ABSTRACT
Our research used a case study methodology to explore how engineering students at a university in the United Kingdom and in the United States experienced social supports in the spring term(s) of 2020 when universities worldwide shifted into emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first cross-cultural study to examine engineering students' social support during the pandemic. We administered the Undergraduate Support Survey to engineering undergraduates at both institutions. The survey collected data about students' sense of belonging and social capital, including names of individuals who provided support for their engineering education and the specific expressive and instrumental resources they utilized during the pandemic. Results revealed similarities and differences between students at the two institutions. Both groups reported friends/roommates, professors, and family members as the primary providers of support, and both reported almost the same frequency in communication with these individuals. Participants at both institutions also reported high rates of instrumental and expressive support. However, the mean response for both sense of belonging and satisfaction at the university was lower in the U.K. and the types of alters identified in the two groups showed marked differences. Our work affirms the importance of social relationships to engineering students' success and persistence. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
We propose Computational Thinking (CT) as an innovative pedagogical approach with broad application. Research and current industry trends illustrate that students should have a solid computational thinking ability in order to have the skills required for future jobs in Artificial Intelligence. Due to current social issues regarding COVID-19 and natural disasters, we are rapidly moving towards a cyberspace era where many citizens will conduct their work online. Understanding the foundations and tools of computation - e.g., ion, decomposition, pattern recognition - is critical for any student to be prepared for the digital AI age. Believing students should be fully prepared for future jobs that involve computation, we developed a CT module on a Learning Management System (LMS). We have collected data of students who took our CT course module. We looked into the students' activity records and analyzed the number of students' views on the pages and the number of participants on each quiz. We counted the total number of engagements of the ten components in the CT course module. Ultimately, we believe that our modules had a greater impact on those students who were newer to computational thinking, over those who had prior experience and were enrolled in upper-level computational courses. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
ABSTRACT
The pandemic of COVID-19 is disrupting engineering education globally, at all levels of education. While distance education is nothing new, the pandemic of COVID-19 forced instructors to rapidly move their courses online whether or not they had ever received prior training in online education. In particular, there is very little literature to guide instructors in supporting students in online engineering design or project-based courses. The purpose of this research is to examine engineering students' report of social support in their project and design-based courses at a large research university during the move to online instruction due to COVID-19 in the Spring 2020 semester and to provide recommendations for instructors teaching these types of courses online in the future. Our study is framed by social constructivism and social capital theory. We surveyed undergraduate engineering and engineering technology students (n=235) across undergraduate levels during the final week of the Spring 2019 semester. Survey questions included open-ended prompts about social supports and overall experience with the transition to online learning as well as name and resource generator questions focused on specific people and types of interactions that changed during the pandemic. We used qualitative content analysis of the open-ended responses along with comparisons of the name and resource generator to develop recommendations for instructors. Recommendations to increase students' social supports include: facilitating informal conversations between students and between students and the instructional team, grouping students located in the same time zones in teams, facilitating co-working sessions for students, establishing weekly structure, and utilizing some synchronous components (e.g., virtual office hours). © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
ABSTRACT
Purpose : We sought to analyze the changes in clinical care following the restrictions that were implemented in Massachusetts in response to COVID-19 pandemic as well as to depict the visual outcomes in patients receiving intravitreal injections as part of a treatment regimen for either exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), central or branch retinal vein occlusion (CRVO, BRVO). Methods : A retrospective analysis of the intravitreal injection clinics of three retina specialists at Massachusetts Eye and Ear from December 2019 to June 2020 was performed. Demographic data of patients with either wet AMD, DR, CRVO or BRVO were collected. Descriptive statistics were used to quantitatively summarize the features of our cohort and box plots to illustrate the spread and differences of visual acuity among groups over time. Results : A total of 1,086 visits were scheduled within this period and more than a quarter of these visits were not completed [801 (74%) completed vs 285 (26%) cancel or no show;p=0.000]. The mean age of our cohort was 72.5±13.2 years (males: 72.48±13.2;females: 74±12.4;p=0.0524). Out of 259 cancel visits, 240 visits (93%) were canceled by the patients and 19 visits (7%) by the provider/institution (p=0.000). There was no significant difference in the appointment status (completed, cancel, no show) among males and females, among different providers, or diagnoses (p=0.225, p=0.131 and p=0.234 respectively). Asians and Caucasians were more likely to complete their visits (80% and 74% respectively) compared to patients of Hispanic, African American and American Indian ethnicities where more cancel/no show visits were observed (40%, 29% and 29% respectively;p=0.002). The highest numbers of cancel/no show appointments were reported in March (48.8%) and April (45.6%) and were significantly different when compared to the other months (p=0.000). Conclusions : Intravitreal therapy is the standard care for a variety of retinal disorders and adherence to the proposed treatment regimen is important to maximize the visual acuity benefits and maintain the gains in the long term. In this cohort it was noted that vast majority of visits were canceled by the patients whereas underrepresented minorities were more likely not to complete their scheduled visits which could be partially explained by the fact that these groups are also disproportionately affected by COVID-19.