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1. Insights from the First Year of Project # 2044472 “Improving the Conceptual Mastery of Engineering Students in High Enrollment Engineering Courses through Oral Exams

   Qi, H. ; Lubarda M. ; Schurgers C. ; Sandoval C. ; Klement, L. ; Ghazinejad M. ; Relaford-Doyle, J. ; Kim, M. ; Minnes, M. ; Baghdadchi S. ; et al ( June 2022 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   This project aims to enhance students’ learning in foundational engineering courses through oral exams based on the research conducted at the University of California San Diego. The adaptive dialogic nature of oral exams provides instructors an opportunity to better understand students’ thought processes, thus holding promise for improving both assessments of conceptual mastery and students’ learning attitudes and strategies. However, the issues of oral exam reliability, validity, and scalability have not been fully addressed. As with any assessment format, careful design is needed to maximize the benefits of oral exams to student learning and minimize the potential concerns. Compared to traditional written exams, oral exams have a unique design space, which involves a large range of parameters, including the type of oral assessment questions, grading criteria, how oral exams are administered, how questions are communicated and presented to the students, how feedback were provided, and other logistical perspectives such as weight of oral exam in overall course grade, frequency of oral assessment, etc. In order to address the scalability for high enrollment classes, key elements of the project are the involvement of the entire instructional team (instructors and teaching assistants). Thus the project will create a new training program tomore »prepare faculty and teaching assistants to administer oral exams that include considerations of issues such as bias and students with disabilities. The purpose of this study is to create a framework to integrate oral exams in core undergraduate engineering courses, complementing existing assessment strategies by (1) creating a guideline to optimize the oral exam design parameters for the best students learning outcomes; and (2) Create a new training program to prepare faculty and teaching assistants to administer oral exams. The project will implement an iterative design strategy using an evidence-based approach of evaluation. The effectiveness of the oral exams will be evaluated by tracking student improvements on conceptual questions across consecutive oral exams in a single course, as well as across other courses. Since its start in January 2021, the project is well underway. In this poster, we will present a summary of the results from year 1: (1) exploration of the oral exam design parameters, and its impact in students’ engagement and perception of oral exams towards learning; (2) the effectiveness of the newly developed instructor and teaching assistants training programs (3) The development of the evaluation instruments to gauge the project success; (4) instructors and teaching assistants experience and perceptions.« less
2. Mastery Learning in Undergraduate Engineering Courses: A Systematic Review

   Perez Leon, C. ; Verdin, D. ( August 2022 , Zone 1 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   This theory paper focuses on understanding how mastery learning has been implemented in undergraduate engineering courses through a systematic review. Academic environments that promote learning, mastery, and continuous improvement rather than inherent ability can promote performance and persistence. Scholarship has argued that students could achieve mastery of the course material when the time available to master concepts and the quality of instruction was made appropriate to each learner. Increasing time to demonstrate mastery involves a course structure that allows for repeated attempts on learning assessments (i.e., homework, quizzes, projects, exams). Students are not penalized for failed attempts but are rewarded for achieving eventual mastery. The mastery learning approach recognizes that mastery is not always achieved on first attempts and learning from mistakes and persisting is fundamental to how we learn. This singular concept has potentially the greatest impact on students’ mindset in terms of their belief they can be successful in learning the course material. A significant amount of attention has been given to mastery learning courses in secondary education and mastery learning has shown an exceptionally positive effect on student achievement. However, implementing mastery learning in an undergraduate course can be a cumbersome process as it requires instructors tomore »significantly restructure their assignments and exams, evaluation process, and grading practices. In light of these challenges, it is unclear the extent to which mastery learning has been implemented in undergraduate engineering courses or if similar positive effects can be found. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review to elucidate, how in the U.S., (1) has mastery learning been implemented in undergraduate engineering courses from 1990 to the present time and (2) the student outcomes that have been reported for these implementations. Using the systematic process outlined by Borrego et al. (2014), we surveyed seven databases and a total of 584 articles consisting of engineering and non-engineering courses were identified. We focused our review on studies that were centered on applying the mastery learning pedagogical method in undergraduate engineering courses. All peer-reviewed and practitioner articles and conference proceedings that were within our scope were included in the synthetization phase of the review. Most articles were excluded based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Twelve studies focused on applying mastery learning to undergraduate engineering courses. The mastery learning method was mainly applied on midterm exams, few studies used the method on homework assignments, and no study applied the method to the final exam. Students reported an increase in learning as a result of applying mastery learning. Several studies reported that students’ grades in a traditional final exam were not affected by mastery learning. Students’ self-reported evaluation of the course suggests that students prefer the mastery learning approach over traditional methods. Although a clear consensus on the effect of the mastery learning approach could not be achieved as each article applied different survey instruments to capture students’ perspectives. Responses to open-ended questions have mixed results. Two studies report more positive student comments on opened-ended questions, while one study report receiving more negative comments regarding the implementation of the mastery learning method. In the full paper we more thoroughly describe the ways in which mastery learning was implemented along with clear examples of common and divergent student outcomes across the twelve studies.« less
3. Education in a Remote World: Focus on Workforce Readiness

   Delahanty, C. ; Genis, V. ; Herring, S. ; & Timby, T.A ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Bucks County Community College (Bucks) in collaboration with Drexel University (Drexel) is committed to increasing the number of workforce ready engineers and engineering technicians and to creating a blueprint for 2+2 engineering education programs nationally. Recently, educational reform took an unexpected turn to remote teaching due to the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. Within our NSF ATE grant to enhance our present engineering technology curriculum we modified and enhanced instructional and student engagement methods to assure workforce readiness of our students in a remote world. Curriculum enhancements within the engineering technology (ET) occupational major at Bucks and the B.S. in ET degree program at Drexel, modifications to delivery of workforce development certification programs through the Bucks Center for Workforce Development (CWD), and college-wide student engagement strategies were implemented to assure quality education and student engagement. Modifications to credit courses included asynchronous online courses, synchronous remote courses, and hybrid courses, which combined remote and on campus laboratory instruction. Our CWD implemented hybrid instruction that included necessary resources for students such as tool kits and borrowed laptop computers. In addition, a college wide program called Bucks+ was implemented through the Bucks Business and Innovation Department to increase enrollment, retention, and workforce readiness of students.more »The Bucks+ program focuses on student engagement through competition within curriculum, and extracurricular endeavors that prepare students for industry. We will share our successes and challenges within our call to action to engage students in a remote world and to enhance their educational experience through innovative instructional techniques.« less
4. The concerns and perceived challenges students faced when traditional in-person engineering courses suddenly transitioned to remote learning

   Yu, Fan ; Milord, Johanna ; Orton, Sarah L. ; Flores, Lisa. Y. ; & Marra, Rose. M. ( June 2022 , 2022 ASEE Annual Conference)

   This research evaluates the impact of switching college engineering courses from in-person instruction to emergency remote learning among engineering students at a university in the Midwest. The study aimed to answer the question: What were the concerns and perceived challenges students faced when traditional in-person engineering courses suddenly transitioned to remote learning? The goal of this study is to uncover the challenges students were facing in engineering online courses and to understand students’ concerns. Our findings can help improve teaching instruction to provide students with previously unavailable educational assistance for online engineering courses. We collected online survey responses during weeks 8 and 9 of the academic semester, shortly after the COVID-19 shutdown and emergency transition to remote learning in Spring 2020. The survey included two open-ended questions which inquired about students’ feedback about moving the class online, and one two-item scale which assessed students’ confidence in online engineering learning. Data analysis for the open-ended questions was guided by the theoretical framework - Social Cognitive Career Theory [1] that explores how context, person factors and social cognitions contribute to career goals, interests and actions. A phenomenological approach [2] was conducted to understand the experience of these students. Open coding and axialmore »coding [2] methods were used to create initial categories then themes related to students' concerns and challenges. Data from the two-item scale was evaluated using descriptive statistics: means, standard deviations, and ranges. Four main themes with separate sub-categories emerged from the student responses: 1) Instructor’s ability to teach course online (Instructional limitations, Seeking help, Increased Workload), 2) Student’s ability to learn online (Time Management, Lower engagement and motivation, Harder to absorb material, Hard to focus, Worry about performance), 3) Difficulties outside of class (Technology issues), and 4) No concerns. Students seemed more concerned about their ability to learn the material (48% of responses) than the instructor’s ability to teach the material (36% of responses). The instructional limitations or lack of instructional support (22% of responses) and time management (12% of responses) were among the major concerns in the sub-categories. The results from two-item scale indicated participants' s confidence in their ability to master their classroom knowledge was at an intermediate level via online instruction (6/10), and participants' confidence in the instructor's ability to teach knowledge in online classes is moderate to high (7/10). The results align with the open-ended question response in which students were somewhat more concerned about their ability to learn than the instructor’s ability to teach. The themes and analysis will be a valuable tool to help institutions and instructors improve student learning experiences.« less
5. Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of Large-Scale Interventions in a First-Year Experience Program

   Menezes, Gustavo B. ; Allen, Emily L. ; Ragusa, Giselle ; Schiorring, Eva ; Nerenberg, Paul ( June 2019 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   In this Work-in-Progress paper, we report on the challenges and successes of a large-scale First- Year Engineering and Computer Science Program at an urban comprehensive university, using quantitative and qualitative assessment results. Large-scale intervention programs are especially relevant to comprehensive minority serving institutions (MSIs) that serve a high percentage of first-generation college students who often face academic and socioeconomic barriers. Our program was piloted in 2015 with 30 engineering students, currently enrolls 60 engineering and computer science students, and is expected to grow to over 200 students by Fall 2020. The firstyear program interventions include: (i) block schedules for each cohort in the first year; (ii) redesigned project-based introduction to engineering and introduction to computer science courses; (iii) an introduction to mechanics course, which provides students with the foundation needed to succeed in the traditional physics sequence; and (iv) peer-led supplemental instruction (SI) workshops for Calculus, Physics and Chemistry. A faculty mentorship program was implemented to provide additional support to students, but was phased out after the first year. Challenges encountered in the process of expanding the program include administrative, such as scheduling and training faculty and SI leaders; barriers to improvement of math and science instruction; and more holisticmore »concerns such as creating a sense of community and identity for the program. Quantitative data on academic performance includes metrics such as STEM GPA and persistence, along with the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) for physics. Qualitative assessments of the program have used student and instructor surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews to measure relationships among factors associated with college student support and to extract student perspectives on what works best for them. Four years of data tell a mixed story, in which the qualitative effect of the interventions on student confidence and identity is strong, while academic performance is not yet significantly different than that of comparison groups. One of the most significant results of the program is the development of a FYrE Professional Learning Community which includes faculty (both tenure-track and adjunct), department chairs, staff, and administrators from across the campus.« less