ABSTRACT
In the laboratory classroom, students have opportunities for design, problem solving, and exposure to real-world issues that are not usually present in traditional homework assignments. However, to operate effective laboratories, engineering departments and colleges must address challenges such as budget constraints, space limitations, class size, and limited teaching resources. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these issues and added more with the need for online and remote learning experiences without sacrificing the benefits of experiential learning. Laboratory and design courses were significantly impacted by the sudden move to remote delivery during pandemic lockdowns. Instructors and departments made decisions for adapting each course based on specific needs. Throughout that time, instructors in lab and design courses identified both the successes and the continuing challenges to remote and hybrid delivery. When courses returned to in-person modalities, instructors considered what lessons learned can inform the future of experiential learning-based courses. This paper describes development of a Community of Practice (CoP) of lab and design course instructors to develop strategies and best practices across one engineering college as we enter a new era of teaching and learning, post-COVID. This paper describes formation of the lab and design CoP, practical operating details of the CoP, as well as lessons learned from delivery of workshops and meetings. In addition to providing a road map for instructors to form a similar working group at their institution, we will share knowledge gained, commonalities across course types, and a summary of answers to the questions that inspired the formation of this CoP. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has resulted in the shutdown of schools across the world. As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid online teaching modalities have been adopted in many engineering colleges and departments. Therefore, there were a lot of challenges, faced teachers specifically teaching engineering courses. As an example, in the spring 2020, fall 2020, and spring 2021 semesters, petroleum engineering at TTU has used all of these online teaching modalities and has experienced the challenge of delivering its engineering courses online. However, a lot of lessons have been learned from that experience. This paper summarizes the lessons learned during teaching petroleum engineering courses online based on feedback collected from faculty members and undergraduate students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
ABSTRACT
Students at Al-Balqa' Applied University, Jordan, are being interviewed about their experiences with online simulation software during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this study, a descriptive method was employed. 667 undergraduate students were asked to fill out a 25-item questionnaire. During the Covid-19 epidemic, undergraduate students showed a modest level of proficiency in using simulation software via online instruction, according to the study's findings. Al-Balqa' Applied University undergraduate students' perspectives vary according to gender (in favor of females) and discipline, according to the findings (in favor of the Electrical engineering discipline.). Academic evaluation, on the other hand, does not show any statistically significant differences amongst pupils. As a result, there appears to be no statistically significant difference in academic evaluation across pupils (GPA). It's important to do more research like this one on simulation software implementation in higher education institutions, according to this study © The Author 2022. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows others to share and adapt the material for any purpose (even commercially), in any medium with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal
ABSTRACT
Teamwork skills is an essential component of engineering professional skills. Engineering colleges rely on team projects to develop students' teamwork skills. Traditionally, this is done in an in-person setting where students hold meetings, discussion, and design activities related to their projects. In this context, data has suggested an association between some personality traits and team performance, and between specific learning styles and team performance. It is unclear how this is affected in a semi-virtual environment. This research leverages the restrictions due to COVID-19 to study, in the context of a semi-virtual team-based first-year engineering course, the association between team personality diversity and team project performance. Three aspects of personality traits are considered: biogenic, sociogenic and idiogenic. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced universities across the globe to switch to distance/online mode of teaching since Spring 2020. The engineering college teaching community including graduate teaching assistants were severely affected by this change. Even though numerous articles cite a variety of strategies for online teaching for full time instructors, it has been identified that there are limited resources tailor made for graduate students who are teaching engineering classes. This article tries to bridge this gap by exploring some strategies for graduate teaching assistants to help them prepare for online classes and overcome the challenges posed by online/distance education from a graduate student’s experience and perspective. Copyright © 2021 by ASME
ABSTRACT
For decades the business of ideas and creating startups was relegated to the business schools with engineers coming in to just complete the creative part of the business or to create the Minimum Viable Product or MVP. But for the last decade or so, we have seen a proliferation of engineering schools offer entrepreneurship education. In the United States, many faculty and engineering students act as the entrepreneurial lead and participate in the Innovation Corps programs offered by NSF [1]. This has been successful in promoting start-ups originating from universities and led by students, faculty and post-doctoral fellows, who are trained using the Lean Launchpad method. [2] In order to replicate this model in India, we embarked on a mass online education specifically for students and faculty from Tier 2 and Tier 3 colleges. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) are online courses which enable large numbers to participate via the web or other technologies. MOOCs have a long history and have primarily been asynchronous so that international students can also avail of this. In this article, we delineate how we modified that approach by piloting this synchronously. The Covid19 situation was an added incentive to offer this course to students who could not meet in person due to restrictions for in-person classes. Over 350 students from 20 different engineering colleges from India were recruited for a pilot program along with the faculty from their schools. Each college recruited approximately 20 students and 1 faculty member for the course. The course was being offered using the “Lean Launchpad” methodology, teaching one class per two weeks. The expectation was that the faculty participating in the course would be able to use this course as the foundation for offering entrepreneurship courses for credit as required by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). The teaching team consisted of business and engineering faculty from different parts of the US, while the students were from different parts of India. Various platforms such as Zoom, GoToMeeting or MS Teams were used for teaching the class, while Canvas was used to post the lecture slides, videos and homework assignments. The students were also required to conduct customer discovery using social distancing and other platforms. More than 50% of the students completed the program. The paper explains the process of creating such Synchronous MOOCs specifically for Entrepreneurship education and the lessons learnt. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
ABSTRACT
Given the ongoing and unprecedented situation that COVID-19 has brought to higher education, and like many other Engineering Schools and Colleges across the U.S., during the Fall term of 2020, the College of Engineering and Technology (CET) at Western Carolina University (WCU) modified their traditional method of instruction, from a face-to-face method to a broadly defined hybrid and online instruction (both synchronous and asynchronous) methods. The engineering students at WCU, a regional comprehensive institution with a high first generation population, have chosen this institution because of the high level of interaction and individualized attention offered in the small-size classes during traditional face-to-face instruction. This change in instructional methodology brought challenges that affected both students and faculty. The modality change, along with combined social and environmental factors caused by the pandemic restrictions, has limited the activities among students such as social interaction, facilities availabilities, etc. An observational questionnaire was conducted to better the understanding of the aforementioned influence. This effect is studied by observing the students' attitude towards learning in the different modalities of instruction during the Fall 2020 term. The survey of 26 questions with some open-ended opportunities was distributed to 775 students in the CET. In this paper, the survey analysis was conducted based on how the students responded to those questions. The results present the difference in the attitude of students among different class standings. Additionally, this paper provides some suggestions to help to motivate the students in the circumstance of the pandemic restrictions. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021