online content
was tested through a piloted course with ground students, the online teaching pedagogy appears
to be reasonable and promising. CTU’s online teaching philosophy and implementation will
continue to evolve as the engineering faculty gains more experience in delivering courses online.
For the CTU engineering faculty, the major considerations and lessons learned when integrating
the three concepts are that it’s very resource intensive, namely:
Requires extensive time to build quality interactive and multimedia content
Requires learning new skills to produce engaging videos or multimedia content
Variety of video types and more engaging videos may be necessary requiring use of
green-screen techniques, character animation, gaming techniques, kinetic text and
whiteboard video in motivating students for a four-to-five year engineering program
Requires learning new software such as Camtasia for video screen capture and video
editing
May require learning other content creation tools such as Adobe Products (Photoshop,
After Effects, Illustrator, Premier, etc.) for visually appealing content
Requires a dedicated team with appropriate skill sets to produce quality and engaging
online content and instruction.
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2016
The final concept consists of hands-on projects to verify and validate the student understanding
of concepts, analysis, design and building of their proposed solutions. Students need to do
projects or lab experiments that is either a software simulation such as Matlab or laboratory
experiment using myDAQ hardware with supporting instrumentation software as part of the
course. CTU adopted National Instrument’s myDAQ as a learning tool to provide the hands-on
experience in several engineering courses, including the ‘Introduction to Engineering’ which
worked well based on student comments. Discussion boards can be used for students to
collaborate on lab experiments and to address comment 6 of Table 1. Students should have the
ability to start chat sessions among themselves with the Learning Management System to
document their collaboration. In place of a written lab or research report for selected projects or
lab experiments, each student is tasked to record a 5-to-10 minute video on selected projects or
lab experiments whether performed in a group or individual setting. Chat sessions can be used
to address student questions on the labs as well. Students can submit their lab questions on
another discussion board the day before the chat session takes place. The instructor can use the
information to prepare the chat session. Further details about applying this online flip classroom
for ‘Introduction to Engineering’ can be found on another paper5.
On a precautionary note, using the online flipped classroom approach, students are viewing
videos and reading course content on their own time outside the chat sessions. Consequently, the
instructor needs to be careful of the student workload when assigning homework. The intention
of the synchronous chat sessions, is to perform several worked-out homework problems and
address student questions about the assigned homework, laboratory experiment or other student-
centered activities and questions arising from the multimedia content.
As depicted in Figure 2, the results of CTU’s online flipped classroom philosophy uses a
combination of synchronous chat sessions and asynchronous tools (discussion boards and
emails). This combination of e-learning approaches offers self-motivated learners who need
more faculty interaction and the asynchronous approach are for those students who are also self-
motivated and time-constrained with the realities of daily life.6,7 Although the online content
was tested through a piloted course with ground students, the online teaching pedagogy appears
to be reasonable and promising. CTU’s online teaching philosophy and implementation will
continue to evolve as the engineering faculty gains more experience in delivering courses online.
For the CTU engineering faculty, the major considerations and lessons learned when integrating
the three concepts are that it’s very resource intensive, namely:
Requires extensive time to build quality interactive and multimedia content
Requires learning new skills to produce engaging videos or multimedia content
Variety of video types and more engaging videos may be necessary requiring use of
green-screen techniques, character animation, gaming techniques, kinetic text and
whiteboard video in motivating students for a four-to-five year engineering program
Requires learning new software such as Camtasia for video screen capture and video
editing
May require learning other content creation tools such as Adobe Products (Photoshop,
After Effects, Illustrator, Premier, etc.) for visually appealing content
Requires a dedicated team with appropriate skill sets to produce quality and engaging
online content and instruction.
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2016
