Search results

HyFlex course design is an effective instructional course design that combines active and transformative learning techniques. HyFlex course design encourages active learning by focusing on interactive activities, discussions, and collaboration. It also allows learners to collaborate effectively and flexibly as a community, providing peer support and opportunities for authentic dialogue and learning experiences. HyFlex course design provides the opportunity for transformative learning through its ability to offer personalized educational experiences to individuals. It facilitates greater customization of the learning experience, allowing individual learners to access tailored educational modules, offer personalized educational experiences to individuals, and effectively develop and build independent and critical thinking skills. This conceptual review, supported by implications from HyFlex literature and triangulated with experts' views undertaking a Delphi study, facilitates understanding the current state of research in HyFlex course design and future application strategies. Existing research has identified HyFlex courses as a promising means of engaging students in active learning. Allowing students to learn through flexibly predesigned mixed online and in-person experiences enables higher levels of student autonomy and supports students in taking more ownership of their learning. This approach can facilitate an understanding of how HyFlex courses can improve active learning practices in higher education. The review study findings identify the reported alignment issues and challenges, suggest four strategies and actions for policymakers and stakeholders, and provide a suggested research agenda for bridging identified research gaps.

Future research can provide evidence of the benefits of HyFlex course design and how flexible course design can address the challenges of traditional face-to-face courses, such as reduced student engagement, lack of student-centered approaches, and limited support for different learning styles. Further research can focus on strategies that can be used to promote active learning in HyFlex courses. Moreover, research can investigate how this kind of course design can equip educators with the skills and knowledge needed to design and implement effective and meaningful active learning experiences. Finally, research can assess the potential impact of HyFlex course design on student outcomes, including performance, satisfaction, and engagement.

Few resources exist to incorporate principles of modular approach to course design. This research aimed to help instructors by presenting principles for practical and empirically informed modular course design in engineering education.

In the first phase, a systematic literature review was completed to identify categories addressing a modular course design. Search and screening procedures resulted in 33 qualifying articles describing the development of a modular course. In the second phase, 6 expert interviews were conducted to elaborate on the identified categories.

Guided by the interview results and the ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) course design model, the categories were compiled into six design principles. To present the design principles in relation to the guiding principles of modular approach, an overarching conceptual model was developed.

Here, we present our innovation; a foundation for an evidence-based systematic approach to modular course design. Implications have value for supporting flexibility and autonomy in learning.

This research has been taken up by the human resource center of organization X, for designing a curriculum for a training course named “Basic Computer Application”, by optimizing topics and finalizing teaching strategies, based on needs and expectations collected from past and prospective training participants from different ranks of employees of X. The study aims to discuss this issue.

The research strategy adopted is based on a survey conducted using a specially designed questionnaire. The questionnaire was circulated to 256 personnel selected randomly having computer backgrounds as well as non-computer backgrounds, who had either attended past batches of the same training course or attended different training courses. The data thus collected was processed using VOC Table and the affinity diagram and subsequently fed into the house of quality (HOQ) for obtaining desired output.

The study has identified and optimized topics for the course, based on employee needs/wants, using the two-stage QFD approach. After delivering the course with an optimized curriculum and teaching strategy, it is observed that the overall participant satisfaction performance of the course has increased from 3 to 4.6, which is higher than the goal set at 4. This indicates an overall enhancement in the satisfaction of participants with the delivery of the new improved course curriculum.

As indicated by the survey findings, the competence level of personnel with computer backgrounds is higher than that of personnel without computer backgrounds, which would result in different design considerations while constructing QFDs for these two entirely different groups of participants. This study has been limited to the course curriculum design for personnel with non-computer backgrounds only. The curriculum design for personnel with computer backgrounds will be addressed separately, in a future study.

This is an original study conducted on randomly selected employees across the country from among personnel working for different establishments of organization X. The approach taken in this study for optimizing a course curriculum is unique in the way that it uses a two-stage QFD, which is traditionally used for the design of a product, its components, and the subsequent manufacturing process. This study has employed a planning matrix that incorporated participant-given ratings for each individual need and also participant-decided benchmarking ratings of other similar courses. Estimation of final target has been done by factoring in participants' competence ratings for each individual topic, for a more truthful representation of participant opinion on the final output. This study has also adopted a unique approach of considering only top 80% (in terms of frequency of occurrence) of total responses while calculating weighted averages, instead of calculating the mean value of all data points. In this way, only the significant contributors have been considered while analyzing data.

This article explores the impact of systematically designed online collaborative activities in two engineering undergraduate modules and key considerations for student interaction in Moodle.

The educational design research approach was chosen to improve educational practices through iterative needs analysis, design, development and implementation. The study followed design-based research (DBR) approach, with a mixed-method research design used to uncover the critical factors in designing, developing and implementing online collaborative learning activities for improving student interaction. Two iterative cycles of online collaborative learning activities were implemented using the Moodle learning management system for two modules of an engineering undergraduate degree programme at a state university in Sri Lanka.

Results indicate that students had demonstrated increased motivation for collaborative activities, and they had not experienced any significant difficulties in accessing materials or instructions. This study emphasizes that the design of learning activities has a greater influence on determining the level of interaction between the learner interface and the learner content. Also, a higher number of interactions on the wiki page improved learner-learner interactions, likely due to clear instructions and reduced complexities compared to previous Moodle activities. Overall, appropriately designed online activities can enhance students' motivation and improve communication, collaboration, cooperation and a sense of community among peers.

The study's constraints included a small sample size of 93 students in two courses, which limits generalization of the results. The study's findings should be carefully considered before being applied to courses with nontechnical content. The second constraint was the number of courses on which the activities were carried out. The activities were designed specifically for two Earth Resources engineering courses, and the developed activities addressed technical course content. The effect of the activities on students' engagement and motivation in various courses with nontechnical content must be investigated, and a complete generalization of the study's results may be called into question. As a result, careful consideration must be given to generalizing the study's findings.

The study found that authentic collaborative learning activities using online technologies increased student participation and helped them discover their engineering design skills. Future research can focus on developing activities for other technical courses and incorporating additional tools into the instructional process. The use of a design-based research approach was recommended for future studies to obtain more comprehensive results than traditional comparative study designs.

The findings of this study suggest mechanisms to improve student interaction through online collaborative activities, particularly for delivering technical content. Such an understanding of learner interactions with course content, peers, teachers and interfaces will assist in the effective transformation of traditional technical content to online delivery mode. This is a unique study of converting in-class delivered engineering module content to online delivery within an equal time frame under restricted facilities and conditions resulting from a pandemic environment.

When implemented effectively and systematically across a curriculum, high impact practices (HIP) have the potential to increase student engagement and result in higher student achievement. The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a four-year military university with a large liberal education core curriculum that provides the foundation for service and officership in the United States Air or Space Forces. Building on the liberal education core, the civil engineering (CE) major’s courses begin with the cornerstone field engineering course, paired with a two-week co-curricular experience for students at an Air or Space Force installation. With its motto “construct first, design later,” the field engineering course is an HIP and quintessential experiential learning course that gives students a practical frame-of-reference for future analysis and design courses. The CE major culminates with another HIP, the capstone design course, which gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, building confidence in their ability to successfully apply those skills to the increasingly complex problems they will face after graduation. This book chapter provides a case study of the CE major at the USAFA, documenting the HIPs across the majors’ program, and highlighting the key elements and benefits of each.

In light of the technological advancements and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on educational systems, universities worldwide had to find new methods to ensure that the educational process continued. In many countries, including Egypt, it has become a priority to direct their institutions toward digital transformation, using electronic means in the educational process. A set of challenges emerged in the educational process, especially in architectural learning, focusing on the design studio; problems intensified and some professors rejected the idea of distance learning, announcing their strong adherence to traditional face-to-face learning. This research aims to find a methodology that informs the choice of digital technology in architectural design courses.

The researchers used both qualitative and quantitative methodology based on inductive, analytical, interview-questionnaire and empirical studies in Egypt.

Results show that many criteria affect the selection of proper applications. Also, using multiple applications in architecture design course helps students understand the material. However, hybrid learning is crucial in teaching architectural design since it cannot be effectively conveyed solely through distance learning.

The results of the research will help improve and develop the distance learning system in architectural education by proposing a methodology for choosing suitable electronic tools for architecture studio courses. These courses enhance the effectiveness of students' understanding and comprehension during the distance learning process to increase motivation for thinning development, imagination and educational skills.

This study examined the relationship between pedagogical self-efficacy and student course evaluations among an international sample of management education faculty. We also investigated gender’s moderating role in this relationship and its impact on the development of pedagogical self-efficacy.

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 professors at an international business school, identifying three subdomains of pedagogical self-efficacy: course design, classroom management, and feedback provision. We designed a 25-question faculty survey to measure pedagogical self-efficacy, administered it to 84 faculty members, and analyzed the data alongside 20,000 student course evaluations.

All three pedagogical self-efficacy domains significantly predicted student course evaluations. The self-efficacy of female faculty had a positive relationship with course evaluations across all subdomains. In contrast, the self-efficacy of male faculty had a negative relationship with course evaluations on the course design subdomain. Student evaluations of courses taught by women were 10% lower than those taught by males and male faculty had significantly higher self-efficacy ratings than their female counterparts.

The results suggest that interventions designed to boost pedagogical self-efficacy can enhance student learning, irrespective of faculty gender. However, given biases in how students perceive female faculty, it is likely that female and male faculty members develop self-efficacy differently.

This study is the first to examine how pedagogical self-efficacy affects course evaluations, focusing on gender as a potential moderator. We also added an international higher education perspective to self-efficacy theories.

The study integrated understanding by design-Internet of Things (UbD-IoT) education with design thinking and computational thinking to plan and design an IoT course. Cross-domain application examples were employed to train students in problem-understanding, deep thinking and logical design for IoT applications.

In this study, the UbD model was integrated with design thinking and computational thinking in the planning and design of an IoT course. The examples of cross-domain applications were used to train students to understand a problem by engaging themselves in deep thinking and helping them think and design logically for an IoT application.

The UbD-IoT learning design greatly decreased students' overall cognitive load. UbD-IoT learning has a significant impact on the performance of computational thinking in problem-solving and problem-understanding. The impact of UbD-IoT learning on logical thinking and program learning cognition in students needs to be verified.

The results of this study have shown that the UbD model is effective in reducing the cognitive load of a learning course and also strengthens T-competencies in the lateral skills of computational thinking, critical problem-solving, logical thinking and creative thinking.

Numerous challenges in education emerge as our technology-driven society rapidly evolves and manifests more exigent requirements from engineering professionals. Higher education, nonetheless, seems to adapt to such requirements at an unequal speed, generating some tensions between industry and higher education institutions. The purpose of this paper is to share the experiences obtained through a process of assessment and redesign of a large enrollment course of programming from which the authors developed a systematic approach for course design/redesign.

A mixed method approach was deployed for data gathering and evaluation, consisting of close-ended surveys, open-ended questionnaires, information matrices and state of the art compilation. Triangulation of the information offered clear data about the necessity of curriculum redesign; therefore, a new programming course curriculum encompassed with relevant necessities in engineering and science was developed.

The authors produced a coherent and dynamic systematic path for assessment and design/redesign of course curriculum, which the authors find extremely helpful to improve negotiation processes inside higher education institutions, as it can be implemented to improve any large enrollment course curricula in engineering and science.

By following the systematic path for assessment and design/redesign of curricula the authors developed, higher education systems could embark more efficiently in the ever-challenging process of adapt their courses and programs to tackle the upcoming demands of our society.

So far, a systematic path for assessment and design/redesign of course curriculum was not published, and it supports the improvement of pedagogical approaches in academic institutions.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on students' learning experiences and perceptions through a master’s-level course. The study specifically focused on student engagement, comfort with GenAI and ethical considerations.

The study used an action research methodology employing qualitative data collection methods, including pre- and post-course surveys, reflective assignments, class discussions and a questionnaire. The AI-Ideas, Connections, Extensions (ICE) Framework, combining the ICE Model and AI paradigms, is used to assess students' cognitive engagement with GenAI.

The study revealed that incorporating GenAI in a master’s-level instructional design course increased students' comfort with GenAI and their understanding of its ethical implications. The AI-ICE Framework demonstrated most students were at the initial engagement level, with growing awareness of GenAI’s limitations and ethical issues. Course reflections highlighted themes of improved teaching strategies, personal growth and the practical challenges of integrating GenAI responsibly.

The small sample size poses challenges to the analytical power of the findings, potentially limiting the breadth and applicability of conclusions. This constraint may affect the generalizability of the results, as the participants may not fully represent the broader population of interest. The researchers are mindful of these limitations and suggest caution in interpreting the findings, acknowledging that they may offer more exploratory insights than definitive conclusions. Future research endeavors should aim to recruit a larger cohort to validate and expand upon the initial observations, ensuring a more robust understanding.

The study is original in its integration of GenAI into a master's-level instructional design course, assessing both the practical and ethical implications of its use in education. By utilizing the AI-ICE Framework to evaluate students' cognitive engagement and employing action research methodology, the study provides insights into how GenAI influences learning experiences and perceptions. This approach bridges the gap between theoretical understanding and the real-world application of GenAI, offering actionable strategies for its responsible use in educational settings.