Resilient Course Design for Teaching a Project-based Engineering Course Online

Xiaorong Zhang

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Conference: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual Conference
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
Start Date: July 26, 2021
End Date: July 19, 2022
Conference Session: Electrical and Computer Division Technical Session 3
Tagged Division: Electrical and Computer
Page Count: 14
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--37675
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/37675
Download Count: 291

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Xiaorong Zhang San Francisco State University

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Dr. Xiaorong Zhang is an Associate Professor in Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University (SFSU). She is the Director of the Intelligent Computing and Embedded Systems Laboratory (ICE Lab) at SFSU. She has broad research experience in human-machine interfaces, neural-controlled artificial limbs, embedded systems, and intelligent computing technologies. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award to develop the next-generation neural-machine interfaces (NMI) for electromyography (EMG)-controlled neurorehabilitation. She is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). She has served in the professional societies in various capacities including the Chair of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) San Francisco Chapter (2018-present), an Associate Editor of the IEEE Inside Signal Processing E-Newsletter (2016-2018), an Outreach Co-Chair of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Golden Gate Section (2017-2018), a Co-Chair of the Doctoral Consortium at 2014 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence, a Program Committee Member of various international conferences, and a regular reviewer of a variety of journals and conferences in related fields.

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Abstract

During emergency remote teaching situations caused by the COVID-19 crisis, students and instructors in higher education may be dealing with challenges and inequities including increased uncertainty over health, employment, and finances; inequitable access to synchronous learning opportunities; increased challenges in conducting accurate and equitable online assessments. For project-based electrical and computer engineering courses that involve hardware components and group work, additional challenges include limited or no access to facilities for experimental work; students cannot meet in person to conduct group work, especially for projects involving hardware integration. This paper describes methods that aimed to address these challenges to transition a project-based Design with Microprocessors course online during the COVID-19 pandemic. This course aims to teach microcontroller basics and microcontroller-based embedded system design. It is composed of weekly lectures, labs, and a term project, all based on the ARM® Cortex®-M4F based TI Tiva™ C TM4C123G LaunchPad. Every student purchases a LaunchPad as the only required course material. Before the course was transitioned to online format, students formed groups of two or three to complete the labs and project. During the transition to online learning, methods were developed to enhance resilience of students and affirm equity and accessibility for all, including 1) combining synchronous and asynchronous learning options to provide both flexibility and humanized interactions; 2) creating a course channel on Slack, a communication platform offering features such as chat rooms and direct messaging, to provide an alternative and more efficient way for class communication; 3) adjusting the term project to offer both group project and individual project options, minimize the requirement of additional hardware components for the project, and conduct project assessment with more focus on unit testing and system integration with some level of simulation instead of full hardware integration; 4) eliminating traditional exams, increasing the weight of labs and term project in the final grade, and designing a new tech interview-style coding exam; and 5) designing and distributing surveys before and during the transition to understand students’ learning conditions, preferred teaching modes, and challenges before any decisions or changes were made to the course.

According to the responses from an anonymous exit-class survey, the transition of this course received quite positive feedbacks from the students. To further improve online teaching effectiveness and ensure equity for all students, efforts will be focused on adding more interactive activities in online lectures to better engage students, exploring more convenient and equitable platforms for online assessment, and adding peer evaluation into group work assessment.

Citation
Format

Zhang, X. (2021, July), Resilient Course Design for Teaching a Project-based Engineering Course Online Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37675

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - During emergency remote teaching situations caused by the COVID-19 crisis, students and instructors in higher education may be dealing with challenges and inequities including  increased uncertainty over health, employment, and finances; inequitable access to synchronous learning opportunities; increased challenges in conducting accurate and equitable online assessments. For project-based electrical and computer engineering courses that involve hardware components and group work, additional challenges include limited or no access to facilities for experimental work; students cannot meet in person to conduct group work, especially for projects involving hardware integration. This paper describes methods that aimed to address these challenges to transition a project-based Design with Microprocessors course online during the COVID-19 pandemic. This course aims to teach microcontroller basics and microcontroller-based embedded system design. It is composed of weekly lectures, labs, and a term project, all based on the ARM® Cortex®-M4F based TI Tiva™ C TM4C123G LaunchPad. Every student purchases a LaunchPad as the only required course material. Before the course was transitioned to online format, students formed groups of two or three to complete the labs and project. During the transition to online learning, methods were developed to enhance resilience of students and affirm equity and accessibility for all, including 1) combining synchronous and asynchronous learning options to provide both flexibility and humanized interactions; 2) creating a course channel on Slack, a communication platform offering features such as chat rooms and direct messaging, to provide an alternative and more efficient way for class communication; 3) adjusting the term project to offer both group project and individual project options, minimize the requirement of additional hardware components for the project, and conduct project assessment with more focus on unit testing and system integration with some level of simulation instead of full hardware integration; 4) eliminating traditional exams, increasing the weight of labs and term project in the final grade, and designing a new tech interview-style coding exam; and 5)	designing and distributing surveys before and during the transition to understand students’ learning conditions, preferred teaching modes, and challenges before any decisions or changes were made to the course.

According to the responses from an anonymous exit-class survey, the transition of this course received quite positive feedbacks from the students. To further improve online teaching effectiveness and ensure equity for all students, efforts will be focused on adding more interactive activities in online lectures to better engage students, exploring more convenient and equitable platforms for online assessment, and adding peer evaluation into group work assessment.

AU  - Xiaorong Zhang
CY  - Virtual Conference
DA  - 2021/07/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Resilient Course Design for Teaching a Project-based Engineering Course Online
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/37675
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--37675
ER  -