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Designing a senior-level course that involves problem-based learning, including project completion task, is laborious and challenging. A well-designed project motivates the students to be self-learners and prepares them for future industrial or academic endeavors. The COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges when instructions were forced to move either online or to a remote teaching/learning environment. Due to this rapid transition, delivery modes in teaching and learning modalities faced disruption making course design more difficult. The senior level Flight Controls course AME - 4513 is designed with Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) related projects for the students to have a better understanding of UAS usage on various applications in support of Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. The purpose of this paper is to present the UAS lab modules in a junior level robotics lab, AME - 4802, which preceded the Flight Controls course in the school of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Successfully completing the course project requires independent research and involves numerical simulations of UAS. The Robotics Lab course focuses on hands-on projects of robotic systems with an emphasis on semi-autonomous mobile robots, including an UAS introduction module. - The UAS module in the Robotics Lab class is introduced in Spring 2020. Therefore, most of the students enrolled in the Spring 2020 Robotics Lab course have introductory knowledge about the UAS system when taking the Fall 2020 Flight Control course. In addition, Spring 2020 Robotics Lab was affected due to COVID-19. - The UAS module was not introduced in 2019 Spring Robotics lab. Thus, the students enrolled in Fall 2019 Flight Controls course did not have prior knowledge on the UAS system. - We thus present the implementation of UAS module in a junior level robotics lab which preceded the senior level Flight Controls course in following Fall semester, when the same instructor taught the course.
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Methylothon: a Versatile Course-Based High School Research Experience in Microbiology and Bioinformatics with Pink Bacteria
ABSTRACT Methylothon is an inquiry-based high school learning module in microbial ecology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics that centers around pink-pigmented plant-associated methylotrophic bacteria. Here, we present an overview of the module’s learning goals, describe course resources (available for public use at http://methylothon.com ), and relate lessons learned from adapting Methylothon for remote learning during the pandemic in spring of 2021. This curriculum description is intended not only for instructors but also for microbial ecology researchers with an interest in conducting K-12 outreach. The original in-person version of the module allows students to isolate their own strains of methylotrophic bacteria from plants they sample from the environment, to identify these using PCR, sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis, and to contribute their strains to original research in a university lab. The adapted version strengthens the focus on bioinformatics and increases its flexibility and accessibility by making the lab portion optional and adopting free web-based tools. Student feedback and graded assignments from spring 2021 revealed that the lesson was especially effective at introducing the concepts of BLAST and phylogenetic trees and that students valued and felt inspired by the opportunity to conduct hands-on work and to participate in community science.
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- PAR ID:
- 10354693
- Editor(s):
- Vrentas, Catherine
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Society for Microbiology
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
- Volume:
- 23
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1935-7877
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00227-21
