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Due to COVID-19, engineering summer camps offered by North Carolina State University (NCSU) shifted to a virtual format for the summer of 2021 and required a new curriculum to be designed with an emphasis on providing a hands-on experience in a virtual environment. The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering created a curriculum which included some hands-on activities used in previous, in-person camps, a homebuilt wind tunnel used to demonstrate aerospace fundamentals, and a popular engineering game used as a teaching tool to explain astronautics concepts. Each week-long camp was conducted via Zoom and led by a team consisting of a NCSU graduate student, three undergraduate students, and a faculty advisor. Anonymous student feedback following the completion of the camps showed overwhelmingly positive results with a majority of students showing interest in pursuing an engineering degree with multiple students expressing interest in attending NCSU
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“Zooming In” on Robotics during COVID-19: A Preservice Teacher, an Engineering Student, and a 5th Grader Engineer Robotic Flowers via Zoom
The COVID-19 induced school shutdown dramatically decreased students’ hands-on STEM learning opportunities. An NSF-funded program partnering preservice teachers and undergraduate engineering students to teach robotics to fifth graders was adapted to a virtual format via Zoom. A case study intimately explored one team’s experience as they engineered bio-inspired robots over five weekly sessions. Zoom recordings, written reflections, and lesson slides were analyzed to describe how the virtual context shaped the lesson and influenced the preservice teacher’s experience. All three participants successfully engineered a robotic flower indicating hands-on robotics instruction is feasible in an online format. The virtual context increased the preservice teacher’s responsibilities and sense of autonomy, and appeared to positively influence her knowledge and self-efficacy. Despite technical challenges, positive outcomes suggest the approach is worth repeating. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study examining a virtual robotics lesson co-taught by a preservice teacher and an engineering student.
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- PAR ID:
- 10297471
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- SITE Interactive Online 2020 Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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