ABSTRACT
All first-year students at the J. B. Speed School of Engineering (SSoE) at the University of Louisville (UofL) are required to complete a two-course sequence. The purpose of the two-course sequence is to introduce incoming students to the fundamentals and profession of engineering. The first course in the sequence is titled Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice I (ENGR 110) and primarily focuses on introduction to and practice with fundamental engineering skills. The second course Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice II (ENGR 111) is a makerspace-based course primarily focused on application and integration of the fundamentals learned in ENGR 110. ENGR 111 includes a variety of fundamental skills in its instruction, one of which is programming. Therefore, all disciplines of SSoE engineering students are exposed to the basics and applications of programming through this course sequence. Programming instruction in ENGR 111 is designed to include relevant software development skills that students might encounter in the engineering profession. The students have learned initial programming skills in their ENGR 110 course through the Python programming language. In ENGR 111, students practice programming skills learned in ENGR 110 on two different platforms: Arduino Microcontrollers (Arduino) and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). In normal face-to-face semesters, students are put into teams of 3 to 4 and given modules to develop and practice these skills (two for Arduino, two for PLCs). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ENGR 111 was augmented into a synchronous remote course to avoid close proximity and shared tools in the makerspace. Arduino programming instruction was performed using Tinkercad (tinkercad.com), a website that allows for Arduino programming and circuitry simulations. PLC instruction was performed utilizing a free online PLC simulator website, “PLCfiddle” [1]. At the end of each semester, students take a survey on their perceptions of the course. Included in this survey are questions pertaining to programming instruction. These questions assess student confidence in programming and platform preference. Results of these questions from Spring 2019 (a makerspace iteration) and Spring 2021 (a remote iteration) are compared in this paper. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
This complete Evidence-based Practice paper will describe efforts and outcomes in redesigning and implementing a makerspace-based course during a time of COVID-necessitated fully online synchronous learning. This course is an introductory engineering course that all first-year engineering students at the J. B. Speed School of Engineering (SSoE) at the University of Louisville (UofL) are required to take. The course, titled Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice II (ENGR 111), is primarily focused on application and integration of fundamental engineering skills introduced in a prerequisite course ENGR 110. ENGR 111 houses SSoE's Cornerstone Project, and is extensively based in active learning pedagogy taking place in a large university makerspace, with the vast majority of class activities typically taught pre-COVID through extensive hands-on pedagogical approaches. Although the ENGR 111 structure is the antithesis of an online pedagogical setting, course administrators were forced to redesign the ENGR 111 experience during the Spring and Summer 2021 semesters to online delivery due to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of the university makerspace was not feasible due to the close-proximity nature of numerous aforementioned hands-on activities for as many as 96 students per class, and the provision of multiple shared tools amongst six different classes. Therefore, the online format challenged instructors to retain a heavy focus on teamwork (an institutionally identified key element of the ENGR 111 experience), in addition to the active learning environment of the conventional course. Prior to the pandemic, ENGR 111 was an innovative course in its formal utilization of the makerspace setting and extensive integration of active learning, while the ENGR 111 redesign is innovative in maintaining course learning objectives despite the online format. The details provided in this paper for how to implement an active, hands-on, makerspace engineering course in an online format are conducive to adaptation for course instructors throughout the United States, as all software, platforms, and/or websites discussed are typically free for faculty and students alike. Details within this paper will be particularly focused on a handful of course curriculum features that were the most challenging to accommodate in the online format, including teamwork, experimentation, the ENGR 111 design challenge, programming and circuitry, and the Cornerstone Project. Qualitative and quantitative measures of student perceptions during the online ENGR 111 experience were collected at the culmination of both semesters. Over 400 students shared their perceptions and reasoning of course features and topics that they found to be effective despite the online setting. They also shared perceptions and reasoning of course features and topics that they thought would have been more effective under normal face-to-face instruction. Additionally, at the end of the course for the past several years, students have completed validated, quantitative surveys grounded in value-expectancy theory, including the Perceived Belonging Uncertainty (PBU) and Interest in Engineering (IIE) scales. The qualitative responses were analyzed using grounded theory methodologies to extract emergent themes. Finally, a comparative analysis between the quantitative, belonging and interest, responses from students of the 2019 cohort that took ENGR 111 prior to the pandemic versus the 2021 cohort that experienced the online iteration of the ENGR 111 course was analyzed with independent samples t-test to explore if there were significant differences in these key constructs that could be ascribed to the online makerspace format vs. normal face-to-face. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
This work-in-progress paper studied the impact of COVID-19 ramifications on first-year engineering student sense of belonging at one research intensive institution in the southeast that hosts a strong engineering program. In response to COVID-19, the vast majority of collegiate institutions have shifted courses to remote, hybrid, or hyflex formats, which may result in diverse engineering students facing a “triple threat” to their sense of belonging in engineering courses since (a) STEM disciplines, (b) minoritized student identity, and (c) remote course formatting can all impede belonging. Diminished sense of belonging can, in turn, impact student retention and persistence, potentially intensifying imbalances that already exist in STEM fields. Therefore, this study sought to examine students' sense of belonging and factors that could contribute to increased belonging for diverse engineering students, especially in remote courses. Using a concurrent, mixed methods design in the Fall of 2020, the preliminary data in this manuscript highlight survey responses from 282 students (54% response rate), 7 focus groups with a total of 28 students, course observations, and student demographic data. Key variables and concepts for the study include sense of belonging (measured with an existing 4-item scale for which the institution has historical engineering student responses as well as with qualitative interview questions), which is an empirically documented forecaster of student success, and the Community of Inquiry framework, broken into three constructs of teaching, social and cognitive presence designed to examine key elements of an online course (measured with an existing 34-item survey and qualitative interview questions). Preliminary findings suggest no statistically significant differences in sense of belonging, teaching presence, social presence or cognitive presence between students in marginalized and dominant identity groups (continued analysis of qualitative data will reveal nuances between groups not apparent in survey data);however, belonging was higher for students who attended class physically versus virtually most of the time. In addition, compared to a past (pre-pandemic) comparison, social presence was lower for all fall 2020 students. This project is supported via an NSF RAPID award created by the IUSE program in the Division of Undergraduate Education (Education and Human Resources Directorate), using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
ABSTRACT
This paper is focused on a course redesign transitioning from a hardware-based course into a course taught remotely. The J. B. Speed School of Engineering (SSoE) at the University of Louisville (UofL) has a two-course sequence that all first-year SSoE students are required to complete. This two-course sequence is designed to introduce incoming students to the profession and fundamentals of engineering. The first course is titled Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice I (ENGR 110), and primarily focuses on introduction to and practice with fundamental engineering skills. The second course, Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice II (ENGR 111) is typically a makerspace-based course primarily focused on application and integration of the fundamentals learned in ENGR 110. Included amongst numerous skills institutionally identified as “fundamental” were programming and basic circuitry. Therefore, all disciplines of SSoE engineering students are exposed to the basics of circuitry and programming through ENGR 111 pedagogy. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this makerspace course is to be taught remotely in the spring semester of 2021. The instructional team felt that there were too many shared tools and teams were too close together to safely continue the course in a makerspace environment. This remote teaching has posed the instructional team some unique challenges due to the hands-on nature of the ENGR 111 course. Students are typically in face-to-face teams of 3 or 4 students and each group is given an Arduino, breadboard, and circuit components. The given assignments start out with basic circuity and Arduino programming, followed by utilizing an Arduino to communicate with created circuits. The assignments are designed to help the first-year students gain comfort in circuitry and programming. The instructional team has decided to use Tinkercad, which is a free online collection of software tools provided by Autodesk. Many people are only aware of Tinkercad as a 3D modeling programming, however in 2017 Autodesk merged its “123D Circuits” into Tinkercad [1] [2]. This makes Tinkercad an ideal platform to use for circuitry and Arduino programming. The paper will further describe the design of the assignments, instructional team expectations from the students, the environment in which the students are using Tinkercad, as well as looking at expected course outcomes using the platform. This topic is a work in progress as data for evidence-based analyses will not be fully procured until after publication. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021