ABSTRACT
It has become evident in the past years that capstone design project course in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) does not provide adequate guidance to students. The fall semester of this two-semester course was spent largely on project proposal deliverables, delaying project implementation. There was a disconnect between course instructors, administrators, and students about project expectations and scope. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic forced all courses to take place online and restricted student access to most university facilities. This work evaluates changes to the course structure based on student surveys and observations from teaching staff. To address concerns with project execution and expectations, the timing and format of course deliverables were changed. A September proposal meeting was introduced to allow all stakeholders to clearly define project expectations and scope. As a result, misinterpretations of the project were resolved at early stages. The “Implementation Plan” deliverable was delayed from September to late November, giving students adequate time to consider implementation strategies before following with documentation. An Interim Demonstration was introduced during the first week of December to encourage students to kick-off the implementation phase during fall semester. After the Interim Demonstration, requirements and methods were clear to most students, allowing them to complete the projects with minimal supervision. Deliverable expectations must be better communicated in future years however, as student feedback identified how deliverables were not well-suited to software projects and were not always clear. In addition to changes in deliverables, significant changes had to be made to accommodate remote learning. Online networking sessions were held during summer to help form teams and build community within the class. The sessions were well-attended and resulted in formation of several student teams at early stages of the course. Course lectures were held online with minimal difficulty, following an identical format to other online ECE courses. Team meetings with administrators and supervisors were held online, and students' feedback were positive. The end-of-course design fair was moved online, with pre-recorded videos replacing in-person presentations. Some students expressed disappointment that they were not able to present their projects to a wider community. Despite pandemic challenges and changes to deliverables, a detailed end-of-semester student survey showed that students perceived the course workload to be similar to other courses. Despite accommodations for remote learning, student surveys revealed that the pandemic affected their choice of project, and negatively affected the quality of their projects. The survey also showed, however, that the changes to deliverables and the early all stakeholders' meeting were effective and improved overall project quality. 71% of students indicated they would take the course even if it was not a program requirement. The structure of deliverables for the 2022-2023 will be similar, and remote learning tools will still be used when appropriate. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022
ABSTRACT
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for remote computer connection has drastically increased. This need is also anticipated to increase in the future as many institutes allow working remotely. This paper reports on a development of a software called “iCtrl”, which started in late 2020. iCtrl is a desktop remote-control application that allows remote connection to an institute's computer facilities. iCtrl application supports Virtual Network Computing (VNC) connection on both Windows and macOS operating systems. It offers a user-friendly interface to eliminate complicated setup processes. iCtrl has been used for over two years and received positive ratings from undergraduate students in a first-year programming language course and a third-year computer network course. Feedback provided by students suggested a few potential improvements such as cross-platform support and Secure Shell (SSH) connections. This motivated us to design a web-based version for iCtrl in summer 2021 that supported cross-OS platform access, SSH and VNC connection, while providing an industry-leading file management interface design with reference to Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. This allowed not only to transfer responsibilities of platform support to the browser developers but also to design a more intuitive interface for the students to upload, retrieve and manage files using the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). The latest survey noted an 86.2% approval of our application over the traditional methods, and the download count of the application is now 10 times of the old version after we applied engineering practices. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
This paper introduces a new set of infrastructures and online interactive tools that can be employed to motivate students to learn programming languages. The tools were used to experiment in one of the introductory first-year engineering courses. The final project of the course requires implementing an AI program for a game called “Reversi''. Reversi is a medium to hard level programming project that has been used in the course for several years requiring an immediate restructuring. Furthermore, due to COVID-19 and the restriction of in-person teaching, it has been a challenge for educators to excite, support, and encourage students. The new infrastructure provided an interactive platform for the students to familiarize themselves with the Reversi game project. It also provided a leaderboard, an interactive scoreboard, allowing students to compete with their classmates. The tools can instantaneously synchronize to students' code submission to help students check their latest ranking among their classmates in real-time. This increased students' level of engagement and learning. In addition, it allowed students to collaborate with their fellow classmates and discuss their algorithms. The tools and platform developed can also be employed in other courses as well other programming games. The result from students' surveys and the active trend of the class online discussion forum indicates that the new online interactive system created a positive atmosphere and increased students' motivation in learning programming languages. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
At the start of 2020, safety concerns stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic caused educational institutions around the world to rapidly transition to emergency remote learning (ERL). This has caused educators to rethink their course delivery strategies and re-examine their assumptions about what constitutes a good education. Although the research community has widely reported on remote learning-including its benefits, its challenges, and suggestions for the future-institutions have recently begun resuming in-person activities, which begs the question, what has changed? While previous work has compared remote learning during the pandemic to pre-ERL in-person learning, we expand on the findings of the community by examining student feedback obtained during post-ERL in-person learning. We begin by discussing the main challenges we faced during the year of online teaching, then present an analysis of survey data gathered for both remote and (post-ERL) in-person learning during the pandemic. Insights on synchronous and asynchronous learning are presented, including the benefits and drawbacks that are unique to each. We show that while students generally preferred synchronous learning over asynchronous, many of the key benefits of synchronous learning are only attainable in a physical setting. We discuss the reasons for this, as well as the reasons why students overwhelmingly desired an asynchronous learning option to augment their synchronous learning activities. Unlike many previous studies which solely rely on quantitative survey data, we draw our conclusions using a combination of quantitative data and written feedback from students, the latter of which allows us to better understand students' reasons for adopting certain learning strategies and preferences. Alongside these insights, we identify opportunities for improving student satisfaction and share actions we took to better support our students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
A difficulty for teachers in COVID-era online teaching settings is assessing engagement and student attention. This has made adapting teaching to the responses of the class a challenge. We developed a system called Engage AI for assessing engagement during live lectures. Engage AI uses video-based machine learning models to detect drowsiness and emotions like happiness and neutrality, and aggregates them in a dashboard that instructors can view as they speak. This provides real-time feedback to instructors, allowing them to adjust their teaching to keep students engaged. There is no video data transmitted outside of students' web browsers, and individual students are anonymous to the instructor. Testing in undergraduate engineering lectures resulted in 78.2% reporting feeling at least potentially more engaged during the lecture and at least 34.4% of students reporting feeling more engaged during the lecture. These approaches could be applicable to many forms of remote and in-person education. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021