Online Delivery of Electrical Engineering Courses Using the Online Flipped Classroom Approach

John M. Santiago; Jing Guo

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Conference: 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Publication Date: June 24, 2017
Start Date: June 24, 2017
End Date: June 28, 2017
Conference Session: Division Experimentation and Lab-Oriented Studies - Pedagogy of Lab Courses
Tagged Division: Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies
Page Count: 22
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--28721
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/28721
Download Count: 583

Paper Authors

biography

John M. Santiago Jr Colorado Technical University

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Professor John Santiago has been a technical engineer, manager, and executive with more than 26 years of leadership positions in technical program management, acquisition development and operation research support while in the United States Air Force. He currently has over 16 years of teaching experience at the university level and taught over 40 different graduate and undergraduate courses in electrical engineering, systems engineering, physics and mathematics. He has over 30 published papers and/or technical presentations while spearheading over 40 international scientific and engineering conferences/workshops as a steering committee member while assigned in Europe. Professor Santiago has experience in many engineering disciplines and missions including: control and modeling of large flexible space structures, communications system, electro-optics, high-energy lasers, missile seekers/sensors for precision guided munitions, image processing/recognition, information technologies, space, air and missile warning, missile defense, and homeland defense.

His interests includes: interactive multimedia for e-books, interactive video learning, and 3D/2D animation. Professor Santiago recently published a book entitled, “Circuit Analysis for Dummies” in 2013 after being discovered on YouTube. Professor Santiago received several teaching awards from the United States Air Force Academy and CTU. In 2015, he was awarded CTU’s Faculty of the Year for Teaching Innovations. Professor Santiago has been a 12-time invited speaker in celebration of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month giving multi-media presentations on leadership, diversity and opportunity at various military installations in Colorado and Wyoming.

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Jing Guo Colorado Technical University

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Dr. Jing Guo is a Professor in Engineering Department at Colorado Technical University. She is the course director in circuits and electronics area. She taught variety of underrated and graduate courses including capstone design in Electrical and Computer Engineering area.

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Abstract

In response to 2015 strategic plans to provide online delivery of undergraduate and graduate engineering courses, the College of Engineering, developed a long-range plan to delivery several engineering courses online. The College of Engineering embraced a flipped classroom approach for online content delivery starting in April 2015 based on several years of acquired experience in developing interactive and multimedia content. The online flipped classroom as a teaching pedagogy is described in detail leveraging technology to translate the traditional ground or face-to-face teaching philosophy to one suited for the online classroom environment. The online flipped classroom approach is defined by three main conceptions.

The first notion concerns developing multimedia content that is interactive. The teaching approach leverages several years of the author’s experience and interests in developing content consisting of videos and other media mixed with recordings about using engineering tools and interactive teaching platforms like: Matlab/Simulink, Labview/Multisim, PhET, Algodoo and later H5P (a free and open-source e-learning authoring tool). The overall goal is to develop effective teaching innovations that would timely help students efficiently learn topics in STEM. Developing content suited for online delivery also includes green screen techniques, interactive video and software tools from the internet marketing niche to capture and engage students.

The second concept involves minimal or no lecture material presented during the online sessions when students and instructor meet synchronously twice per week. One chat session is dedicated to addressing questions or clarifications from course content and homework. The other chat session is dedicated to addressing student difficulties in laboratory experiments and exercises. Asynchronous support is also provided through discussion boards and email.

The third and final idea consists of hands-on projects to verify and validate student understanding of concepts, analysis, design and building of their proposed solutions. The College of Engineering adopted National Instrument’s myDAQ and its associated virtual instruments as a learning tool to provide hands-on experience in several engineering courses. The myDAQ tool and software will be used to circuit analysis, digital and analog electronics, analog and digital communications. MyDAQ has been used for an introductory course in engineering, circuit analysis, and electronic courses.

As the first course for online delivery that uses the flipped classroom method, the College of Engineering selected ‘Introduction to Engineering’. Preliminary results from this course are described in the paper showing student satisfaction with this approach. The introductory course includes a combination of mini-lectures and labs. Four full-time faculty created multimedia content and follow-up exercises for assessment of student learning outcomes. Video content is uploaded in YouTube and then embedded in Powerpoint to keep the file size small and for a coherent presentation. Assessment tools can be embedded in Powerpoint using Office Mix as a knowledge check to student understanding. A pilot class simulates the online course with the newly developed content. The flipped classroom method is successful based on comparing student learning outcomes between the pilot class and the face-to-face course. Results from student feedback is discussed as well as suggested improvements of online course instruction and future implementation of courses in circuit analysis, electronics, analog communications and digital communications.

Citation
Format

Santiago, J. M., & Guo, J. (2017, June), Online Delivery of Electrical Engineering Courses Using the Online Flipped Classroom Approach Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28721

TY - CPAPER
AB - In response to 2015 strategic plans to provide online delivery of undergraduate and graduate engineering courses, the College of Engineering, developed a long-range plan to delivery several engineering courses online. The College of Engineering embraced a flipped classroom approach for online content delivery starting in April 2015 based on several years of acquired experience in developing interactive and multimedia content. The online flipped classroom as a teaching pedagogy is described in detail leveraging technology to translate the traditional ground or face-to-face teaching philosophy to one suited for the online classroom environment. The online flipped classroom approach is defined by three main conceptions.

The first notion concerns developing multimedia content that is interactive. The teaching approach leverages several years of the author’s experience and interests in developing content consisting of videos and other media mixed with recordings about using engineering tools and interactive teaching platforms like: Matlab/Simulink, Labview/Multisim, PhET, Algodoo and later H5P (a free and open-source e-learning authoring tool). The overall goal is to develop effective teaching innovations that would timely help students efficiently learn topics in STEM. Developing content suited for online delivery also includes green screen techniques, interactive video and software tools from the internet marketing niche to capture and engage students.

The second concept involves minimal or no lecture material presented during the online sessions when students and instructor meet synchronously twice per week. One chat session is dedicated to addressing questions or clarifications from course content and homework. The other chat session is dedicated to addressing student difficulties in laboratory experiments and exercises. Asynchronous support is also provided through discussion boards and email.

The third and final idea consists of hands-on projects to verify and validate student understanding of concepts, analysis, design and building of their proposed solutions. The College of Engineering adopted National Instrument’s myDAQ and its associated virtual instruments as a learning tool to provide hands-on experience in several engineering courses. The myDAQ tool and software will be used to circuit analysis, digital and analog electronics, analog and digital communications. MyDAQ has been used for an introductory course in engineering, circuit analysis, and electronic courses.

As the first course for online delivery that uses the flipped classroom method, the College of Engineering selected ‘Introduction to Engineering’. Preliminary results from this course are described in the paper showing student satisfaction with this approach. The introductory course includes a combination of mini-lectures and labs. Four full-time faculty created multimedia content and follow-up exercises for assessment of student learning outcomes. Video content is uploaded in YouTube and then embedded in Powerpoint to keep the file size small and for a coherent presentation. Assessment tools can be embedded in Powerpoint using Office Mix as a knowledge check to student understanding. A pilot class simulates the online course with the newly developed content. The flipped classroom method is successful based on comparing student learning outcomes between the pilot class and the face-to-face course. Results from student feedback is discussed as well as suggested improvements of online course instruction and future implementation of courses in circuit analysis, electronics, analog communications and digital communications.

AU - John M. Santiago Jr
AU - Jing Guo
CY - Columbus, Ohio
DA - 2017/06/24
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Online Delivery of Electrical Engineering Courses Using the Online Flipped Classroom Approach
UR - https://peer.asee.org/28721
DO - 10.18260/1-2--28721
ER -