Supporting STEM Knowledge and Skills in Engineering Education - the PELARS project
- Conference
- Location
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New Orleans, Louisiana
- Publication Date
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June 25, 2016
- Start Date
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June 25, 2016
- End Date
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June 25, 2016
- Conference Session
- Tagged Topics
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Diversity and International Forum
- Page Count
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8
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--27258
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/27258
- Download Count
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361
Paper Authors
Dorian A. Cojocaru University of Craiova
Dorian Cojocaru received the Ph.D. in Automation from the Romanian Ministry of Education in 1997. He is active as a full university professor, head of Mechatronics and Robotics Department and PhD coordinator. He is acting as expert for Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education and other national and international research and academic bodies. His present areas of research are: computer vision, robotics and mechatronics, and new trends in technical higher education. He has published more than 10 books, more than 200 papers in various scientific journals and international conference proceedings and he coordinated more than 15 research national and international programs.
Anna Friesel Technical University-Copenhagen
Anna Friesel is Professor at the Section for Electrical Technology, DTU Diplom - Technical University of Denmark, Campus Ballerup. She is also the president of the EAEEIE - European Association for Education in Electrical and Information Engineering, which is a European non-profit organization, with members from nearly seventy European Universities, most of them teaching in the area of Electrical and Information Engineering (EIE). Anna Friesel is a member of the IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Curricula and Pedagogy Committee (CPC). She collaborates regularly with many technical universities in Europe, Latin America and USA on topics related to improvement of engineering education. Her research interests include mathematical modeling, system dynamics, control theory, and educational methods in automation, robotics, and in engineering in general.
Daniel Spikol Malmö University
Spikol is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media Technology in the Faculty of Technology. His research interests are in the design and development of technology-enhanced learning that engages learners and support teaching with a focus on engineering and design activities.
Abstract
The PELARS project (Practice-based Experiential Learning Analytics Research and Support, EU-FP7 project) is intended as a testing ground and generator of 21st-Century STEM knowledge and skills. The PELARS project generates, analyses, uses and provides feedback for analytics derived from hands-on, project-based and experiential learning scenarios. These scenarios are: 1. European High School level STEM classrooms. 2. Postsecondary Science and Engineering practical environments. 3. The more open-form studio environments of the Interaction Design Schools (which form the basis and inspiration for many of the project’s orientations). In this paper we present our proposal for improving analytics education with hands-on, project-based and experimental scenarios for engineering students. This is done through teacher and learner engagement, user studies and evaluated trials, performed at UCV (University of Craiova, Romania) and DTU (Technical University of Denmark). The PELARS project provides technological tools and ICT-based methods for collecting activity data (moving image-based and embedded sensing) for learning analytics (data-mining and reasoning) of practice-based and experiential STEM. This data is used to create analytics support tools for teachers, learners and administrators, providing frameworks for evidence-based curriculum design and learning systems. The PELARS project creates behavioral recording inputs, proving a new learning analytic that is scalable in application, and bridge qualitative and quantitative methods through reasoning and feedback from input data. The project serves to help better understand learners' knowledge in physical activities in laboratory and workshop environments, as well as informal learning scenarios. PELARS traces and helps assess learner progress through technology enhancement, in ways that have been un-attempted and un-scalable until now. The project results in learning analytics tools for practice-based STEM learning that are appropriate for real-world learning environments.
The participants of the PELARS project are twelve European Partners that have all been chosen for their specific expertise and skills in the fields of this project. The Consortium includes seven universities, three small medium enterprises and two non-profit organizations. The partners are from ten different countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom). This geographical distribution is due to the desire to build a Consortium mainly based on a thematic structure, and aimed at achieving a large interdisciplinary network of excellence. All learning objectives named in the PELARS project are defined in educational policies and initiatives of the European Union.
Cojocaru, D. A., & Friesel, A., & Spikol, D. (2016, June), Supporting STEM Knowledge and Skills in Engineering Education - the PELARS project Paper presented at 2016 ASEE International Forum, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/1-2--27258
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