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1. Innovative Use of Technologies to Teach Chemical Engineering Core Classes and Laboratories During the Covid-19 Pandemic at an HBCU

   Dua, Rupak (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Most chemical engineering core classes are best taught when students are exposed to a face-to-face learning/teaching environment. With the arrival of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the whole education system and the setting were disrupted at Hampton University (HU). Traditional in-person face-to-face classes were forced to move to remote instructions to maintain a healthy and safe campus environment and minimize the spread of COVID-19 on campus and in the community. As an instructor teaching core courses and unit operations laboratory in the Department of Chemical Engineering, it was challenging to move completely virtual and deliver instructions remotely without affecting students' learning outcomes. However, with the appropriate modern technologies and adapting to the students' change and needs, online teaching can be done efficiently and can still have efficient learning outcomes. Various activities were introduced to make the online/virtual class environment engaging in developing technical and professional skills and inducing learning for students. Using the latest educational tools and online resources, formative assessments were conducted throughout the course in an effort to improve student learning and instructor teaching. In addition to that, innovative ways of technology were also used to evaluate student learning and understanding of the material for grading and reporting purposes. Many of the modern educational tools, including Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, Ka-hoot, linoit, surveys, polls, and chemical engineering processes’ simulations and videos were in-troduced to make the synchronous sessions interactive. Likert-like surveys conducted were anal-yses to gauge the effectiveness of incorporation of technology during remote learning. This paper describes the innovative use of technologies to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Chemical Engineering Classes. It will also explain the strategies to assess the mode of delivery efficacy and how to change the course of teaching to adapt to the students' changing needs. 

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2. PREPARATORY DISCUSSION AND PROJECT AUGMENTED STUDENT LEARNING VIA STUDENT PRESENTATION BASED EFFECTIVE TEACHING (SPET) APPROACH

   Pawan, Tyagi (January 2022, EDUlearn 2022, 14th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies Palma de Mallorca (Spain). 4th - 6th of July, 2022.)

   Instructor-led presentation-based teaching mainly focuses on delivering content. Whereas student active presentations-based teaching approaches require students to take leadership in learning actions. Many teaching and learning strategies were adopted to foster active student participation during in-class learning activities. We developed the student presentation-based effective teaching (SPET) approach in 2014 to make student presentation activity the central element of learning challenging concepts. We have developed several versions to meet the need for teaching small classes (P. Tyagi, "Student Presentation Based Effective Teaching (SPET) Approach for Advanced Courses," in ASME IMECE 2016-66029, V005T06A026), large enrolment classes (P. Tyagi, "Student Presentation Based Teaching (SPET) Approach for Classes With Higher Enrolment," ASME IMECE 2018-88463, V005T07A035), and online teaching during COVID-19. (P. Tyagi, "Second Modified Student Presentation Based Effective Teaching (SPET) Method Tested in COVID-19 Affected Senior Level Mechanical Engineering Course," in ASME IMECE 2020-23615, V009T09A026). The SPET approach has successfully engaged students with varied interests and competence levels in the learning process. SPET approach has also made it possible to cover new topics such as training engineering students about positive intelligence skills to foster lifelong learning aptitude and doing engineering projects in a group setting. However, it was noted that many students who were overwhelmed with parallel academic demands in other courses and different activities were underperforming via SPET-based learning strategies. SPET core functioning depends on the following steps: Step 1: Provide a set of conceptual and topical questions for students to answer individually after self-education from the recommended textbook or course material, Step-2: Group presentations are prepared by the prepared students for in-class discussion, Step-3: Group makes a presentation in class 1-2 weeks after the day of the assignment to seek instructor feedback and to do peer discussion. The instructor noted that students unfamiliar with the new concepts and terminologies in the SPET assignment struggled to respond to questions individually and contribute to the group discussion based on their presentation. Several motivated students who invested time in familiarizing new concepts and terminologies met or exceeded the expectations. However, a significant student population struggled. To alleviate this issue author has implemented a further improvement in SPET approach. This paper reports teaching experiments conducted in MECH 487 Photovoltaic Cells and Solar Thermal Energy System and MECH 462 Design of Energy Systems course. This improvement requires augmenting SPET with instructor-led concept familiarization discussion on the day of issuing the assignment or close to that; for this step instructor utilized exemplary student work from prior SPET-based teaching of the same course. In the survey, many students expressed their views about the improvement and reported introductory discussions were helpful and addressed several reservations and impediments students encountered. This paper will discuss the structure of the new improvement strategy and outcomes-including student feedback and comments. 

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3. Virtualizing Hands-On Mechanical Engineering Laboratories - A Paradox or Oxymoron

   Cook-Chennault, Kimberly; Farooq, Ahmad (January 2022, ASEE 2022 Annual Conference - Excellence Through Diversity)

   In physical sciences and engineering research, the study of virtual labs (VL) has generally focused on case studies about their implementation into classrooms or engineering design process and elements. However, few (if any) studies have assessed the viability of using conventional course evaluation instruments (originally designed for traditional in-person classroom environments), to evaluate virtual lab classes. This article presents a preliminary set of results from a study that examines and compares engineering undergraduate students’ evaluations of a capstone mechanical and aerospace engineering laboratory course taught in two different environments: in-person and remotely (virtual/online environment). The instrument used in both cases was the conventional course evaluation instrument that was quantitative and designed using a Likert scale. The aim of this study is to understand how this instrument captures or does not capture the students’ perceptions of their learning of course content in virtual and in-person learning environments. The second aim of this study is to explore students’ perceptions of the effectiveness and acceptance of virtual learning tools and environments applied in engineering laboratory classes. A total of 226 undergraduate students participated in this convergent mixed method study within a mechanical and aerospace engineering department at a research-1 institute in the northeastern region of the United States. Our initial analyses of the students’ course evaluations indicate that there were no statistically significant differences in the perceived teaching effectiveness of the course. However, statistically significant differences were found between the course final grades between students who participated in the in-person lab juxtapose to those who engaged in the virtual laboratory environment. In addition, qualitative results suggest that students’ perceptions of the value of in-person and virtual labs vary depending on prior engineering experiences. These results suggest that there is room for improvement in conventional course evaluation instruments of senior capstone engineering education laboratories that take place either in-person or virtually. 

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4. Interactive and Adaptable Cloud-based Virtual Equipment and Laboratories for 21st Century Science and Engineering Education

   https://doi.org/10.29007/7wf8  

   Cherner, Yakov; Cima, Michael; Barone, Paul; Van Dyke, Bruce; Lotring, Arnold (February 2020, EPiC Series in Education Science)

   This paper presents and discusses the use of simulation-based customizable online learning activities, virtual laboratories, and comprehensive e-Learning environments for teaching subjects such as materials science, chemistry, and biomanufacturing. The virtual equipment and lab assignments have been used for: (i) authentic online experimentation, (ii) homework and control assignments with traditional and blended courses, (iii) preparing students for hands-on work in real labs, (iv) lecture demonstrations, and (v) performance-based assessment of students’ ability to apply gained theoretical knowledge for operating actual equipment and solving practical problems. Using the associated learning and content management system (LCMS) and authoring tools, instructors kept track of student performance and designed new virtual experiments and more personalized learning assignments for students. Virtual X-Ray Laboratory and Web-based Environment for Single-Use Upstream Bioprocessing have been used to illustrate the implementation of the concept of Interactive and Adjustable Cloud-based e-Learning Tools. The virtual labs and e-learning environments have been used at two-year and four-year colleges and universities in the USA, UK, Tanzania and some other countries. The virtual X-Ray lab has also been integrated with the MITx course delivered via the MOOC (massive open online course) edX platform for Massachusetts Institute of Technology undergraduate students. 

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5. Strengthening Community College Engineering Programs through Alternative Learning Strategies: Developing Resources for Flexible Delivery of a Materials Science Course

   Dunmire, Erik; Enriquez, Amelito; Rebold, Thomas; Schiorring, Eva; Langhoff, Nicholas; Huang, Tracy (April 2017, 2017 ASEE Pacific Southwest Section Conference)

   Community colleges provide an important pathway for many prospective engineering graduates, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups. However, due to a lack of facilities, resources, student demand and/or local faculty expertise, the breadth and frequency of engineering course offerings is severely restricted at many community colleges. This in turn presents challenges for students trying to maximize their transfer eligibility and preparedness. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program (NSF IUSE), three community colleges from Northern California collaborated to increase the availability and accessibility of a comprehensive lower-division engineering curriculum, even at small-to-medium sized community colleges. This was accomplished by developing resources and teaching strategies that could be employed in a variety of delivery formats (e.g., fully online, online/hybrid, flipped face-to-face, etc.), providing flexibility for local community colleges to leverage according to their individual needs. This paper focuses on the iterative development, testing, and refining of the resources for an introductory Materials Science course with 3-unit lecture and 1-unit laboratory components. This course is required as part of recently adopted statewide model associate degree curricula for transfer into Civil, Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing engineering bachelor’s degree programs at California State Universities. However, offering such a course is particularly challenging for many community colleges, because of a lack of adequate expertise and/or laboratory facilities and equipment. Consequently, course resources were developed to help mitigate these challenges by streamlining preparation for instructors new to teaching the course, as well as minimizing the face-to-face use of traditional materials testing equipment in the laboratory portion of the course. These same resources can be used to support online hybrid and other alternative (e.g., emporium) delivery approaches. After initial pilot implementation of the course during the Spring 2015 semester by the curriculum designer in a flipped student-centered format, these same resources were then implemented by an instructor who had never previously taught the course, at a different community college that did not have its own materials laboratory facilities. A single site visit was arranged with a nearby community college to afford students an opportunity to complete certain lab activities using traditional materials testing equipment. Lessons learned during this attempt were used to inform curriculum revisions, which were evaluated in a repeat offering the following year. In all implementations of the course, student surveys and interviews were used to determine students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the course resources, student use of these resources, and overall satisfaction with the course. Additionally, student performance on objective assessments was compared with that of traditional lecture delivery of the course by the curriculum designer in prior years. During initial implementations of the course, results from these surveys and assessments revealed low levels of student satisfaction with certain aspects of the flipped approach and course resources, as well as reduced learning among students at the alternate institution. Subsequent modifications to the curriculum and delivery approach were successful in addressing most of these deficiencies. 

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