Starke, J. A., & McNamara, M. L., & Povinelli, R. J., & Castillo-Perez, D., & Brigham, L. N. (2020, October), Staying Connected – Interactive Student Learning during the COVID Transition to Remote Learning  Paper presented at 2020 ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference, Ames, Iowa. 10.18260/1-2--44673

\bibitem{asee_peer_44673}
  Starke, J. A., \& McNamara, M. L., \& Povinelli, R. J., \& Castillo-Perez, D., \& Brigham, L. N. (2020, October), \emph{Staying Connected – Interactive Student Learning during the COVID Transition to Remote Learning}
  Paper presented at 2020 ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference, Ames, Iowa.
  10.18260/1-2--44673

Jeffrey A. Starke P.E., Margaret L McNamara P.E., Richard J. Povinelli P.E., Daniela Castillo-Perez, and L. Noelle Brigham.  "Staying Connected – Interactive Student Learning during the COVID Transition to Remote Learning".  2020 ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference, Ames, Iowa, 2020, October.  ASEE Conferences, 2020.  https://peer.asee.org/44673 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_44673}
  Jeffrey A. Starke P.E., Margaret L McNamara P.E., Richard J. Povinelli P.E., Daniela Castillo-Perez, and L. Noelle Brigham.
  "Staying Connected – Interactive Student Learning during the COVID Transition to Remote Learning".
  \emph{2020 ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference, Ames, Iowa, 2020, October}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2020.
  https://peer.asee.org/44673 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_44673
author = "Jeffrey A. Starke P.E., Margaret L McNamara P.E., Richard J. Povinelli P.E., Daniela Castillo-Perez, and L. Noelle Brigham"
title = "Staying Connected – Interactive Student Learning during the COVID Transition to Remote Learning"
booktitle = "2020 ASEE North Midwest Section Annual Conference"
year = "2020"
month = "October"
address = "Ames, Iowa"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/44673}
number = {10.18260/1-2--44673}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - How can we transition courses in one week, while maintaining a similar experience for students? This was probably the initial response by faculty across universities as they transitioned to remote learning, mid-semester, in response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This sentiment is captured by Stephen Kosslyn’s blog “Online Education: Beyond Lectures and Discussion Groups” (Kosslyn, 2020). Kosslyn poses the quality of the online course as “one that leads students to learn – and retain! – the learning outcomes … students should find the experience appealing and want to come back for more.” As part of our transition, we focused on how we could foster students’ interactions with course material, instructors, and their peers using collaborative technology and course activities across a spectrum of engineering topics. 

Our interactive approach is supported by the ICAP framework which posits that “as activities move from passive to active to constructive to interactive, students undergo different knowledge-change processes and, as a result, learning will increase.” (Chi and Wylie, 2014) This has been reinforced in pedagogical approaches such as the Problem-Solving Studio (PSS) learning environment by LeDoux and Waller (2016). Faculty members used Microsoft Teams (Teams) and Marquette University’s Learning Management System Desire2Learn (D2L) as platforms for their courses. Each faculty member developed student groups to promote peer and instructor engagement during problem-solving activities, topic discussions, or design projects via the Teams channel function. It was hypothesized that this collaborative environment, coupled with appropriately designed activities, would promote the interactive learning described by the ICAP framework and PSS approach. 

The students were asked to participate in a voluntary survey designed to understand their perspective and the effectiveness of using Teams / D2L to promote the interactive learning experience that each faculty member valued. Initial results from Likert 5-point scale responses support three positive findings to this approach:
•	Finding 1 (Instructor Engagement and Student Confidence):  Students had a strong, positive reaction to the instructor engagement (4.67) and student confidence (4.07).
•	Finding 2 (Consistent Coursework):  Students reported the amount of work in courses with the interactive tools was consistent (3.90) with the in-class experience. 
•	Finding 3 (Collaborative Technology):  Using collaborative technology (3.84) enabled the students to successfully interact with their peers.  
The survey also provided data on opportunities for improvement for future on-line courses:
•	Opportunity 1:  Communication (2.57) is still a barrier with collaborative technology.  
•	Opportunity 2:  Students also reported an overall dislike (2.44) of the on-line learning format.  

The use of MS Teams shows that instructor engagement contributes the most to the positive experiences for confidence, consistency, and use of collaborative technology. We see the need to foster effective communication among classmates and student teams. As students become accustomed to this work environment, we believe there are opportunities to develop more advantages than traditional approaches and will provide students an easier transition to industry, which already use these remote communication tools.

REFERENCES
Chi, M.T.H. and Wylie, R. 2014. “The ICAP Framework: Linking Cognitive Engagement to Active Learning Outcomes.” Educational Psychologist 49 (4): 219-243.
LeDoux, J.M. and A.A. Waller. 2016. “The Problem-Solving Studio: An Apprenticeship Environment for Aspiring Engineers.” Advances in Engineering Education, Fall.
Kosslyn, S. 2020. “Online Education: Beyond Lectures and Discussion Groups” published 4/22/2020; https://evollution.com/category/revenue-strams/distance_online_learning.

AU  - Jeffrey A. Starke P.E.
AU  - Margaret L McNamara P.E.
AU  - Richard J. Povinelli P.E.
AU  - Daniela Castillo-Perez
AU  - L. Noelle Brigham
CY  - Ames, Iowa
DA  - 2020/10/15
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Staying Connected – Interactive Student Learning during the COVID Transition to Remote Learning
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/44673
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--44673
ER  -