Group projects in foundation electrical engineering courses: Do they help, harm or make no difference to the students’ learning experience?

Contribution: This work evaluates the role of the complementary training programs (CTPs) offered by the Center for Research and Development in Electronic and Information Technology (CETELI), from the Federal University of Amazonas, Brazil. This analysis highlights the relevant role of the CTP, carried out by CETELI, in supporting students in the engineering undergraduate course, thus reducing dropouts and improving retention of low-income students. Background: The great challenge of engineering courses and of all courses in the technological area is to keep in step with the job market and, thus, provide better conditions for entering trainees. Intended Outcomes: Based on the experience of this work, other electrical engineering courses should be encouraged to adopt partnerships with industries, offering the possibility for students to carry out project activities on topics of interest to industries and, especially in developing countries like Brazil, to associate this activity with the provision of scholarships. Application Design: The evaluation assesses the impact of the various CTP partnership projects (PPs) on the graduation rate (GR), on students’ academic performance, and on the average graduation time (GT). It also assesses how the CTP students entered the job market, measuring whether the CTP facilitated their entry. Findings: It was observed a difference in the GR between the students who participated in the CTP and students that did not participate in the CTP. For the computer engineering course, this rate was about five times higher. It was observed that more than half of the students who participated in the CTP entered the market and were hired almost immediately for work in their area of training.

Project-based assignments help students enhance their learning experience and promote the application of engineering concepts to solve real-world problems. This paper discusses the implementation of three different project-based assignments in three different upper-level undergraduate civil engineering courses at a large public university. All these three courses, viz., Mechanics of Materials, Soil Mechanics, and Principles of Construction-I had large enrollments (n >75). These courses were offered as a part of the inclusive approach taken by the Civil and Environmental Engineering department. The students were allowed to make a choice regarding the mode of the final project deliverable – a written report, a PowerPoint presentation, or an oral video presentation. It enabled them to personalize their learning based on their unique strengths and challenges. In Mechanics of Materials, the students were divided into two sections. The students in one section (the experimental group) completed the individual projects in which they had the choice to create a physical model or analyze an object from their areas of interest by using mechanics concepts. The students in the other section (the control group) were not assigned this project. A post-assessment test was administered in both sections. The purpose of this assessment was to investigate if the students in the experimental group benefitted from completing the project. In Soil Mechanics, the term group project was used to assess the students' ability to apply the knowledge gained from the first seven of the eight course modules to solve a real-life problem. The CATME tool - developed and licensed by Purdue University, was used to form teams based on different criteria such as GPA, preferred schedule, software skills, writing skills, leadership preferences, commitment level, and big-picture/detail-oriented thought process. The project had three phases. In the last phase, the groups had the option to submit the final deliverable in the form of a written report or an oral video presentation. In Principles of Construction-I, students were instructed to explore their creative strength in addition to their analytical skill in an optional strength-based group project. They were allowed to choose their group members and assignment submission method. The project provided students opportunities to apply all major components of their learning throughout the semester. Students were provided with supports from the instructor and the teaching assistants. Lastly, as part of the inclusive approach, they could choose an optional comprehensive final exam instead of the group project. In each of these courses, the students were invited to participate in an anonymous survey to share their feedback. In this paper, the survey results will be discussed to demonstrate if these projects enhanced the students' learning experience as well as their overall learning outcomes. Lessons learned by the instructors in implementing these inclusive projects will also be explained.

This paper details our experience in developing and delivering a novel Electrical Engineering subject, Design Proficiency. The Faculty of Engineering at the University of New South Wales places a strong emphasis on the design skills of the students we graduate. At the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications we have taken this philosophy forward and developed a novel subject that is valuable to the students' learning experience, and serves as a quality control point to the curriculum. In this paper we describe the philosophy underpinning the subject, our experience in delivering it, and discuss how it fulfills its intended purpose.

This study tried to discover whether group work is effective to help the students get better understanding in the materials as well as being more active and sociable in class. This study was conducted for the sixth grade of SD Tarakanita Bumijo Yogyakarta on July-August 2022. This study would implement group work by conducting heterogenous groups. The data gathered came from combined observation data and quantitative questionnaire. Quantitative data is used to analyse numerical data. The data then converted by using 5 Likert scale to acknowledge the Group Work activity. Based on the result of the questionnaire number 1-3 with average score 4,26, It was concluded that this group work activity was successful in helping the students have better understanding of the material. Based on the result of the questionnaire number 4-5 with average score 4,33 and the observation during the activities group work helped the students got better understanding in the materials. The students helped and encourage each other during the study time and test time. Based on the result of the questionnaire number 6-8, students’ reflection on the questionnaire, and the observation notes, It was concluded that this group work activity was able to create good bond for the students and their friends. They helped each other, most of them didn’t argue or fight during the group work. They also felt closer after the group work. One important note before conducting the group work is setting the rules as clear as possible. Based on the result of the questionnaire, reflection, and observation data, group work make the students have better understanding of the material. The group work was also able to create good bond for the students and their friends. As they helped each other during the activity, most of them didn’t argue or fight. They got closer after the group work.

This research was developed in the Master in Education of the Federal University of Uberlândia, in the period 2001/2002, with the objective of analyzing the knowledge and practices failures in the teaching-learning process of the Electrical Engineering course at UFU, with a focus on understanding the forms, meaning and function of evaluative practices in failures in the context of the subjects surveyed (students, teachers); seeking to apprehend the relationship between social representations about this phenomenon and its repercussions on the interactions between teacher and student, in the teaching-learning process and in the perpetuation or transformation of educational practices carried out in the Electrical Engineering course at UFU. It is a research with an emphasis on qualitative aspects, but which contains many quantitative data that served as a subsidy for the choice of the interviewed subjects, of the researched aspects, and to present the failure rates in the period from 1997 to 2001 in a more systematic way , referring to the disciplines common to the two emphases existing in the course: Electronics and Electrotechnics. The interviewed subjects were eight students who had already taken the five subjects that presented the highest failure rates in the defined period, which are: Electromagnetism, Material Mechanics, Electrical Circuits 1, Differential and Integral Calculus 3 and Electrical Materials 1; and three teachers from those same disciplines. In the interviews, in the However, the focus was not only on the five disciplines mentioned, because what was sought to understand and analyze in a more approximate way was the factors that caused the failures, without specifying any discipline. It was based on the assumption that there were ideas, attitudes, behaviors produced in the space socially shared by the group and that these circulated and strongly influenced the perpetuation of failures, which is characteristic of a social representation. To better understand the phenomenon of failures, a historic rescue of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at UFU was carried out, engineering education and training was discussed in general and a study on learning assessment. The analyzes developed here show that the facing the problem of failures in the Electrical Engineering course at UFU, as well as engineering courses at other institutions implies improving the teaching-learning process learning and training of engineering teachers. It also implies the need for a dynamic and global understanding of the context and everyday life of the course, in order to break with those conservative and authoritarian views, attitudes and practices that favor the perpetuation of phenomena such as failures, and that generate passivity and conformism. between teachers and students.

Grammatical skills are components that students, particularly English Education students, must learn and master. Structure and written expression (SWE) of a TOEFL test is one of grammatical skills that students must understand. However, students had difficulties learning SWE on a TOEFL test. Some students struggled to grasp the subject and others were uninterested in mastering SWE. As a result, group work activities were conducted to assist students in improving their grammatical skills. The study employed Classroom Action Research (CAR) on an intermediate grammar class at a private university in Batam. The CAR was implemented in two cycles, with 14 students participating in group work activities for eight meetings. Despite an improvement in the first cycle, it was found that the class remained in the same category before the group work activities were implemented, which was “average." Next, the second cycle was done with a few changes to the activity. It was revealed that there was an improvement with an average of 72.65, which is “good.” it can be concluded that group work implementation in the grammar class had improved students' grammatical skills. The significant improvement was achieved by implementing two cycles of group work. It can be highlighted these group work activities are expected to be implemented to improve students’ other skills with different modifications.

In response to the demand for cultivating high-quality applied professionals with both engineering and humanistic qualities in the new era, contemporary university education not only undertakes the responsibility of imparting professional knowledge and skills, but also shoulders the responsibility of ideological and political education for students. This article design the teaching process and evaluation system of Electrical Engineering courses in order to cultivate engineers with both moral integrity and professional competence.Through course learning, students will not only master the basic knowledge and corresponding skills of electrical and electronic technology, but also possess the spirit of striving for excellence as a national craftsman, with a sense of serving the country through science and technology.And the students will be able to undertake the mission of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. By studying the teaching mode of electrical engineering courses, reference value is provided for the reform and innovation of higher education related majors and teaching curriculum systems

Group projects have long been an important element of higher education classes. Class projects involve additional cooperation and coordination among students. Student perceptions are an important factor in evaluating the effectiveness of projects. This exploratory study used a 39-item questionnaire to examine undergraduate student perceptions of class projects in courses in recreation and sport management at the conclusion of the projects. Students were highly favorable of class projects as a learning experience and identified increased skill development in time management, planning, and organizing and working with others. Presence of a noncontributing group member had no affect on student perceptions of class project benefits (t (38) = 1.7, p = 0.09). These findings provide support for the use of class projects in recreation and sport management courses as a valuable teaching tool. Further research of student perceptions of class projects across multiple universities is needed.

Curriculum development in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) in the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) Department at the University of Michigan is presented. A course curriculum structure that integrates both mechanical and electrical engineering courses is proposed for mechanical engineering students. The proposed curriculum starts from undergraduate study and finishes at the Ph.D. level. Two new graduate-level MEMS courses are proposed: "Introduction to MEMS" for senior undergraduate students and entry-level graduate students and "Advanced MEMS" for graduate students. The first course has been experimentally taught at the University of Michigan for three years and the class assessments are summarized and analyzed in this paper. It is clear from the student responses that they are interested in taking courses in emerging technologies such as MEMS and more courses in the MEMS area should be offered. Future MEMS curriculum development and a new MEMS course for undergraduate-level students in the college of engineering are discussed.

This paper describes and evaluates an unusual continuing education program which is offered to practicing power engineers from the Engineering College at Iowa State University. This program provides credit courses from the central campus via video tape to seven different power utility companies as well as a consulting engineering firm in the state. The program permits the power engineer to take graduate courses and if interested to complete a graduate degree without returning to campus to satisfy residency requirements. This is made possible by a system of video taping of courses taught to on-campus students. The faculty is encouraged to teach via video tape with the full knowledge that providing this educational service remote from the central campus is of considerable importance to the Engineering College. This relatively new continuing education concept has grown significantly and has enjoyed considerable success. Over a six year period 38 different courses have been offered. Nine different college departments have been involved in this off-campus effort, although the largest interest of the power engineer has been in the areas of Electrical Engineering and Industrial Engineering course offerings. Historically the power industry has had little interest in university offered continuing education programming for their practicing engineers. Through this program, however, a dramatic change has taken place with regard to continuing education and the power industry in the last few years. This may be attributed to a number of factors.

Although colleges have been reexamining their curriculums since general principles were established for college standards, there is still only a small amount of material available describing the actual situation. The author has for many years conducted surveys and reserach into the curriculums of electrical engineering departments and colleges. In 1977, he reported on a survey that examined course outlines in electrical engineering departments, and with respect to major fields of study, courses for required and elective subjects, the number of required subjects, number of required units, etc. In this paper, the author performs a comparison study between the situation then and now by conducting a new survey using the same method as before, and based on the results, presents his opinions and conclusions. In summary, it was found that : 1) No major change can be seen in the number of colleges providing general electrical engineering courses, but the number of colleges specifying required subjects is increasing significantly. 2) Required subjects within major fields decreased by about 11 units. 3) The percentage of national and public colleges specifying research and experiments for graduation as required subjects was 33%.

Learning experience of nursing students in a clinical partnership model: An exploratory qualitative analysis

The purpose of this study is to investigate students' learning experiences and their perceptions towards teaching methods and evaluations, teaching materials and ability grouping policy in the course of Freshmen Practical English. The subjects were freshmen from three different colleges (i.e., College of Management; College of Engineering; College of Humanities and Social Sciences) at National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences in the 2005 academic year. Students were distributed into 3 levels based on the placement test provided by the publisher of the textbook for the Freshmen Practical English course. Data were collected through a questionnaire (α= 0.8477) on four categories of students' learning experiences, perceptions toward teaching methods, teaching materials and grouping policies. The questionnaire survey was conducted during the final two weeks of the first semester. Collected data were analyzed and decoded in the SPSS for Winodws 10.0 including the analyses of mean scores, standard deviation, one-way ANOVA and Duncan post hoc comparisons to examine gender difference, level difference and college difference. The results showed that 1) there was a higher percentage of approval than disapproval in all of the four categories, especially in the category of perceptions toward teaching methods and evaluations; 2) 52.5% of the respondents answered so-so to the question of whether they were satisfied with the grouping policy, while 33.1 % responded ”agree,” in contrast to 14.4 % who responded ”disagree.” Moreover, 44.7% of the respondents expressed that grouping was helpful to their English learning, and only 8.6% disagreed; 3) 49.6% preferred to be ability grouped in the Sophomore Listening and Speaking Class, and only 12.6% disagreed; 4) 47% of the respondents agreed that different teaching materials should be used for different level students, while 17.3 of the respondents disagreed; 5) in gender differences, male students demonstrated a significant higher level of stress in learning English, and this phenomenon was especially significant among students from College of Engineering. Besides, more female students felt the classroom atmosphere was nice; 6) 14.5% of the respondent revealed that they were misplaced, and a significant higher percentage of beginning-level respondents wanted to be regrouped per semester than intermediate and intermediate advanced level students.

Benefits of peer-assessments have been recognized for quite some time. Research has shown that the impact of peer-evaluations on students' learning experience, is one that is positive and focuses on building critical thinking and metacognitive skills. This research aims to provide insight on the opportunities and effects of integrating peer-assessments in a University of Waterloo first-year engineering course's model as the primary assessment method. To explore this, Kritik, a third-party platform that focuses on peer-learning through peer-assessment, was used as part of a solid mechanics course offered to first year engineering students at the University of Waterloo. In this course, first-year engineering students were required to complete various hands-on lab activities, and a final project as a group. Once submitting their initial work on the platform, they were then required to individually assess their peers' work, and then individually reflect on the grades that they received. The grade they received for their group work, the quality of their peer evaluations, and the feedback they provided on the grades they received from their peers were all factors of their final individual grade for each assessment. This encouraged students to evaluate each other's work in a genuine manner—increasing the viability of their evaluations. The results show an increase in understanding of course concepts, less stress on the teaching team due to reduced grading, and an increase in opportunity for the students to fully experience what the course offers in a realistic time frame—an opportunity that is scarce due to the length of academic terms and the sheer amount of course content to be taught.

While a number of issues affect student success, an area of great concern is student retention. Studies have shown that students are more likely to stay in college if they have clear goals, are active learners, and are active participants in classroom activities. In other words, students learn more when they are intensely involved in their education and have opportunities to apply what they are learning. Students also benefit when they are engaged in the teaching and learning of their peers, such as group work, peer review, study groups, and peer teaching in and out of class. Flipping the classroom is a relatively new active learning technique that faculty at many institutions have incorporated in their teaching. In a flipped classroom, laboratory and in-class activities replace typical class-lectures. Lectures are normally delivered over some other medium such as video on-demand or podcasts. However, there is no specific model for flipped classrooms, it simply draws on such concepts as student engagement, hybrid course design, and course podcasting. This paper describes how the flipped classroom technique was incorporated into a three-credit electrical engineering course that met twice a week. This paper presents details about the course, discusses student survey results, and describes plans to improve the delivery of this and similar courses.