Tracking Student Engagement with a Touchscreen App for Spatial Visualization Training and Freehand Sketching

Nathan Delson; Lelli Van Den Einde

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Conference: 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Seattle, Washington
Publication Date: June 14, 2015
Start Date: June 14, 2015
End Date: June 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-50180-1
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Visualization Within Engineering Design Graphics Education Session 1
Tagged Division: Engineering Design Graphics
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 16
Page Numbers: 26.1595.1 - 26.1595.16
DOI: 10.18260/p.24931
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/24931
Download Count: 605

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Paper Authors

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Nathan Delson University of California, San Diego

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Nathan Delson, Ph.D. is a Teaching Professor at the University of California at San Diego. His interests include robotics, biomedical devices, product design, and engineering education. He is co-founder of Coactive Drive Corporation, a company that provides force feedback solutions. Since 1999 he has taught engineering design and been the director of the Mechanical Engineering Design center at UC San Diego. In fall 2012, Dr. Delson introduced a Product Design & Entrepreneurship course, where students develop their own product concepts.

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Lelli Van Den Einde University of California, San Diego

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Van Den Einde is a Teaching Professor at UCSD. She teaches core undergraduate courses in Structural Engineering, is the chair of the ABET committee responsible for the continuous curricular improvement process, incorporates education innovations into courses (Peer Instruction, Project-based learning), is responsible for TA training (preparing next generation faculty), serves as faculty advisor to student organizations, hears cases of academic misconduct as a member of the Academic Integrity Review Board, and is committed to fostering a supportive environment for diverse students at UCSD by serving on the faculty advisory board for the IDEA Student Center. Her research is focused on engagement strategies for large classrooms and the development of K-16 curriculum in earthquake engineering.

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Abstract

Tracking Student Engagement with a Touchscreen App for Spatial Visualization Training Technology Enhanced Education and eLearning has great potential, but maintaining student engagement and effective learning can be a challenge. Some students may passively listen to tutorials without internalizing the content, and others may skip tutorials all together and try their luck at multiple choice questions. Other students may need more specific feedback than whether their answer was correct or incorrect. A limitation of many eLearning tools is that student assignments are limited to multiple choice questions. We developed an iPad App for Spatial Visualization training, and in this context study the challenges mentioned above related to Technology Enhanced Education. Spatial Visualization (SV) is the mental representation and manipulation of 2D and 3D shapes. Skills in SV have been correlated to high GPAs in math, engineering,, and science. Prior studies have shown that SV training can increase retention in STEM majors. In response to the demonstrated benefits of SV training, the NSF has funded programs to encourage adding SV training to university programs. However, challenges remain in adding requirements to already full curriculums and the costs of increased teaching workload. Accordingly, we developed an iPad App to create an engaging and cost effective way to for SV training. This App is unique is that it uses the touchscreen for users to draw isometric and orthographic projections. An automated algorithm graded user sketches. When the students had an error they were given the option to redo the sketch or take a peek at the solution and then redo the sketch. All instances of student sketch attempts were recorded along with their performance on multiple choice questions that preceded the sketching exercises. In spring 2014, a class of 52 students completed the SV training course that used the iPad App. Pre and post-‐tests where performed with the standardized Purde Spatial Test. Students were categorized based upon their performance in the pre-‐test. Students with a high initial score (n=22) did not have much room to improve on the spatial test and their average score change was minimal at -‐1%. However, students with a mid level pre-‐test (n=17) had an average increase of 9.4%, and students with low level pre-‐test (n=13) had an average increase 9.0%. Students at the lowest level are at a high risk for dropping out of STEM majors, and we looked closely at student activity in that group. There was a marked bimodal distribution in this group. Of the 13 students, 6 showed marked increase post-‐test scores ranging from 17% to 33%. However, the remaining 7 students had changes in post-‐test scores that ranged from -‐10% to 3%. The largest difference between the 2 groups was that students who did not see score gains in the class typically peeked at the solution early without many attempts on their own. This preliminary study had a small number of students, especially for students entering with low SV skills. Nevertheless, the biomodal distribution in the data is an indication that some students are much more engaged than others, and subsequently have more learning gains. The results of this trail are been used to guide our App development. We are currently modifying the App with incentives for users to challenge themselves before asking for peeks at solutions. One aspect of this approach is to provide customized hints based upon users’ initial submission that guide a students but do not show them the full answer. We are also developing a teacher interface to to allow the teacher to see early in the course which students are at risk of low skill development.

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Delson, N., & Van Den Einde, L. (2015, June), Tracking Student Engagement with a Touchscreen App for Spatial Visualization Training and Freehand Sketching Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24931

TY - CPAPER
AB - Tracking Student Engagement with a Touchscreen App for Spatial Visualization Training Technology Enhanced Education and eLearning has great potential, but maintaining student engagement and effective learning can be a challenge. Some students may passively listen to tutorials without internalizing the content, and others may skip tutorials all together and try their luck at multiple choice questions. Other students may need more specific feedback than whether their answer was correct or incorrect. A limitation of many eLearning tools is that student assignments are limited to multiple choice questions. We developed an iPad App for Spatial Visualization training, and in this context study the challenges mentioned above related to Technology Enhanced Education. Spatial Visualization (SV) is the mental representation and manipulation of 2D and 3D shapes. Skills in SV have been correlated to high GPAs in math, engineering,, and science. Prior studies have shown that SV training can increase retention in STEM majors. In response to the demonstrated benefits of SV training, the NSF has funded programs to encourage adding SV training to university programs. However, challenges remain in adding requirements to already full curriculums and the costs of increased teaching workload. Accordingly, we developed an iPad App to create an engaging and cost effective way to for SV training. This App is unique is that it uses the touchscreen for users to draw isometric and orthographic projections. An automated algorithm graded user sketches. When the students had an error they were given the option to redo the sketch or take a peek at the solution and then redo the sketch. All instances of student sketch attempts were recorded along with their performance on multiple choice questions that preceded the sketching exercises. In spring 2014, a class of 52 students completed the SV training course that used the iPad App. Pre and post-‐tests where performed with the standardized Purde Spatial Test. Students were categorized based upon their performance in the pre-‐test. Students with a high initial score (n=22) did not have much room to improve on the spatial test and their average score change was minimal at -‐1%. However, students with a mid level pre-‐test (n=17) had an average increase of 9.4%, and students with low level pre-‐test (n=13) had an average increase 9.0%. Students at the lowest level are at a high risk for dropping out of STEM majors, and we looked closely at student activity in that group. There was a marked bimodal distribution in this group. Of the 13 students, 6 showed marked increase post-‐test scores ranging from 17% to 33%. However, the remaining 7 students had changes in post-‐test scores that ranged from -‐10% to 3%. The largest difference between the 2 groups was that students who did not see score gains in the class typically peeked at the solution early without many attempts on their own. This preliminary study had a small number of students, especially for students entering with low SV skills. Nevertheless, the biomodal distribution in the data is an indication that some students are much more engaged than others, and subsequently have more learning gains. The results of this trail are been used to guide our App development. We are currently modifying the App with incentives for users to challenge themselves before asking for peeks at solutions. One aspect of this approach is to provide customized hints based upon users’ initial submission that guide a students but do not show them the full answer. We are also developing a teacher interface to to allow the teacher to see early in the course which students are at risk of low skill development.
AU - Nathan Delson
AU - Lelli Van Den Einde
CY - Seattle, Washington
DA - 2015/06/14
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Tracking Student Engagement with a Touchscreen App for Spatial Visualization Training and Freehand Sketching
UR - https://peer.asee.org/24931
DO - 10.18260/p.24931
ER -