Odesma Dalrymple

A mastery-based learning approach for undergraduate engineering programs

We report the results of an action research study in which a modified mastery-based learning approach was implemented in three undergraduate engineering courses: engineering statistics, LabVIEW programming, and environmental engineering. In this paper, we describe both the action research and the modified mastery-based learning approach that was implemented. Findings from the analysis of data on student performance, and student and faculty perceptions of the approach are presented. In addition, we discuss our recommendations for modifications to the approach that could be used in future implementations.

Instructional Module Development System (IMODS)

To ensure that future generations of engineering, science, and other technological practitioners are equipped with the required knowledge and skills to continue to innovate solutions to solve societal challenges, effective courses or instructional modules that incorporate best pedagogical and assessment practices must be designed and delivered. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) educators typically come from STEM backgrounds and have little or no formal STEM education training. Their approaches to learning, instruction, and assessment mimic the experiences they were exposed to as students and are not necessarily informed by scholarship in the area of how people learn. The road to effective STEM instruction starts with a well-conceived and constructed plan or curriculum that includes the tight alignment of content, pedagogical approaches and assessments, around the learning objectives, and draws upon best-practices in each of these areas. An information technology (IT) tool that can guide STEM educators through the complex task of course design development, ensure tight alignment between various components of an instructional module, and provide relevant information about research-based pedagogical and assessment strategies will be of great value. This demonstration presents a Web-based software tool called the Instructional Module Development System (IMODS) that supports these ventures and broadens the impact and reach of professional development in the scholarship of teaching and learning, particularly to STEM faculty.

IMOD-Ont: Towards an Ontology for Instructional Module Design

An information technology (IT) tool that can guide STEM educators through the complex task of course design development, ensure tight alignment between various components of an instructional module, and provide relevant information about research-based pedagogical and assessment strategies will be of great value. A Semantic Web-based software tool called Instructional Module Development (IMOD) System, currently under development, is built upon a framework for outcome-based course design. It uses Semantic Web technologies to provide intelligent interactions with the users, dictate a course design process in conformance with the underlying framework, checks for omissions and inconsistencies in the design, provides feedback to the user on their course design, and recommends relevant assessment and pedagogical approaches along with help on how they are implemented. In this paper, we present an ontology called IMOD-Ont that aims at describing and formalizing entities in the domain of instructional design and is used by the IMOD system. IMOD-Ont ontology complements existing metadata schemas and linked data approaches in the field of technology-enhanced learning that focus on describing learning resources and educational content that is available on the Web. The goal is to make the semantic data generated from course designs created through the IMODS tool available as linked education data on the web.

Building faculty expertise in outcome-based education curriculum design

An information technology (IT) tool that can guide STEM educators through the complex task of course design development, ensure tight alignment between various components of an instructional module, and provide relevant information about research-based pedagogical and assessment strategies will be of great value. A team of researchers is engaged in a User-Centered Design (UCD) approach to develop the Instructional Module Development System (IMODS), i.e., a software program that facilitates course design. In this paper the authors present the high-level design of the IMODS and demonstrate its use in the development of the curriculum for an introductory software engineering course.

Outcome-Based Education Model for Computer Science Education

The paper explores the new technology commercialization model being followed at The University of Akron (UA).UA has implemented the National Science Foundation (NSF)Innovation ICorpsTMmodel since 2013. This paper describes how the NSF I-Corps model has changed the innovation culture at UA and allowed the academic faculty to explore the business potential of their intellectual property.Differences in implementation across several I-Corps Sites are explored. The lessons from UAs experience show that the I-Corps Sites program has been a resounding success and helped faculty and students to become more entrepreneurial in exploring the commercial value and demand drivers of technologies invented at UA.Students are more attracted towards and enthusiastic about modern teaching techniques. This paper provides a new concept in the design of a coursework thus enabling the teachers to enhance the teaching and learning process. The course work, laboratory and course projects are linked through proper planning. It is observed that there is an increase in the degree of involvement of the students in the course and they move from doing demonstrations to structured enquiry and also open ended enquiry. This new framework can also address some of the ABET criteria effectively. Results show positive response from the students towards this new technique.The real time experience of Signals and Systems has been embedded in the form of mathematical expressions. The learners fi nd diffi culty in applying these mathematical concepts in a real time scenario. This paper presents the details of effective learning technique attempted for the Signals and Systems course at the under graduate engineering program using mind mapping. Mind mapping as a technique tests the students ability for interactive learning to improve retention and reduce revision time. This paper discusses about the effects of digital/ paper-based mind mapping over conventional teaching method to shift an teaching centric to learning centric. This learning not only focuses on retention of concepts but also caters to the generation of ideas required for solving an engineering problem, which in turn improves the writing skills of the students. Findings showed that there was a signifi cant positive difference in students academic achievement and attitude towards learning the subject through the paper/digital based mind mapping.

Inspiring inventive genius in middle and high school students with chain-reaction STEAM Machines™

In this hands-on pre-conference workshop, participants will learn about the STEAM Machines™ program, which teaches middle and high school students the engineering design process in the context of designing and building Rube Goldberg®-style chain reaction machines.

Instructional Module Development (IMODTM) system: Building faculty expertise in outcome-based course design

A well-designed and constructed course plan or curriculum is an integral part of the foundation of effective STEM instruction. This paper presents a framework for outcome-based course design process and its translation into a semantic web-based tool; i.e., the IMOD™ system. This system guides STEM educators through the complex task of curriculum design, ensures tight alignment between various components of a course (i.e., learning objectives, content, assessments, and pedagogy), and provides relevant information about research-based pedagogical and assessment strategies. The theoretical framework is presented, along with descriptions and screenshots of the implementation of key features.

IMoD: Semantic web-based instructional module development system

To ensure that future generations of engineering, science, and other technological practitioners are equipped with the required knowledge and skills to continue to innovate solutions to solve societal challenges, effective courses or instructional modules that incorporate best pedagogical and assessment practices must be designed and delivered. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) educators typically come from STEM backgrounds and have little or no formal STEM education training. An information technology (IT) tool that can guide STEM educators through the complex task of course design and development, ensure tight alignment between various components of an instructional module, and provide relevant information about research-based pedagogical and assessment strategies will be of great value. This paper presents a framework and prototype implementation of a semantic web-based software system called the Instructional Module Development (IMoD) system that guides instructors, step-by-step, through an outcome-based education process as they define learning objectives, select content to be covered, and define the learning environment and context for their course(s). The IMoD software system uses Semantic Web technologies to provide intelligent interactions with users; dictate a course design process in conformance with the underlying framework and provides feedback to the user on their course design.