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1. Physics through Algebra for Preservice Elementary Teachers: A Comparison of Asynchronous and Hybrid/Face-to-Face Learning

   Kurz, T.L.; Meltzer, D.E.; Nation, M. (November 2022, Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning Online 2022)

   At a large Hispanic-Serving Institution in the southwestern United States, physics was integrated into an algebra content course for preservice teachers. Due to the pandemic, content was asynchronously taught during the fall 2020 semester. During the fall 2021 semester, content was taught in both hybrid and face-to-face format. This research question was: Regarding preservice teachers’ leaning and academic experiences, what were the differences between perceptions of preservice teachers’ learning on the subject of physics-based algebra in an asynchronous format compared to a hybrid or face-to-face format? Data were gathered from both preservice teachers and their instructors. Data from preservice teachers showed that the in-person and hybrid instruction cohort saw a significant change in Personal Mathematics Teaching Efficacy from pre- to post-test when testing at the .05 level, whereas this was not the case for the online instruction cohort. There was no statistical difference in the post Personal Mathematics Teaching Efficacy and post Mathematics Teaching Outcome Expectancy scores between the face-to-face and hybrid preservice teachers and the asynchronous preservice teachers. Their instructors felt that experiences were more fruitful in a face to face format. 

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2. On Moving a Face-to-Face Flipped Classroom to a Remote Setting

   Autar Kaw (May 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   Starting in March 2020, the COVID19 pandemic instantly affected the education of 14 million higher education students in the USA. The switch to remote instruction caught instructors and students off guard – teachers had to change their techniques, approaches, and course content rapidly (called “panicgogy”), and students had to adjust to remote instruction in a hurry. Hoping that the pandemic would not last too long, most had expected to return to the regular class format at most by the Fall semester. That expectation was quickly squashed as the summer semester progressed. If one were teaching a face-to-face classroom in a flipped modality, it would be even more challenging to teach a flipped class in an online environment. In this paper, we present how the instructor overhauled a face-to-face flipped class in Numerical Methods to an online environment. This involved 1) rethinking the learning design of the course content via the learning management system, 2) using Microsoft forms as personal response systems, and YouTube for video lectures, 3) not only using break-out rooms for peer-to-peer learning but the “main room” for individual learning as well, 4) exploit the availability of two computers and multiple monitors to deliver and observe the synchronous part of the class, 5) use of discussion boards to streamline the flow of communication that would have otherwise been unwieldy for the instructor, TAs, and students alike, 6) changes made to assessment as it had to be carried online and within a proctoring software environment, 7) changes in the conducting of office hours. The above items will be discussed in the paper, and comparisons of face-to-face and online implementations will be made. The ultimate goal is to present a logic model for a typical lecture-based online flipped STEM classroom for efficient and effective implementation by other instructors. 

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3. The Effectiveness of Synchronous vs Asynchronous Modes of Instruction in an Online Flipped Design Thinking Course

   Mohandas, L. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Motivation: This is a complete paper. There was a sudden shift from traditional learning to online learning in Spring 2020 with the outbreak of COVID-19. Although online learning is not a new topic of discussion, universities, faculty, and students were not prepared for this sudden change in learning. According to a recent article in ‘The Chronicle of Higher Education, “even under the best of circumstances, virtual learning requires a different, carefully crafted approach to engagement”. The Design Thinking course under study is a required freshmen level course offered in a Mid-western University. The Design Thinking course is offered in a flipped format where all the content to be learned is given to students beforehand and the in-class session is used for active discussions and hands-on learning related to the content provided at the small group level. The final learning objective of the course is a group project where student groups are expected to come up with functional prototypes to solve a real-world problem following the Design Thinking process. There were eighteen sections of the Design Thinking course offered in Spring 2020, and with the outbreak of COVID-19, a few instructors decided to offer synchronous online classes (where instructors were present online during class time and provided orientation and guidance just like a normal class) and a few others decided to offer asynchronous online classes (where orientation from the instructor was delivered asynchronous and the instructor was online during officially scheduled class time but interactions were more like office hours). Students were required to be present synchronously at the team level during the class time in a synchronous online class. In an asynchronous online class, students could be synchronous at the team level to complete their assignment any time prior to the deadline such that they could work during class time but they were not required to work at that time. Through this complete paper, we are trying to understand student learning, social presence and learner satisfaction with respect to different modes of instruction in a freshmen level Design Thinking course. Background: According to literature, synchronous online learning has advantages such as interaction, a classroom environment, and better course quality whereas asynchronous online learning has advantages such as self-controlled and self-directed learning. The disadvantages of synchronous online learning include the learning process, technology issues, and distraction. Social isolation, lack of interaction, and technology issue are a few disadvantages related to asynchronous online learning. Problem Being Addressed: There is a limited literature base investigating different modes of online instruction in a Design Thinking course. Through this paper, we are trying to understand and share the effectiveness of synchronous and asynchronous modes of instruction in an online Flipped Design Thinking Course. The results of the paper could also help in this time of pandemic by shedding light on the more effective way to teach highly active group-based classrooms for better student learning, social presence, and learner satisfaction. Method/Assessment: An end of semester survey was monitored in Spring 2020 to understand student experiences in synchronous and asynchronous Design Thinking course sections. The survey was sent to 720 students enrolled in the course in Spring 2020 and 324 students responded to the survey. Learning was measured using the survey instrument developed by Walker (2003) and the social presence and learner satisfaction was measured by the survey modified by Richardson and Swan (2003). Likert scale was used to measure survey responses. Anticipated Results: Data would be analyzed and the paper would be completed by draft paper submission. As the course under study is a flipped and active course with a significant component of group work, the anticipated results after analysis could be that one mode of instruction has higher student learning, social presence, and learner satisfaction compared to the other. 

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4. Learner Analytics in Engineering Education: A Detailed Account of Practices Used in the Cleaning and Manipulation of Learning Management System Data from Online Undergraduate Engineering Courses

   Kittur, J.; Bekki, J.; Brunhaver, S. (January 2020, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   This work falls under the evidence-based practice type of paper. Online undergraduate engineering education is rapidly increasing in use. The online format not only provides greater flexibility and ease of access for students, but also has lower costs for universities when compared to face-to-face courses. Even with these generally positive attributes, online courses face challenges with respect to student attrition. Numerous studies have shown that the dropout rate in online courses is higher than that for in-person courses, and topics related to online student persistence remain of interest. Data describing student interactions with their Learning Management System (LMS) provide an important lens through which online student engagement and corresponding persistence decisions can be studied, but many engineering education researchers may lack experience in working with LMS interaction data. The purpose of this paper is to provide a concrete example for other engineering education researchers of how LMS interaction data from online undergraduate engineering courses can be prepared for analysis. The work presented here is part of a larger National Science Foundation-funded study dedicated to developing a theoretical model for online undergraduate engineering student persistence based on student LMS interaction activities and patterns. Our sample dataset includes six courses, two from electrical engineering and four from engineering management, offered during the fall 2018 semester at a large, public southwestern university. The LMS interaction data provides details about students’ navigations to and submissions of different course elements including quizzes, assignments, discussion forums, wiki pages, attachments, modules, the syllabus, the gradebook, and course announcements. Relatedly, the features created from the data in this study can be classified into three categories: 1) learning page views, which capture student interactions with course content, 2) procedural page views, which capture student navigation to course management activities, and 3) social page views, which capture learner-to-learner and learner-to-instructor interactions. The full paper will provide the rationale and details involved in choices related to data cleaning, manipulation, and feature creation. A complete list of features will also be included. These features will ultimately be combined with associative classification to discover relationships between student-LMS interactions and persistence decisions. 

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5. Community as "Surroundings" in a Classroom Ecosystem

   Clark, R. (January 2023, ASEE 2023)

   In this paper, we preliminarily examine the notion of the “surroundings” in an engineering classroom. We posed an open-ended reflection question to engineering undergraduates at a large US university about their classroom surroundings and its impact on their learning and comprehension. The reflection prompt defined surroundings as the “conditions and objects that surround you.” This reflection question was part of an NSF-funded study on the use of weekly reflection in a flipped fluid mechanics course to drive metacognitive development and lifelong learning skills. During class, students were encouraged to collaborate with their peers during problem solving to achieve collective understanding and interact with the instructor. Based on an inductive, emergent content analysis of the reflection data with two analysts, we obtained an unexpected result. Specifically, the most-frequently mentioned positive classroom “surroundings” was “peers” (46% of responses). We had initially expected less-positive responses related to the physical surroundings, such as classroom layout, size, furniture, infrastructure, etc. Although students identified the classroom’s physical attributes as surroundings that had both negative and positive influences on their learning, a second unexpected positive response emerged with the instructor and in-person instruction as part of the “surroundings.” Upon searching the literature to understand these results, we adopted the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. This model consists of three interacting components of cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence, which enable educational experiences and learning. When combined, the Community of Inquiry elements (i.e., peers, instructor, and in-class instruction) were discussed in 55% of the reflections as positive “surroundings.” Within the classroom ecosystem, feelings about positive CoI “surroundings” balanced 54% of respondents who discussed the physical room attributes as non-supportive to learning. Interestingly, when students identified their CoI as a type of surrounding, they less-frequently identified physical attributes of the classroom as non-supportive. Thus, the presence of a Community of Inquiry may have diminished the perception or impact of physical room features. Overall, our results preliminarily suggest the positive influence that an interactive flipped classroom structure can have on students’ perceptions of their “surroundings.” 

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