Hossein Hakimzadeh

Successful implementation of an active learning laboratory in computer science

There is ample evidence of positive impact of active learning on student learning, attitudes, critical thinking, and retention. The traditional lecture-style classrooms are not suitable for group interaction or activities. Having an appropriate classroom with proper technology to support active learning is essential. In order to foster easier group interaction and collaborative learning, the authors have designed and constructed a new active-learning classroom inspired by the SCALE-UP classroom design. The classroom is specifically designed for group activities. Students sit around a collaborative station (each station can have up to five members). Each station is equipped with a large display monitor attached to a computer. The classroom walls are used as whiteboards for group activities. The authors have developed various timed group activities specifically for this course to enhance student learning. In this presentation, we will discuss how the use of proper technology, an active learning classroom, along with proper pedagogical approach can enhance learning, foster group activities, promote peer learning, and improve retention in gateway science courses.

IU-EVAL: an electronic course evaluation system

Course evaluations are an important instrument for assessing teaching effectiveness and maintaining the quality of our academic programs. At Indiana University South Bend students are given the opportunity to evaluate their courses at the end of each semester. The results are collected and analyzed by the corresponding academic units. The university dedicates a significant amount of monetary and human resources to conduct effective and confidential end-of-semester evaluations. In order to improve the speed, accuracy, anonymity, and privacy of course evaluations the authors have developed a web-based course evaluation system called IU-EVAL. To date, the system has been tested by approximately 23,500 students. In this paper we explore the motivations behind the development of IU-EVAL and discuss the lessons learned during the deployment and administration of the system. We will also share the results of our user survey.

iScheduler: intelligent scheduling system for academic institutions

Resource management and intelligent scheduling is a complex problem for university administrators and especially for smaller academic units. These units and institutions often are unable to accurately predict future scheduling needs, because they mainly rely on historical schedule and institutional memory as opposed to actionable data. This leads to a variety of issues. For example, when courses have to be cancelled at the last minute due to low enrollment the cascading effects impact student progress towards graduation, retention, faculty schedule, etc. In this poster, we present iScheduler, a web-based tool, to allow unit administrators to create data-informed course schedules, reducing the need for unplanned, last minute cancellation of courses. iScheduler was initiated as a class project and partially implemented as part of a graduate student project.