teaching engineering courses by mixing lectures with...

TEACHING ENGINEERING COURSES BY MIXING LECTURES

WITH SIMULATION, TELELAB EXERCISES AND GROUP WORK

ZOE DOULGERI, STELLA TZORTZIDOU, NIOVI PAVLIDOU AND GEORGE HASSAPIS

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,

Faculty of Engineering,

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

541 24 Thessaloniki

GREECE

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: Recent research results propose a series of recommendations on how to develop courses which can be taught to multicultural virtual classes over the Internet with the purpose of enhancing the learning process. According to these recommendations, learning is enhanced if synchronous lectures, feedback quizzes, simulations and tele-lab operations are combined during teaching sessions. Current state of the art technology of e-learning software seems to be able to support all these activities with the exception of that of the simulation and tele-lab operations. In this work, it is demonstrated that it is quite feasible to design courses which involve all the above mentioned activities by using the provided services of the current state of the art e-learning environments and adding custom made software modules for the simulation and tele-lab operations. Two experimental courses were developed, namely one in Robotics and the other in Satellite Communications in which the feasibility of combining all the mentioned above activities was first investigated. The courses were delivered to an international and multicultural class of students who were spatially located to different places in Europe and communicating over the Internet by a current state of the art synchronous e-learning environment. Based on interviews and questionnaires, students’ and tutors’ evaluation of the extend to which the considered activities are realizable and improve the learning. process was recorded and is reported in this paper.

Keywords: e-Learning, Distance Learning , Robotics, Satellite Communications, Virtual Classes.

1. Introduction The use of ICT technology allows to form and apply teaching techniques which change the position of the student from a recipient to a knowledge creator, encourage active and collaborative learning and have the student interacting with the instructor. The role of the instructor is also changing dramatically. The instructor is now the person who will design, deliver and evaluate each e-learning activity. The instructor is thus responsible for ensuring that all necessary actions take place at appropriate times and the teaching and learning process from concept through to assessment and post-delivery quality review is managed in a professional manner. Some basic recommendations for the learning activities

that the students and the tutor have to carry out during this design, delivery and assessment phases have been reported in the literature [1], [3]. Among them the guidelines that play predominant role are those claiming that learning is enhanced if teaching is based on solving problems and studying cases by collaborative work. In an effort to apply these guidelines in a pilot study, two typical engineering courses, one in robotics and another in satellite communications have been designed to comply with these recommendations and the possibility of delivering them over the Internet by means of e-learning synchronous environments to a multicultural class was investigated.. In section 2 the functions of a typical e-learning environment used to deliver courses over the Internet is explained. In section 3

Proceedings of the 6th WSEAS International Conference on Applied Informatics and Communications, Elounda, Greece, August 18-20, 2006 (pp260-264)

the design of the robotics course is described. A similar description for the satellite communication course is given in section 4. Section 5 reports the results of the conducted experiments and an evaluation of the feasibility of implementing the above recommendations is made. 2. The e-learning environment Typical e-learning environments [1[, [4] enable the delivery of courseware via the Internet. Usually, they contain a palette of tools which provide:

1. Two-way audio conferencing. This tool allows the instructor to talk with a student of his class, as if they were on the telephone and everyone else in the class to hear this conversation.

2. Text Chat communication, that is a messaging tool that anyone in the class can use to write a message immediately visible on everyone’s screen in the class.

3. Whiteboard, a collaboration tool that students and instructor can use to share simple drawings, text, imported pictures and screen captures.

4. A multiple choice question and answer tool, allowing the instructor to ask a series of multiple choice questions and see the class responses instantly.

5. Getting instant feedback from the class, that is a polling application that the instructor can use to solicit feedback from the students during the class. He may ask a question verbally or in text chat and have students respond using an answer set. The answer set can be a True/False type of answer, A, B, C, D answer selection, agreement (Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree), assignment status (Still working, Almost finished, not much progress) and pace (Faster, Perfect, Slower, Please review).

6. A screen capture tool that the instructor can use to capture any student’s desktop during a class with the purpose of viewing a student’s application or document and troubleshoot a student’s program.

7. Sharing applications with the class, that is the instructor can share his actions with the class or enable a student to share an application, i.e. running a program of his own, the execution of which can be watched by the rest of the class.

8. Creating Breakout groups. A breakout group is a virtual group of students formed by students located at the different sites of the virtual class who can work

collaboratively for a period of time. The students of any group can do everything that one could do in the main classroom, that is audio conferencing, sharing content, applications, whiteboard files and web navigation without the work of one group being monitored by another group but only by the instructor.

These functions of a typical e-learning environment can serve most of the needs of the activities outlined in the next sections. However, they do not seem to provide functions for operating remotely simulators and physical lab equipment. In this work the Learnlinc environment [2] was selected and it has been enhanced with the functions. of accessing over the Internet a satellite orbiting simulator and operating remotely a robotic arm. 3. The Case of the Robotics course The complete list of activities that the teaching of the Robotics course included are listed in Table 1. Table 1: Teaching activities of the Robotics course Activities Duration 1 Synchronous

lectures 1 hour/session

2 Feedback quiz 10 min/session 3 Asynchronous

communication

4 Telelab 30 min/session In the synchronous lectures students were placed at the same time at three different universities, that is the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the University of York. Over the Internet and by means of the e-learning environment each student was able to see in his screen Powerpoint presentations, photographic material, graphs and animated presentations. Some examples of the type of resources presented to the student are given in Fig. 2 and 3. In Fig.1 the Powerpoint presentation of the kinematic equations of the arm joints are presented. In Fig. 2 a photograph of the various types of robots is shown. In Fig. 3 a snapshot of an animated presentation of a robot movement is depicted. At the beginning of the course students introduce each other and the objectives of the course are outlined by the tutor. An inductive course of two hours in the use and the functions of the considered e-learning environment was delivered to all the students and the option of having the students and teacher exchanging written messages during the synchronous sessions was adopted as the predominant form of communication.


Fig. 1: Powerpoint presentation of kinematic

equations

Fig. 2: Picture of different types of robots

Fig. 3: a Snapshot of an animated robot movement

Short quizzes in the form of multiple choice

questions were conducted electronically by the instructor. By means of these quizzes an appreciation of the level of each student’s

understanding is obtained. Teams of two students were formed for operating a robot arm remotely, Each team, irrespectively of its location, is able to initiate from its computer screen robot movements which will grasp, move and place cups from a fixed position to a hanger. The computer screen that allows to carry out these operations is depicted in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4: Screen interface of the tele-operation of the

robotic arm of the laboratory.

In the upper left corner of the screen the student can mark the positions that the arm has to go and then instruct the arm to move by pressing the virtual buttons at the bottom of the screen. Finding a path of positions is a task that the student has to carry out by solving the kinematic equations of the joint movements and assess to whether these movements are feasible before instructing the arm to make these movements. In this way student’s appreciation of realistic arm movements and ability in finding an optimal path is tested.

4. The case of the Satellite Communications

course. In a similar way the satellite communications course was developed. In table 2 the teaching activities are listed


Table2: Teaching activities for the Satellite

Communications course

Pedagogical

situation

Type of

communication

Hour

s

Lectures synchronous & distant 8

Lab asynchronous &

distant

4

Project

launching

phase

synchronous & distant 2

Project

development

phase

collaborative work for

the students

&asynchronous

tutoring

8

Project

meeting

synchronous &

distant

2

Project

closure and

assessment

synchronous &

distant

2

The course included synchronous lectures by using resources of content presentation, animated graphs, pictures and video presentations. Lab exercises were executed by using a simulator which allows the student to learn how to track the coordinates of a satellite. Also, collaborative project work was assigned to the students. In order to carry out this work, the students were organized in virtual groups and they were communicating between each other by using the e-learning environment. Again, feedback quizzes were conducted during the synchronous sessions. Samples of the type of the material presented during a synchronous lecture and graphical information provided by the simulator are given in Fig. 5 and 6.

Figure 5: Powerpoint presentation of a schematic diagram of a ground antenna

Fig. 6: A simulator snapshot showing the position of a satellite the coordinates of which are found by the students. 5. Evaluation In order to obtain an appreciation of the student ability to follow the synchronous lectures, run the lab experiments, work as a member of a virtual group and evaluate the level of learning achieved, a number of questionnaires were distributed to the students. The collected data are:

(a) students’ opinion on whether lectures, interactive communication with tutor and lab exercises can run successfully over the Internet. Report on technical problems appearing

(b) student’s opinion on whether the comprehension, concentration and knowledge acquisition have been

enhanced .in comparison to the conventional method of teaching

(c) tutors opinion on the same issues. The results of the assessment of the first set of questions are presented in Table 3. Marks in a scale of 0-5 given to questionnaires distributed to students for the second set of questions are presented in Table 4. Table 5 shows the marks that have been given by the instructors to questionnaires distributed to them. These marks show how much a student evaluates the improvement in the learning process achieved over a conventional teaching method. .


Table 3: Students response to the feasibility question

no No of

students

examined

1 Synchronous

Lectures

6 quite feasible

2 Lab operation 6 acceptable

operation

3 Interaction 6 quite feasible

Table 4: Students response to the question of

learning enhancement

no Learning

parameter

no of students

questioned

grade given

1 Comprehension 6 4.1

2 Concentration 6 4.3

3 Knowledge

acquisition

6 2.5

Table 5: Tutors response to the question of learning

enhancement no Learning

parameter

no of instructors

questioned

grade given

1 Comprehension 4 3.2

2 Concentration 4 4.5

3 Knowledge

acquisition

4 2.89

From the student and tutors opinion one can draw the conclusion that current state of the art e-learning environments can be easily modified to allow the teaching of engineering courses which require the simultaneous delivery of interactive lectures and remote lab exercises. If learning is defined as the level of comprehension, quantity of acquired knowledge and level of concentration achieved when a teaching method is adopted, then both students and tutors agree that the considered teaching method which mixes at the same teaching session lectures, lab exercises and group work and it is delivered by electronic means to virtual classes makes the student to learn better. 6. Conclusions There seems to become feasible to implement courses in which typical lectures with animated and graphical presentations, simulation experiments and laboratory exercises can be carried out in a teaching

session. At least this has been proved to be feasible for a pilot course on robotics and another on satellite communications. Students and tutors expressed the feeling that comprehension, concentration and knowledge acquisition are very much improved with this kind of teaching approach. Students grade higher teaching which involves mixing lectures, lab work and group work when it is compared to the conventional classroom teaching . Prerequisite however to implement this mixture of activities is the use of e-learning environment which at least in the case of two engineering courses has been proven to be feasible. References [1] E-Tutor, 2003, Guidelines for e-tutors in multicultural collaborative and synchronous teaching situations, EU project 2003-4718/001-001 EDU-ELEARN(http://etutor-info.insa-lyon.fr/guidelines/) [2] iLinc Communications, 2006, Learnlinc, 2999 N. 44th St. Phoenix, AZ 85018 (http://www.ilinc.com/products_ilincsuite_learnlinc.php) [3] Mc Keachie W., J., 1994, Teaching tips:strategies, research, and theory for college and university, Lexington, MA, DC,Heath. [4] Saba, 2006, Centra, 2400 Bridge Parkway Redwood Shores, CA 94065 -1166 USA. (http://www.saba.com/centra-saba/)


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