Putting Discussion-Based Engineering Education Courses Online
- Conference
- Location
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Tampa, Florida
- Publication Date
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June 15, 2019
- Start Date
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June 15, 2019
- End Date
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June 19, 2019
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Graduate Studies
- Page Count
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14
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--33217
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/33217
- Download Count
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791
Paper Authors
Audeen W. Fentiman Purdue University
Audeen Fentiman is the Crowley Family Professor in Engineering Education at Purdue University. She served as Associate Dean of Engineering for Graduate Education and Interdisciplinary Programs at Purdue from 2006 through 2017. Dr. Fentiman is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Emilie A. Siverling Purdue University
Emilie A. Siverling is a Ph.D. Candidate in Engineering Education at Purdue University. She received a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.S.Ed. in Science Education from Purdue University, and she is a former high school chemistry and physics teacher. Her research interests are in K-12 STEM integration, primarily using engineering design to support secondary science curricula and instruction.
Rene Alexander Soto Perez Purdue University
René Alexander Soto-Pérez received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia, in 1997 and 2013, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He has experience in the field of electrical machines and distribution’s systems. Currently, René is a Ph.D. student at Purdue University in the program of Engineering Education. His research interests include assessing students understanding of difficult concepts as well as the effectiveness of pedagogical approaches.
Ruth A. Streveler Purdue University
Ruth A. Streveler is a Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Dr. Streveler has been the Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator of ten grants funded by the US National Science Foundation. She has published articles in the Journal of Engineering Education and the International Journal of Engineering Education and has contributed to the Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research. She has presented workshops to over 500 engineering faculty on four continents. Dr. Streveler’s primary research interests are investigating students’ understanding of difficult concepts in engineering science and helping engineering faculty conduct rigorous research in engineering education. In 2015, Dr. Streveler was inducted as an ASEE Fellow.
Michael C. Loui Purdue University
Michael C. Loui is the Dale and Suzi Gallagher Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He was previously Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and University Distinguished Teacher-Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published articles in computational complexity theory, in professional ethics, and in engineering education research. He currently serves on the Advisory Group for the Online Ethics Center at the National Academy of Engineering. He is a Carnegie Scholar, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education. Professor Loui was the editor of the Journal of Engineering Education from 2012 to 2017 and the executive editor of College Teaching from 2006 to 2012. He was Associate Dean of the Graduate College at Illinois from 1996 to 2000. He directed the theory of computing program at the National Science Foundation from 1990 to 1991. He earned the Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980.
Kerrie A. Douglas
Purdue University-Main Campus, West Lafayette (College of Engineering)
orcid.org/0000-0002-2693-5272
Dr. Douglas is an Assistant Professor in the Purdue School of Engineering Education. Her research is focused on improving methods of assessment in large learning environments to foster high-quality learning opportunities. Additionally, she studies techniques to validate findings from machine-generated educational data.
Abstract
At our University, the School of Engineering Education offers a Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning Engineering. Several engineering graduate students and faculty members at other universities have asked whether the certificate could be offered online. Four courses (10 credit hours) are required for the certificate. During the 2018-2019 academic year, all of those courses are being adapted for online delivery. Our university has offered engineering graduate courses and degrees online for decades in many of the traditional disciplines. However, engineering education courses are quite different from traditional engineering courses because they involve a great deal of reading, class discussion, and writing. One of the strengths of the face-to-face engineering education courses is spontaneous class discussion with students from many different backgrounds contributing comments from their perspectives. Another strength is the opportunity to work in small groups and periodically share ideas among groups. Preserving these strengths in an online setting is an important goal of the teams preparing the graduate certificate courses for online delivery.
A separate team is working to adapt each of the four courses for online delivery, but the four teams are meeting together regularly. The teams typically consist of the faculty member responsible for the course, a graduate student familiar with the course, an instructional designer, and a technologist familiar with the equipment to be used. Each team is taking a slightly different approach to preserving the strengths of these discussion-based courses, and all teams will be assessing their success in accomplishing that goal. One course was prepared for online delivery in fall 2018, and lessons learned were documented. The other courses will be ready online delivery in spring 2019. Some courses will be delivered asynchronously while the others will have varying levels of synchronous delivery involving both on-campus and online students.
This paper will describe the different approaches to preserving the strengths of the face-to-face courses and the quality of the student experience. Observations will be provided on designing, preparing, and teaching the online version of these courses. Advantages and disadvantages of each approach, preliminary assessment results, lessons learned, and suggestions for modifications will be discussed.
Fentiman, A. W., & Siverling, E. A., & Soto Perez, R. A., & Streveler, R. A., & Loui, M. C., & Douglas, K. A. (2019, June), Putting Discussion-Based Engineering Education Courses Online Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--33217
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